Psalms: How do they help us grow emotionally and in our relationship with God?

The Psalms are beautiful, full of passion and skillfully written. But they are more than that. They are a window into the soul of those who wrote them, beautiful people of God. As such, they offer us valuable insight into who we aught to become as followers of God.

I can’t put my finger on why, but it seems that Christians aren’t supposed to feel certain emotions. I think it comes from Puritanism, but I am not sure. This stigma that is placed on certain emotions is really unhealthy, because we cannot control our initial emotional reactions. We can control how we react to those emotions, whether we encourage them or not. If then, we are trained to feel shame for having certain initial emotional reactions despite the fact that we have little or no control over them, we are forced either into hopelessness, or into squelching or ignoring emotional responses. Neither of these options are healthy.

Psalms provides us with a way out of that trap. The psalmists felt and were honest about feeling rage, hatred, fear, and other emotions that we have stigmatized. They show us how to feel those emotions without being destroyed by them. It is true that those emotions are dangerous, and trying to be honest about them without indulging them is like walking through a minefield. The psalms provide us with a map. They show us how to respond, and how to find God in our rage, our despair, our hatred, our fear.

The psalms also show how we are supposed to interact with God. It is so weird to think of interacting with the Almighty God as our father, to actually talk with God. How are we supposed to do that? Isn’t it disrespectful, what if we don’t say things right, won’t he smite us or something? It’s frightening, because the stakes are so high. The Psalms show us that it is okay to be honest with God, and that it is the only way to find ourselves. They give us permission to be honest.