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    Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God
    Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God
    Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God
    Ebook140 pages4 hours

    Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God

    By Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

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    From the Foreword -

    This little book invites us to study with some ancient experts in prayer, the persons who wrote the Book of Psalms. We haven't read long in the psalms before we realize that the authors were altogether human, with a massive catalog of troubles, inconsistencies, and questions. Their lives were marked by breathtaking highs and lows, with sometimes only a few paragraphs between. But with all of that, they were saints. They left us with the greatest collection of prayers in the possession of our human race.
    What was their secret? I believe it was the quality of their friendship with God. And of course the language of that friendship is prayer. The psalmists don't give us any formula for effective praying. They don't offer a set of rules. But if we read their prayers carefully, we will learn something of their secret, the secret of the Ultimate Friendship. I hope through this book to start us on that special journey.
    ---- J. Ellsworth Kalas

    The book will contain a disussion guide by John Schroeder

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426723223
    Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God
    Author

    Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

    J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015) was the author of over 35 books, including the popular Back Side series, A Faith of Her Own: Women of the Old Testament, Strong Was Her Faith: Women of the New Testament, I Bought a House on Gratitude Street, and the Christian Believer study, and was a presenter on DISCIPLE videos. He was part of the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary since 1993, formerly serving as president and then as senior professor of homiletics. He was a United Methodist pastor for 38 years and also served five years in evangelism with the World Methodist Council.

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      Book preview

      Longing to Pray - Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

      Image1

      How the Psalms Teach Us

      to Talk with God

      J. ELLSWORTH KALAS

      Abingdon Press

      Nashville

      LONGING TO PRAY

      HOW THE PSALMS TEACH US TO TALK WITH GOD

      Copyright © 2006 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to permissions@abingdonpress.com.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Kalas, J. Ellsworth, 1923-

      Longing to pray : how the Psalms teach us to talk with God / J. Ellsworth Kalas.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 0-687-49512-1 (binding: adhesive : alk. paper)

      1. Bible. O.T. Psalms—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Friendship—Biblical teaching. 3. Prayer—Biblical teaching. I. Title.

      BS1430.6.F73K35 2006

      242'.5—dc22

      2005029636

      ISBN 13: 978-0-687-49512-2

      All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

      Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      10 11 12 13 14 15—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      Image2

      Contents

      Foreword

      1. The Ultimate Friendship

      2. Secrets of Friendship: Candor

      3. Secrets of Friendship: Time

      4. Secrets of Friendship: Beauty

      5. Secrets of Friendship: Place, Posture, and Punctuality

      6. Secrets of Friendship: Exuberance

      7. Secrets of Friendship: Specificity

      8. Secrets of Friendship: Wonder and Witness

      9. Secrets of Friendship: Gratitude

      10. Secrets of Friendship: Repentance

      11. Secrets of Friendship: Helplessness

      12. Secrets of Friendship: Anger

      Suggestions for Leading a Study

      John D. Schroeder

      Foreword

      I thought it was a discontinuity in logic when I heard several years ago that in a certain European country more people prayed than believed in God. But when I thought a bit longer, I wasn't surprised. Prayer is so instinctive to our human nature that no laws of logic are involved. The doubter or the unbeliever feels that if there isn't a God, there ought to be; there ought, that is, to be Someone somewhere who cares about us enough to listen to our needs, and who might even be pleased to communicate with us. We may not pray often, and we may not pray well, but all of us want, somehow, some way, to pray.

      And most of us wish we could pray well. The disciples of Jesus said, Teach us to pray; we echo, Me, too. Some of us go on prayer retreats or attend special sessions where an expert teaches us about prayer. If we're fortunate enough to know someone who seems demonstrably close to God, we may even dare to ask his or her secret.

      This little book invites us to study with some ancient experts in prayer, the persons who wrote the book of Psalms. We haven't read long in the psalms before we realize that the authors were altogether human, with a massive catalog of troubles, inconsistencies, and questions. Their lives were marked by breathtaking highs and lows, with sometimes only a few paragraphs between. But with all of that, they were saints. They left us with the greatest collection of prayers in the possession of our human race.

      What was their secret? I believe it was the quality of their friendship with God. And of course the language of that friendship is prayer. The psalmists don't give us any formula for effective praying. They don't offer a set of rules. But if we read their prayers carefully, we will learn something of their secret, the secret of the Ultimate Friendship. I hope this book will help us along on that very special journey.

      —J. Ellsworth Kalas

      Chapter One

      The Ultimate Friendship

      I have lived long enough to know that very few things in this world, if any, matter as much as friendship. Friendships, like dogs, come in so many shapes and sizes that one can hardly believe that the same generic name applies to all. Friendship can mean everything from the person we know only at the checkout counter or at the dry-cleaning shop (in many cases we hardly know their names) to persons who are so much a part of our lives that it's hard to imagine life without them. Each year I realize with more intensity the truth of John Donne's words that any man's death diminishes me; that even casual friendships make up more of the fabric of our lives than we realize, and that our great friendships are simply invaluable.

      Thousands of times I have remembered the words of Grace Bagby, a high-school English teacher, and hundreds of times I have quoted her: If you get one true friend in this lifetime, she told our class, just one true friend, you're rich. I have been rich several times by Miss Bagby's definition, and I am rich in that fashion today. I thank God nearly every day for such friendships, and I cherish such wealth for you.

      But I've also lived long enough to know that one shouldn't expect too much from any human friend. That's because our human friends are human. They get tired—tired in general, and sometimes tired of us. They have problems of their own. They are limited in strength, patience, and understanding. One shouldn't expect too much of any human friend.

      You and I need another Friendship. We need God. When Blaise Pascal said that there is in every human heart a God-shaped void that only God can fill, he was describing the friendship that matters most; indeed, that matters eternally. And for this friendship with God, the language of communication is prayer. This language is so instinctive to us that we humans pray whether we are religious or not. Some don't pray much, and as a result, they don't have much of a friendship, but I suspect that everyone sends out a prayer now and then. Some years ago a public opinion survey in a major European country revealed that in that country more people prayed than believed in God, which is to say that people yearn for this friendship even when they resent, question, or deny the Friend.

      As for me, I confess without apology that this is the friendship without which I could not survive. I have read of the saints who have passed through the dark night of the soul, periods of time when they could not in any way sense the reality or the presence of God. Call me a spiritual coward, but I do not wish to reach such a level of saintliness that God would entrust me to pass through such an experience of holy absence. My need for the Divine Friendship is too great. I cherish open communication with God. Above everything, I need this friendship.

      The biblical book of Psalms is the book of this eternal friendship. It provides more understanding for this friendship than any other single book in the Bible. More than that (and here is the point and reason for this book), it gives us the language of the friendship, and it does so in simple and wonderful ways. For this reason, I see the book of Psalms as the best place to learn how to pray.

      What do I mean by this? If you have read the book of Psalms, you know that it never gives instruction in prayer. In no place does it tell us how to approach God; in no place, indeed, does it offer a defined pattern such as we have in what we call the Lord's Prayer. So how is it that I consider the psalms to be the premier place of instruction in prayer?

      I can best explain what I mean by describing a scene that was a commonplace until cookbooks became a standard best-seller in American bookstores. At a time when recipes were more often kept on slips of paper or pasted in dough-spattered books, or in some cases simply stored in memory, girls just into their teens approached a grandmother (or perhaps a great aunt) with a conversation that ran like this.

      Granny, would you give me the recipe for your baking-powder biscuits?

      "Oh, pshaw, there's nothing to it. First, you get yourself a bowl."

      How big a bowl?

      Oh, you'll know. Just the right size for what you're going to do. Then you pour in some flour.

      How much?

      Well, you can tell by how it fills the bottom of the bowl. Then stir in some milk.

      How much, Granny?

      Just enough so that when you stir it, it feels right.

      I'll tell you what, Granny, how would it be if I just went to the kitchen with you, and followed you around and wrote down what you're doing while you make a batch of biscuits?

      Quite simply, that's what I want to do in this book. I want us to go to the kitchen with the great, very human souls who gave us the book of Psalms, and watch them as they pray. As we watch them, we will learn how they prayed, and we will discover that their way of praying is not limited to a certain time or culture. Their prayers provide us with the language of the eternal Friendship.

      But first, let me tell you a little about this book of Psalms. With 150 chapters, this is the longest book in the Bible. By position, it falls almost exactly in the middle of the Bible—that is, the middle of the combined Old and New Testaments. I am not suggesting that this position is divinely ordained, but it is wonderfully appropriate, because if there is any single book that is at the heart of the Bible, this is it. This is the book that deals most openly and directly with all the varying moods and circumstances of our divine-human relationship. One of my colleagues, an Anglican priest named Tory Baucum, has told me of a time early in his Christian walk when he asked his mentor how to pray. Pray the psalms, his friend replied. But I don't understand them, Tory objected. That doesn't matter, his friend said. They understand you. They do, indeed. Because the psalms encompass the extraordinary range of human emotion and human experience—especially as those experiences affect our relationship with God—they understand us better than if we had written them ourselves.

      But who did write them? In a sense, it doesn't matter. Most of us, however, want if possible to know the name of an author. Tradition has helped us in this matter, in that

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