Dear Christian, it’s a vast understatement to say that we feel a wide range of emotions throughout our lives.

We feel those emotions with all of their weight because of everything we experience throughout life in this sin-darkened world—some things good; others bad.

Sometimes we’re running, joyfully shouting praises to our amazing God. We feel like we can run alongside the deer on the mountain heights, hearts overflowing with uncontainable joy.

Other times, we’re staggering, taking one painful, faltering step at a time with tears of raw and heartbreaking anguish streaming down our cheeks.

Most of the time, I feel like we’re somewhere in between. 

It’s in the darker, painful moments and experiences in life that we might begin to wonder, to question, to doubt. God, do you really love me? I’m looking at what’s going on in my life right now and sometimes . . . sometimes it doesn’t look like you do.

And we know, we know, that isn’t true. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Bible, God has said how much he loves us. He sent us Jesus. He has shown us his nail-marked hands and spear-pierced side.

By faith, we know that God loves us. And yet, we still wrestle with grasping the truth of what we know by faith, especially since so much of what we see and experience and feel in our lives seems to suggest otherwise.

We’re sinful people. We’re going to struggle in our lives of faith, and we’ll continue to do so until the day our God calls us home to struggle no more and finally be at peace. But dear Christian, we’re not—we are not—alone in that struggle. We’re not alone in asking such soul-searching questions of our God.

Get out your Bible or open the app on your phone.

Read the words, long written down. Listen. Hear the voices of believers from ages past. They may surprise you. Some of what they say might even shock you. And some of them might make you realize—you’re not alone in your thoughts and struggles. Because other Christians—just like you and me—have thought such things and wrestled with such painful emotions and experiences too.

The words are beautiful and breathtaking. They’re raw and vivid and visceral. They sing the praises of God and his amazing grace and power and love that causes the believer’s heart to swell with joy. They lament the bitter struggles and sorrows of life in a sin-darkened existence that causes the believer’s heart to plummet.

They are the Psalms.

The Psalms have long been looked to, upheld, and cherished in the lives of believers throughout the ages. Listen as the words of the Psalms are shared in nursing homes and around hospital beds; shared with the sick, the dying, and the bereaved. Watch as fears are quieted, faith is strengthened, and faces are uplifted. Tears diminish, replaced by comfort and joy and peace.

There are many comforting passages our God has given us throughout the pages of Scripture, and we’ll go through those as well—make no mistake—but there is no question that the Psalms hold a special place in many believers’ hearts. This blog series is the start of a journey through those Psalms. And in them, we are invited to listen to the inner thoughts, praises, and struggles of believers pouring out their hearts to the God who has promised them again and again: I love you. I love you. I love you.

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