Learning to Pray the Psalms Guide

Emotional Encounters with God as Essential Spirituality

Humans need to belong. We need to matter to someone, somewhere. We need connection like we need oxygen. We need relationship.

All relationships require dynamic two-way communication. They require two people showing up honestly, speaking, and listening. We learn to tell the truth in relationships, and trust is built, which can lead to fellowship or friendship.

But human development requires more than mere cognitive facts. Relationships require emotional encounters. The Psalms are emotional encounters. David prays fully aware of his life and the feelings he has about his life. The psalmists is, as the kids say, “saying the quiet parts out loud.”

This guide to praying the psalms will walk you through how to have these deep emotional encounters with God. You will learn how to:

Use the Psalms as Universal Human Language to Connect With God In Prayer.
Track the process of Orientation, Disorientation, and Reorientation in the Psalms.
Write & Pray Your Own Psalm.

Watch

Play Video

Watch the Eden Project team engage in an Eden Triad. This is not a case study, but three spiritual friends showing up in real time. Watch to gain awareness in how to check-in emotionally and how to receive others.

Listen

Eden Projects reformed podcast provides foundational awareness around how to take our eight core emotions to God. This podcast is a great way to become more aware of your own interior life and to learn to connect with God and others. Specifically tune into these episodes to learn more:

An honest anthropology of what we experience as
humans in a fallen world
How to locate yourself emotionally in your body
What happens when we move toward relationship
from each emotion
The dangers of isolating when we experience each
emotion
What happens when we impair or avoid processing each emotion

Engage

Learning to Pray the Psalms Guide

Many of us are bored in prayer. Our lives aren’t boring, but our prayers are. Our lives are filled

with suspense, difficulties, and unanswered questions. We experience intense desires and

desperations. We wish things were different. We hope for better. Our prayers are boring because we aren’t praying the real stuff of our lives. We often don’t show up and deal honestly with God. King David, “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), shows us a better way. David can teach us how to be more human, if we’re willing.

Download a free copy of the Learing to Pray the Psalms Guide and begin connecting deeply to the God who loves you and wants to hear you speak your heart to him.