Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

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Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

My hope is that these selections will inspire you to pray the Psalms personally and with your faith community, joining generations of faithful believers who have turned their faces to God. How to Use this Book Every generation of the church has had many faithful believers who used the Psalms as a daily guide to prayer— praying one or more psalms every day. By reading three psalms a day (and their corresponding devotional entries), you will make it through the entire book in eight weeks. You might consider a rhythm of a psalm at breakfast, lunch, and dinner on weekdays or a psalm when you wake up, mid-afternoon, and at bedtime. That rhythm will give you one “free” spot a week to take off or to re-read a selection that meant a lot to you. If that is too fast for you, slow it down. You can read one psalm a day and make it through the book twice in one year. Remember: the goal is to cultivate a daily habit of prayer using the Psalms as a guide, not just to get through this book. Hopefully these devotional selections will give you a sense of community as you pray the Psalms. If you are part of a small group working through the Psalms or would appreciate prompts for personal journaling, you can find discussion questions at the end of each week’s section. Also note: these meditations are designed to be read alongside the book of Psalms, not to replace it. Most of them focus on a few key verses or phrases in the psalm (printed in italics). Some of them reflect more broadly on life with God. Others paraphrase the psalm in their own words or re-write it as English poetry. When possible, I have updated the language and used the NIV as the base text for commentary.