Praying the Psalms When You Don't Have Words

At Contemplation Lab, our weekly contemplative prayer group, we recently spent an evening praying Psalm 13 together. We wanted to make the practice available to everyone, so we've turned it into a guide you can use on your own with any psalm. It's one of the oldest forms of Christian meditation, and you don't need any experience to try it. This guide will show you how to feel the psalm from the inside, let it bring a real person or situation to mind, and then pray it on their behalf.

"The Psalms give us words when we don't have our own."

What does it mean to pray the Psalms?

Praying the Psalms means taking the prayers and songs of the Bible's own prayer book and using them as your words to God. Instead of studying a psalm for what it means, you let it give voice to what you feel, or to what someone you love is going through.

The Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who wrote a short book called Praying the Psalms, said we can't really understand the Psalms until we have felt in our own hearts what they express. The Psalms capture our own life: our waiting, our fear, our trust, our wonder.

But Merton also knew the Psalms are never only ours alone. They are the prayer of the whole church, the Body of Christ. The Psalms were also Jesus' own prayer book. On the cross he prayed a psalm of abandonment: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22). When we feel what the psalmist feels, we discover we're not alone in it. Someone else is living this psalm right now.

Start with feeling, not meaning

Most of us approach Scripture by asking, "What does this mean?" The Psalms being poetry beg a slightly different question: "What does this make me feel?" 

Psalm 13 is a good place to begin. In just six verses, its feelings move from abandonment and weariness to fear, and then to trust and joy. Psalm 13 begins with "How long?" and ends with "I have trusted." Yet nothing in the psalmist's situation changes. No enemy is defeated. Only the heart moves. The psalmist doesn't pretend he isn't hurting or explain the pain away. He simply brings it to God.

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example: Psalm 13

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How to pray any psalm for someone else

This works with any psalm, especially one full of strong feeling. Notes in italics show how each step looks with Psalm 13.

1. Become still

Feel your feet on the floor and notice your breath without changing it. Then spend a few minutes in centering prayer: choose a sacred word like "Abba," "Peace" or "Come," and gently return to it whenever your mind wanders.

2. Read slowly and name the feelings

Read the psalm aloud, very slowly, pausing at each question mark. Don't ask what it means. Ask what it stirs up. Notice the word, phrase or image that stays with you, then name the emotions you hear. Choose the one that's strongest for you today.

In Psalm 13, the psalmist asks "How long?" four times. He doesn't ask why. He asks how long: this is someone who has already waited and is still waiting.

3. Feel it from the inside

Read the psalm again and let your chosen feeling come close. When have you felt this way? Don't hunt for a memory; let one rise. Stay with the hard verses and don't rush ahead to the hopeful ones. Put the psalm's cry into a sentence of your own, and make it honest rather than spiritual.

With Psalm 13, stay in verses 1–4 and finish this sentence: "God, how long until…?"

One feeling often sits on top of another: anger on top of hurt, anxiety on top of fear, numbness on top of grief. Ask God what's underneath, and what you're really longing for.

4. Let A person or situation come to mind

You know this feeling yourself. Who else is living it right now? This could be a friend waiting on test results, someone grieving, people in the news whose suffering has gone on so long the world has stopped watching. You get the idea. Don't choose with your head. Let one face or situation come forward, then look at them through the psalm. What is their version of this cry? What are they longing for?

5. Adapt the psalm

Now rewrite the psalm as a prayer for your person or situation, keeping its own words as much as you can. It doesn't need to be impressive, just true.

1.     Change "me" and "I" to their name, or to "her," "him" or "them."

2.     Name the enemy in verse 4: things like illness, fear, war, grief, etc.

Here's part of Psalm 13 written for children living through war:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget your children living in war-torn places forever? How long will you hide your face from them? […] But help them trust in your steadfast love; let their hearts once again rejoice in your salvation.

6. Pray it for them

Read your prayer silently and slowly, as if you're standing beside them before God. Then read it a second time. You aren't praying about them. You're lending them your voice.

Pray the Psalms with us

Contemplation Lab is a weekly contemplative prayer and meditation group at Oak Hill United Methodist Church in Southwest Austin. We meet Mondays, 6–7:15 p.m., in the Parlor of the Adult Education Building. There's no registration, and newcomers are always welcome! Please note that one the last Monday of each month, we walk the labyrinth together.

Want to explore more ways to pray with Scripture? Browse our Lectio Divina & Sacred Reading posts, or start with our guide to 7 contemplative prayer practices.

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