Asking is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

We fear asking for a variety of reasons. We believe it reveals weakness in us in a society that prizes strength. We believe it shows us to be needy in a culture of self-sufficiency.

What we find in the Scriptures is a very different vision of going to God with our need in prayer. Charles Spurgeon informs us that asking is the currency of the Kingdom of God. That we come to the Father in our need and He meets us in it with His abundance in order to form the Kingdom deeply within us.

Tonight we have the joy of hearing from DJ Zayed, one of our longtime small group and worship leaders and one of the most beloved people in our community.

Walter Wangerin once said, “Praise and thanksgiving require more than our brains. They want our laughter, our capering bodies, our trembling delight, smiles and the sweet flush of delight-and song. Praise must be sung.”

This is the truth we come to in prayer; that God asks for all of us in an expression of joy. Prayer isn’t robotic. It isn’t simply us asking, or confessing, or adoring God. It’s a song our heart, mind, soul, and body sing back to God over our experience of His goodness.

This is our topic for week 4 of our Praying the Psalms series.

What do we do with our sin?

David was familiar with not meeting the expectations of God and so he writes to us about it in the Psalms. Tonight we look to Psalm 32, 139 and 52 to see how sin works, what God thinks of us in our sin and what we experience in our moment of confession to hopefully move us from a place of fearing confession to freedom in confession.