Scripture Passages: Psalm 51 & Psalm 52:8-9
Instead of discussion questions this week, here is a spiritual activity for praying through our desires for change like a psalmist. If you are meeting with a small group, take some time to decide how you want to use this guide. Do you want to take an example and talk through it as a group? Do you want to go through the guide on your own and then meet as a group to share your results? Do you want to meet as a group to silently work through the guide and then have a time of sharing afterwards? How much do you feel comfortable sharing with your group?
A guide for praying for change like a psalmist: Instructions
1. Identify an area of change that has tempted you to make a New Year’s resolution or similar gesture in the last few years.
2. Work through each task of the guide (discern, reflect, lament, confess, repent, seek, trust, connect). After taking some time praying and thinking through each task, write a sentence or two summarizing your thoughts for that part.
3. Read through what you have written and sit with it for a while. If you were to pray these words to God, is there anything you would add or change?
4. If you want, you can craft your words poetically. Some of us love rhythm and rhyme, chiasms and word play. Some of us may want to set these words to music and add in a chorus. And some of us may want to just keep it as prose.
5. What you have at the end of this exercise is your own personal psalm of lament. But not lament as just sadness. Lament as a yearning for transformation. You can discard what you have for now and just use this as a model for prayer, or you can keep it and pray through it periodically as you work towards change, God helping you.
The tasks of your psalm/prayer:
Discern: Discern what is broken.
Reflect: Reflect on the nature of brokenness and sin in our life and in the world.
Lament: Lament this brokenness.
Confess: Take accountability for your part in this brokenness.
Repent: Move towards a willingness to change
Seek: Pray to God for help with this change.
Trust: Trust in God’s loving willingness to help and in his ability to help.
Connect: Pray that God will connect your personal healing with the healing of your community.