Description
Sung, whispered, shouted, and groaned by Muslims and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, Bob Marley and J. S. Bach, the psalms express the faith of a thousand generations. People have used psalms to voice their deepest anguish and delight, to comfort others, to express emotions they hardly dare to admit.
In this book Kevin Adams shares stories of unlikely psalm prayers and an unpredictable God, opening up the honest and earthy world of the psalms in new and unexpected ways. And he invites us to find our own story within that community of faith.
Reading this book you will find yourself underlining an especially poignant verse here or jotting notes in the margin there, as the psalms come alive through the stories of those who have used and abused them through the centuries.
Reviews
"The psalms are like the gift of tongues; they are the way the Spirit gives us words when we don't know how to pray. The psalms give us prayer language for elation and lament, praise and doubt, fear and hope. What a gift! This marvelous little book is also a gift, inviting us to see the psalms anew-as an ancient prayer book that speaks poignantly to our postmodern context. Far from some dusty old collection of 'religious' prayers, the psalms are gritty, honest encounters with the living God. A wonderful resource."
James K.A. Smith
Professor of philosophy at Calvin College
Author of Desiring the Kingdom and Letters to a Young Calvinist
"John Donne, Kanye West, Leonard Bernstein, Metallica, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Seinfeld, the God of the psalms—they're all here in their own words. If you can't find yourself in this amazing tour of life, you aren't yet fully human. If C. S. Lewis were a 21st-century California church planter, he would write this book."
Neal Plantinga
Author of Engaging God's World
"The highest compliment I can pay to this book is after I finished reading it I was eager to preach on the Psalms again."
Haddon Robinson
Harold John Ockenga Professor of Preaching
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
"Kevin Adams sees the powerful, unrivalled way in which the psalms speak out transformatively, one poem at a time, one person at a time, one crisis at a time, one elation at a time. Readers will find Adams bringing these poems to their lives as well, mediating our pain to God and our hope from God. The book is a gift that keeps on giving . . . as long as the poetry lasts."
Walter Brueggemann
Columbia Theological Seminary