Emotional & Spiritual Healing from the Psalms
Dr. Billy Stevens
December 11, 2008
Is there healing in the Psalms? Absolutely! The psalms are men crying out to God in ecstatic praise or weeping before God with great pain. The Psalms are basically King David’s prayer journal. Most of them are by him. There are prayers and praises of rejoicing and lament. Some of the Psalms will shock you at how blatantly honest the psalmist is with God. At times he is venting all of his anger, frustration, fears and pain to God.
But we always see the hand of God, God’s greatness, and His love on behalf for his people. When you read the psalms you will see God healing the heart of the psalmist, strengthening his faith, answering his prayers, and God getting all the glory. Notice what the writer (psalmist) of the psalms does in many of these:
Dumping on God
He carried all of his problems to God and rehearsed it all before God, telling God how bad his situation was. Every act of injustice is described for God. He comes absolutely clean. Sometimes even with anger toward God wondering why He allowed some things to happen. There is total honesty with God – nothing is withheld. God wouldn’t have it any other way. These Psalms are examples for us to follow. God knows every thought that comes across our mind and knows those that have become part of our thinking – the good, the bad, and the ugly. He is not surprised. He wants us to be honest with him.
So the psalmist comes clean with God about all of his feelings, and when most of us would quit with our pity-party and self-torture of reliving the pain, he takes this conversation with God to another level. Listen to these Psalms and you will hear all of the pain but then in the next breath you will notice a change. His focus begins to change from his problems to the Solution, God Almighty.
A Change of Focus
The psalmist’s focus moves from his problem to the Solution, God Almighty. His eyes glance upward, he begins to stare at Lord, and then he reveals in the greatness of the Lord God Almighty. At times he recounts the great acts of God and the great things God has done for His people. Other times he talks about the great character of God. Then he gets specific and recounts what great things God has done in his life.
All the time the psalmist is doing this, you hear something happening in his heart, you can hear it in his voice. The words of the page come to life and you hear him getting stronger, you hear him rising up from defeat, you hear him lifting up his head because of the Great God he serves. Hope is rising in his heart. Faith is growing. He is being filled with the love of God and his love for God is growing immeasurably. And then…
A Cry is Heard
And then something new happens in the Psalm. A cry is heard. A prayer that is from the deepest part of the Psalmist’s heart. Unhindered completely. Unbridled. Uninhibited. Without any reservations. A cry that has no concern for anyone that might hear him for blocks away. A cry that is pure and evidently powerful.
The psalmist cries out to God in utter dependence and desperation of God. The cries of sorrow and mourning have given way to the cry of dependence, deliverance, and desperation for God to move just as He has done so many times before. It is the sound of faith. The cry of faith in the all powerful, all knowing, and all present God Almighty. Utter and absolute faith and dependence upon Jesus – a total denial of self, self’s abilities, and even absolute denial of personal scheming. An pure cry of faith, relinquishing all of self and self-will to God.
This is a different kind of cry. The single cry that rings the bells of Heaven. The cry that arrests the heart of God. The cry that says, God you must help, for without You, all is lost. The cry of one of God’s children that causes our Heavenly Father to come running to intervene for His beloved child. That is the kind of cry that moves the heart of God.
The Peace and Presence of God
Then God rises and comes to His child to intervene in power. The first place where God moves is in the heart of His child. The Prince of Peace brings inner peace to the child of God. The peace of God begins ruling in the psalmist heart and you can tell by his tone, something has happened deep within him.
The peace of God is an inner knowledge knowing that God is up to something and you need to wait for Him to accomplish all that He is doing, no matter how long it takes.
“My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God.”
Psalm 62:5-7 (NKJV)
The blessed place of being in the center of God’s will. The blessed place of knowing the peace of God – those without Jesus cannot understand it and don’t have it until they trust Jesus as Savior and Lord of their lives. Everything may be swirling around the psalmist hundreds of miles per hour like that of a hurricane, but he is in the eye of the storm. The psalmist is with Jesus and has gotten His attention, and Jesus is stepping up to speak peace to the storm. Some of the greatest storms that Jesus stills are those inside our minds and hearts. And if that was the only storm that Jesus stills, then that is enough. But many times the psalmist is not only delivered from the internal storm but also the actual storm on the outside.
Then God Moves!
Sometimes the psalms describes how God came to help the psalmist. Other times it just says what God did. But nonetheless, Sovereign God moves in power on behalf of His child. There is something about the desperate cry of a broken child of God that moves the heart of God to great action that brings Him great glory.
Many of these Psalms are not lament or mourning to God about the bad things going on in the psalmist’s life, but praises. Yes, they are actually the psalmist’s prayer and praise journal and his praise to God for what God has done for him. All because he cried out to God!
Over and over again you see the psalmist saying, “Then You O’ God…” and he describes what God did. God becomes the Hero of the song. The Hero rescues you from and/or through the pain, injustice, and suffering. Jesus intervenes in your life and where He is life enters, things change, and God’s power is revealed. As Jesus said, “the things that are impossible with men are possible with God.” and this statement becomes a reality in your life not just words on a page. You now know the power and might of the Lord God Almighty.
The psalmist has been on this amazing journey with God. Now he is changed. He is not the same person he was before. He now knows God in a much more real and experiential way. He has experienced God’s presence, power, and peace in the middle of hell on earth.
How Can You Get in on the Action?
First, get in the Psalms. Saturate your life with them. Begin reading them through one by one. Get a blank notebook, it doesn’t have to be fancy, a dollar store notebook is fine. Don’t wait for things to be perfect to begin this journey.
Read each one with a purpose. Look for (a) the psalmist’s problems, (b) how he describes the Greatness of God and the great things God has done, (c.) how he waited upon God, and (d) his cry to God for Him to intervene.
Do Like the Psalmist.
(1) Tell God everything – your pain, broken expectation, betrayal, hurt, anger, frustration. He knows it all anyway. He knows you and loves you anyway. He is our loving Heavenly Father who gave His only Son Jesus to die for the world’s sins. You are the object of His love. Spend time with Him telling God everything. (some of the many examples of this are found in Psalm 38, 55, 68, 69 and many more). Get alone with God. Get a in a quiet place, and a time where you can tell God everything without worrying about who hears you. Pour your heart out to God.
(2) Marvel at God’s Greatness. Make a list of those great things God has done in your life. Recount your journey with God and all the times you have called out to Him and what He did for you. Recount His faithfulness to you.
(3) Cry out to God for His Intervention in your situation. Read the psalms and see how the psalmist cried out to God. Look at him and listen to his cry.
Psalm 4:1 “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.”
Psalm 51:17 (NKJV) “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.”
Psalm 34:18 (NKJV) “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
(4) Wait on Lord, like in Psalms 62. Waiting is not being a spiritual couch potato. To wait upon the Lord is to have an expectant faith in Jesus to move on your behalf at some point in the future. But you are determined to hold on to Him no matter how long it takes or what happens along the way. Your focus is on Jesus, not the situation or even new wrinkles in the situation. You are waiting on Him to handle it completely.
God may deliver you from your problems and change the situation completely, or He may choose to deliver you through your problems by being with you every step along the way. You need to be ready and willing to accept what His will is and how He wants to handle the situation and how He wants you to handle yourself.
Remember God has a purpose in every trial. He wants us to become more like Jesus. God wants to change our character. He is more concerned with our character and how we handle the problems of this life, than He is with our comfortability.
