New Tool for Your Bag: Psalm Scrawling
JUSTIN CAMP
5 min read ⭑
My heart is anxious. There’s a tightness in my core. I find myself retreating into my mind today, getting quieter than usual. I’m not sure why. Outwardly, nothing’s really wrong. I could be doing better with diet and exercise, for sure. I could also do with more discipline around spiritual practices and connecting with God. But otherwise, things are mostly okay in my world right now.
Maybe it’s due to circumstances beyond my immediate vicinity. These certainly are interesting times; there’s just so much happening in our world right now. And maybe there’s only so much mayhem and madness one person’s heart can or should absorb — even from a distance.
Brent Gorwin; Unsplash
Our news aggregation apps and the 24-hour news cycle sell suffering by the ton. I’m not a cable news guy, but I scroll local, national and international news more than is probably healthy, which I’ve mentioned before. And it’s hard to ignore the fact that behind each of these stories are real people.
I mean, today we hear about …
someone’s son who overdosed on fentanyl.
someone’s daughter who’s cutting herself due to overwhelming depression.
someone’s mother who was battered by her husband.
someone’s grandmother who was defrauded out of her life savings.
someone’s dad who was killed in the line of duty.
someone’s niece who has become addicted to meth.
someone’s uncle who was paralyzed by a drunk driver.
someone’s aunt who was diagnosed with cancer.
someone’s grandfather who was lost to dementia.
someone’s friend who was caught cheating on his wife of many years.
someone’s goddaughter who was molested by a trusted doctor.
someone’s nephew whose life is cut short when shot by police.
someone’s cousin who was killed in a training exercise a far-off country.
someone’s childhood idol who was diagnosed with severe brain trauma.
someone’s pastor who sexually harassed a young person at work.
someone’s boss who was fired and prosecuted for corporate fraud.
someone’s mentor who tried to cover up an appalling abuse of power.
And tomorrow will just bring more of the same.
Of course, this racking pain isn’t new. Our world’s been in continual crisis since we humans were expelled from the Garden. Since then, our history has been dirty and bloody, full of depravity and deprivation, crime and corruption, exploitation and enslavement, riots and revolts, pestilence and plague, wars and rumors of war.
So, the only real question now is how we’ll respond to it all.
Looking to Scripture for wisdom about how to respond, King David stands out. He experienced (and caused) more than his fair share of anxiety — and what he chose to do in the face of it is inspiring.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth (Ps. 121:1-2, ESV).
David was a human being, just like us. But when things got tough, he knew where to look. And that made him gritty and hardy and steadfast in his faith.
So, let’s do it. Let’s do what David did. Let’s grapple with the trouble in our world and hearts by looking to God in petition and worship and aligning our hearts with his. Let’s get literal and practical; let’s try and scrawl out our own psalm.
Adam Young, a fellow with The Allender Center and the host of “The Place We Find Ourselves” podcast, offers an exercise entitled “How To Write Your Own Psalm.” He explains that there are generally “four elements to many Psalms: intimate address, complaint, petition and words of reorientation.”
“Writing mine allowed me to connect with God — and to notice and give voice to my fears, hopes and gratitude. It released the anxiousness, eased the tightness and made me excited for the day.”
So, let’s take them in order and write from our hearts.
Intimate Address
“Begin,” encourages Young, “by naming God in a particularly intimate way.”
Abba Father, creator of atoms and the Andromeda Galaxy,
you know everything, miss nothing,
and love outrageously every person you’ve made.
Complaint
“Tell God just how troubled your life really is,” write Young, “as you name with specificity what the difficulty is this particular day.” Okay, here goes …
There’s so much out there: a looming election,
both sides claiming it’s the most important of our lifetimes;
an economy with confusing indicators and many falling behind;
two beastly regional wars, each with the potential
to spiral beyond of their respective regions and into greater atrocity;
and our leaders, religious and nonreligious,
put their weakness and depravity on constant display.We live among crooks and abusers, cowards and authoritarians
— but none of us is innocent either. We, too, contribute to this evil age.
We are lovers of self and pleasure and money.
We are proud, arrogant, selfish, abusive, ungrateful, heartless,
slanderous, treacherous, and lacking in self-control.I don’t know how things are going to get better; how I am.
I don’t know what to do. I’m anxious and overwhelmed
— to the point of gloom and resignation.
Petition
“Pour out your desire by making an unedited request,” writes Young.
Abba Father, we lift up our eyes to you; We need your help.
Kindle a fire in our hearts; fan our passion to follow Jesus.
Clear the fog from our eyes that we may know truth from falsehood.
Cloth us in your love and favor that we may exude faith and hope.
Words of Reorientation
“Reorient yourself to what is promised,” writes Young.
Nothing is too horrible or dangerous for your Son, Jesus
— the One you sent to rescue us.
He can handle the worst of the worst; he always could.
And the darkness never stood a chance.He flashed into hell itself and defeated the dark forces on their own ground.
He brought resurrection power. He brought creation power
— the very power that made everything everywhere.
He faced down sin and death and vanquished them both.He rescued us then, and he rescues us now.
He saves us from each other, from ourselves, and from this dark world.
He brings us “out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
And in his light, I know, everything's going to be okay.
The Psalms are much more than poetry. Many of them bear the title, Maskil, or teaching psalm. They are thus intended to instruct the mind as well as to encourage the heart. They are designed not only to reflect a mood, but to show us also how to handle that mood; how to escape from depression or how to balance exaltation with wisdom. —Ray Stedman
With Adam Young’s simple framework for writing our own psalms, we now have a valuable new tool for our faith-life tool bags. Writing mine allowed me to connect with God — and to notice and give voice to my fears, hopes and gratitude. It released the anxiousness, eased the tightness and made me excited for the day.
Will you join me in writing your own psalm?
Justin Camp is the editor-in-chief of Rapt Interviews. He also created the WiRE for Men devotional and wrote the WiRE Series for Men. His writing has also been featured and seen on Charisma, Moody Radio, Focus on the Family, GOD TV, The Christian Post, Crosswalk, Belief.net, LifeWay Men and other media outlets.
