I looked up to You
When in my beginning.
I saw Your strength,
Your care, Your undying love,
And I knew only You
Could make up for what
I alone could not do.
You are my Shepherd,
You are my King,
You are my Holy Grail,
You are my everything.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
The Book
of Psalms is the longest book in the Bible. It features 150 ancient Hebrew
poems, songs, and prayers. It covers deep human emotions from sorrow to joyful
worship across five distinct sections.
The Psalms
are split into five separate books:
1.
Book
One (Psalms 1-41):
Mostly poems by David focusing on personal trials, trust and lament.
2.
Book
Two (Psalms
42-72): Focuses on deliverance, longing for God, and kingship.
3.
Book
Three (Psalms
73-89): Grapples with crisis, national pain, and the Babylonian exile.
4.
Book
Four (Psalms
90-106): Shifts focus to God’s eternal reign and comfort during hard times.
5.
Book
Five (Psalms
107-150): Celebrates restoration, features the Songs of Ascent, and ends in
massive praise.
BOOK ONE: There was not a king who loved the
God of Israel more than King David. When he conquered Jerusalem he brought the
ark of the covenant into the city ‘with gladness’ and led a procession of
Israelites playing instruments, shouting, singing and dancing ‘before the Lord
with all his might’ in praise of the God he worshipped (2 Samuel 6:12-15). No
king of Israel was more free from idolatrous inclinations or practices than
David. Because of this, he became the standard of excellence that all
subsequent kings came to be measured by.
David’s
valour and his accomplishments as a king were outstanding. His reign is known in the annals of
history as ‘the golden age of Israel’. His love for the God of
Israel can leave you breathless through the psalms he wrote about Him.
King David
is traditionally celebrated as the ancient world’s premier lyricist and the
“sweet psalmist of Israel”. He started as a young shepherd in Bethlehem, using
quiet hours outdoors to play stringed instruments and craft early melodies. His
skill on the harp or lyre earned him a spot playing for King Saul to soothe the
king’s troubled moods. That was the beginning of his stint as the second king
of Israel.
Biblical
accounts note that he designed and built new musical instruments for worship
settings. As king, he organized the musical worship of Israel. He appointed
Levites to be musicians and singers in the service of the tabernacle (1
Chronicles 15:16). His talents included composition and performance of music.
He is credited with inventing musical instruments for four thousand porters who
praised the Lord with them (1 Chronicles 23:5).
I was going
to list David’s many accolades praising the God of Israel but just one tells everything
about his love for Him and his trust in His salvation:
“The Lord
is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my
cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” (Psalm 23)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
You feed my
soul as I meet You
At the
sacramental table.
The bread of
life, the living water,
Give me strength to endure
and tell me I am able.
With parched
lips I drink
So I will not
thirst like before,
With eagerness
I eat
Your body
given forever more.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
I love words. I love them because they are an expression of one’s soul. Among all the words in the scriptures, Psalms is the book that offers such words; words of beauty, praise, comfort, and faith…..to give peace for turbulence and a salve to the troubled heart. They also do something greater….they praise God. The most touching way Psalms were ever used for such a purpose was by Christ himself at the most soul crushing time of His life.
Imagine the Saviour travelling with His disciples to Jerusalem for the last time for the Passover and explaining to them His forthcoming death and they…..”understood none of these things” (Luke 18:31-34). He knew that road to Jerusalem well, He had travelled it many times before but that day when He travelled it, it would have been the loneliest and most excruciating of all. He was alone in what He was about to face…and nobody understood.
How gracious and kind He was to His disciples for their lack of understanding even under strain of profound emotion. The Sacrificial Lamb of God would for His last meal partake of the pascal lamb to commemorate His own death at the Last Supper. Imagine the irony of this also that escaped His disciples.
So oblivious were they of the Saviour’s anguish and advancing stress of the Atonement and so pre-occupied with selfish ambition that they fell into “muttering dispute among themselves over the matter of individual precedence, possibly as to the order in which they should take their places at table, over which triviality scribes and Pharisees as well as the Gentiles often quarrelled” (James E Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p 595) Luke 14:7-11; 22:24-30).
With sorrowful earnestness yet loving kindness, Jesus proceeded to teach them that the greatest among them is he that serves and so He washed their feet, even the feet of him who would betray him (John 13:1-20). The burden of this betrayal played on the Saviour’s heart so much that He quoted Psalms in fulfilment of this act: “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.” (Psalm 41:9)
Yet as heavy hearted as He was at the end of the Last Supper, Jesus sang. Psalms were sung anciently at the Passover, in particular 116, 117 and 118. It goes without saying that the Saviour would have sung these particular Psalms with His disciples. Psalm 118 is a Messianic Psalm with a powerful theme of “His mercy endureth forever” which is repeated five times (vs 1, 2, 3, 4, 29). But that is not all. Upon closer reading, this Psalm testifies of the Saviour’s sacrifice. In verse 16 we read: ‘The right hand of the Lord is exalted.”
Imagine Jesus rising to His feet and singing this about himself and His ultimate sacrifice:
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O lord I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psalms 118:24-29)
The latter part of verse 27 testifies of the Saviour’s Atonement further. The ‘horns of the altar’ in Moses’ tabernacle symbolised Jehovah’s might and power to save. When the officiating priest put sacrificial blood on the horns, it signified that forgiveness can only come through Him and His power.
Often a person accused of wrongdoing would flee to the tabernacle and hold onto the horns claiming asylum until he was tried and found guilty. The horns powerfully symbolised salvation. ‘Binding the sacrifice with cords’ can only mean the Saviour’s sacrifice was bound to the horns of the altar and did indeed symbolise that salvation comes only through Him. Likewise, the sacrificial lamb would have been bound with cords as it was being sacrificed upon the altar. Imagine the Saviour singing this Psalm about himself prior to going to His death as the sacrificial lamb of God. It makes you want to weep…..
Matthew records the end of the Last Supper as such: “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:30). I wonder if the words of these Psalms rang in the Saviour’s mind as He proceeded to His death.
Those of us who have in the depths of our
souls gratitude for His merciful sacrifice will shout from the rooftops this
praise of His name: “O PRAISE THE LORD; all ye nations: PRAISE HIM, all ye
people. For His merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord
endureth for ever. PRAISE YE THE LORD.” (Psalm 117)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Your
lessons, so piercing
And
so raw
Leave
me spent
As
I exhale the hurt and let it go;
Your
wisdom prevails
And
tutors me when I need it most;
You
are the healer who saves
The
broken hearted and the lost.
-
CATHRYNE ALLEN
Christ's humility in praying to the Father has always amazed me. He who proclaimed himself to be the life of the world, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (3 Nephi 9:18), a god in his own right, knelt upon the ground with the Nephites and prayed, but not just any prayer, for the scriptures record "....The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvellous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father" (3 Nephi 17:16).
What did He say? What words could He have possibly used to express such high regard and affection toward the Father He so loved? Verse 15 states that what He prayed about cannot be written. Perhaps because there was some revelatory content of that prayer that we could not sufficiently understand on this mortal level. I also know that some heavenly manifestations and revelations cannot be put into words because our earthly language is inadequate. I mostly suspect it was the latter and that Jesus spoke words of utmost respect and devotion, of love and adoration, of submission and gratitude that there were no adequate words to describe it.
Another significant prayer of which we have a record is the one the Saviour uttered at the Last Supper which we know as the ‘intercessory prayer’, and which could only be addressed to none but the Father whom He loved and longed to be with again (John 17):
“It has been called, and not inappropriately, the Lord’s High-Priestly Prayer. In it Jesus acknowledged the Father as the source of His power and authority, which authority extends even to the giving of eternal life to all who are worthy….With unfathomable love the Lord pleaded for those whom the Father had given Him, the apostles then present, who had been called out from the world, and who had been true to their testimony of Himself as the Son of God.” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p 609)
We too can speak such sublime words of worship. We can be given those words by the power of the Holy Ghost and we can speak with the tongue of angels each time we bend our knees and come before the throne of God who yearns to gather us into his bosom and bring us home (2 Nephi 32:2)
There is another form of prayer and that is a prayer of power. At the Last Supper, Jesus directed his disciples for the first time to pray to the Father in His name with assurance of success in supplication: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:13,14). The name of Jesus Christ was to be thenceforth the divinely established talisman by which the powers of heaven could be invoked to operate in any righteous undertaking.” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p 603)
The prayer of power is not just any simple prayer with the mention of the Saviour’s name at the end. For it to glorify the Father, the supplication needs to be a submitted in conjunction with professed faith in Jesus Christ. Just mentioning Him at the end of the prayer is not sufficient in my mind.
A story of Alma and Amulek from the Book of
Mormon is an ideal example of this: Alma, and his convert and missionary companion, Amulek, found themselves
in captivity in the most wicked city where they sat in a dungeon naked,
suffering hunger, thirst, and physical abuse by their captors (Alma 14:18-23).
In the extremity of their captivity, Alma offered the
most heart-wrenching petition to God: “How long shall we suffer these great
afflictions, O Lord? O Lord, give us strength according to our faith which
is in Christ, even unto deliverance. ” (Alma 14:26). The cords which held
Alma and Amulek bound were broken instantly, the earth shook mightily, and the
walls of the prison were rent in twain. Alma and Amulek went out of the prison,
“and they were not hurt; for the Lord had granted unto them power, according
to their faith which was in Christ.” (v 28)
There is no greater prayer than the prayer
uttered through faith in Jesus Christ. I bear witness of this because I too was
a recipient of deliverance. Through my greatest trial in life, I prayed using
these words: “through my faith in Jesus Christ and the power of His Atonement,
I ask for the healing of my heart…….”.
It was a deliverance from pain I felt would split my chest open. The
healing came within weeks of consistent pleading through my unshaken faith in
Him who has bled that I might live.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
You submitted to the Father’s will
To pave the path to glories unseen;
And bowed in humility Your godly knee
That all mankind like You can be.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
