A Year In Psalms: Introduction

It's been a while since I wrote - exam season is on us in full swing, my wall is covered with Post-Its outlining theories of regional integration and what a strange man Henry Kissinger was, but with Monday comes my last exam, which marks the official end of my first year.

There are lots of ways I could chart the year and how I've grown through it and such, and yeah, that's the apparent point of this blog. But I thought the best way to do that would be to go through 4 Psalms which have transformed me this year; ones which keep appearing and have sustained me in helping me love Jesus more and more, especially when, due to my fallen nature, it's been hard.

Psalms are most impressive because they were sung, and the nature of songs is that they collect in and actually powerfully influence the indivdual and collective psyche. Songs sticks. Give it a few years, no-one will remember the MP's expenses scandal, but everyone will remember Beyoncé's "Single Ladies". Even up until a few hundred years ago, people sung the Psalms and knew them intimately; today people can cite "The Lord is My Shepherd" and maybe one or two others, but for people who sung them, they shaped peoples' thinking and theology; for those who sung them with fervour, the Psalms shaped a heart willing to position itself towards the throne of Christ.

This is why the Psalms have changed me so much: they take the reader to the foot of the cross, either obviously or not, and bare a soul honestly and openly, in reverence but not shame, in holy fear but with boldness, in adoration and honesty. As well as David, Asaph, Israelites and old Christendom, Jesus would have sung these songs and known them fervently. God Himself in human flesh sung to God the Father, God sang these songs to God - and we get to share the same songs for our own heart's direction!

So, this will start on Tuesday morning, finishing on Friday, with a big crescendo. But, for now, food, sleep and Heroes awaits...