# 56 - Praying the Psalms

Psalm Prayer is always an answer prayer, a response if you will, to God in our face, to God's revelation. The Psalms present a true picture of ourselves either hedging on our behavior and feelings or pleading to have them satisfied. The Psalms also present a true picture of God – as He is, not as we wish he was. The truth is, “when left to ourselves, we will pray to some easy god who speaks what we like hearing, or to that part of God we manage to understand and enjoy.” But Psalm Prayer is listening to the God who speaks hard words to us in the verses of the Psalms, and then responding prayerfully to everything He reveals to us. The Psalms train us in that conversation.