Conversation With God
LIFE STUDIES IN THE WORD
Wednesday Evening Bible Study
Elkhart Life Church • Pastor Mark Johnson
THE PSALMS AND PRAYER:
A Conversation With God
What does it actually look like when a human being talks to God — and
God talks back?
A Question to Start With
Let me ask you something before we even open the text tonight. When
was the last time you had a real conversation with God? Not a quick
prayer before a meal. Not a desperate cry when something went wrong. I
mean a real, sustained, back-and-forth conversation — where you talked,
and then you stopped and listened?
Because here’s what I’ve come to believe after decades in ministry: most
of us know how to ask God for things. What we haven’t learned — really
learned — is how to talk with him.
The Psalms change that. The Psalms are not a hymn book, though we
use them that way. They are not a collection of devotional quotes, though
we pull verses from them. The Psalms are a record of 150 conversations —
real, raw, sometimes uncomfortable conversations — between human
beings and the living God. They are the original prayer journal.
Tonight’s Central Question: The Psalms show us prayer in every
condition of the human soul. What do they teach us about what it
actually means to talk to God?
Part 1: The Psalms Are a School of Prayer
Before we get into the content, we need to understand what we’re holding
in our hands when we open the Psalms. Jesus knew the Psalms. He
quoted them from the cross. He sang them with his disciples. The early
church prayed them. The rabbis structured their day around them. And
for thousands of years, the Psalms have been the primary text through
which God’s people have learned to pray.
Psalm 119:164 “Seven times a day do I praise thee because of
thy righteous judgments.”
Seven times. That’s not accidental. Prayer, for David and the psalmists,
was not an emergency response. It was a rhythm of life. They structured
their day around conversation with God the way we structure our day
around meals.
The Psalms cover the full spectrum of human experience. You will find in
them: praise and lament, doubt and certainty, rage and tenderness,
confession and triumph. Whatever condition you are in tonight —
whatever you walked through that door carrying — there is a psalm for
that. And that tells us something critical about what God expects prayer to
look like.
Key Insight: Prayer is not a performance for God. The Psalms prove
He already knows what we’re feeling — He’s inviting us to bring it to
Him honestly.
Part 2: The Anatomy of Honest Prayer
Let’s trace the structure of the Psalms’ model of prayer. If you study them
carefully, you begin to see a pattern that recurs repeatedly. Scholars
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sometimes call it the “lament psalm” structure — but I’d call it the honest
prayer structure. And here it is:
Step 1: You Start With Where You Actually Are
Psalm 22:1–2 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my
roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season, and am not silent.”
Do you know who said those words? David. And do you know who else
said them? Jesus — from the cross. And that should tell you everything
you need to know about whether it’s okay to pray honestly. If the Son of
God cried, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” you don’t need to clean up your
prayer before you bring it.
One of the greatest mistakes we make in prayer is trying to say what we
think God wants to hear rather than what is actually true for us. The
Psalms blow that completely apart. David doesn’t walk into his prayer
time pretending. He starts where he is. Forsaken. Alone. Unanswered.
Step 2: You Anchor in What You Know Is True
Psalm 22:3–5 “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the
praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and
thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were
delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.”
Notice the pivot. Verse 1: “Why have you forsaken me?” Verse 3: “But
thou art holy.” That word “but” is doing a tremendous amount of work.
David doesn’t pretend his pain has gone away. He anchors it against
something that doesn’t change. God is holy. The fathers cried and were
delivered. History testifies that God shows up.
This is the move great prayer warriors learn to make. You don’t have to
resolve the tension between your present pain and God’s goodness. You
hold them both. The Psalms model that for us constantly.
Step 3: You Ask. Specifically.
Psalm 22:19–21 “But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my
strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword;
my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s
mouth...”
David doesn’t pray in generalities. “God, just bless me.” No. He names the
sword. He names the lion. He names the dog. The Psalms model a
specific, concrete asking. If you have a need, name it. God already knows
it — but there is something that happens in a human soul when you put
words to what you are actually asking for.
Step 4: You End With Praise Before the Answer Comes
Psalm 22:24, 26 “For he hath not despised nor abhorred the
affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hidden his face from
him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.” “They shall praise
the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.”
By the end of Psalm 22 — without the situation necessarily having
changed — David has moved from “my God, why have you forsaken me”
to “he heard.” That’s not wishful thinking. That is the discipline of prayer.
You walk into the conversation in one condition. You don’t always walk
out with the answer. But you walk out having encountered God. And that
changes you.
Part 3: Five Conversations in the Psalms
Now I want to walk you through five distinct types of prayer conversation
that the Psalms model. Each one represents a place you may find yourself.
Each one shows us how God meets us there.
Conversation 1: Praise — When You Can’t Stop Talking About What
He’s Done
Psalm 103:1–2 “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is
within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits.”
Praise is not hype. It’s not working yourself up emotionally. Praise, in the
Psalms, is the deliberate act of recounting what God has done so that you
don’t forget it. “Forget not all his benefits.” David is talking to himself
here — preaching to his own soul. He knows the human tendency to forget
what God has done the moment a new problem arrives.
Psalm 103 is one of the great prayers of praise in all of Scripture. And
notice — David doesn’t start with the praise. He commands it. “Bless the
LORD, O my soul.” He’s giving his soul an instruction. That tells me that
sometimes praise is a discipline before it’s a feeling. You choose it. And
when you choose it consistently, it becomes a language you speak fluently.
Discussion Question: When did you last stop and specifically
name the things God has done for you — not in general, but
specifically? What happens to your prayer life when you do that
regularly?
Conversation 2: Lament — When You Can’t Figure Out Why He’s
Silent
Psalm 13:1–2 “How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for
ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall
I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how
long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”
Four times in two verses, David asks “how long.” He is not in a moment of
praise. He is not in a breakthrough moment. He is in a dark, extended
season where nothing seems to be moving, and God seems to have gone
silent. And what does he do? He prays.
One of the most damaging ideas in modern Christianity is the idea that
lament is a sign of weak faith. That if you really believed, you wouldn’t be
expressing doubt or grief or “how long.” The Psalms completely demolish
that idea. Lament is not the absence of faith. Lament is faith that refuses
to stop talking to God even when God seems quiet.
And notice where the lament ends:
Psalm 13:5–6 “But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall
rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the LORD, because he
hath dealt bountifully with me.”
He didn’t stop praying until something shifted inside him. Not outside —
inside. The problem may still have been there. But David came out of that
prayer with a settled confidence: “I have trusted.” Past tense. He chose to
anchor himself in the history of God’s faithfulness. And it held him.
Conversation 3: Confession — When You’ve Got to Come Clean
Psalm 51:1–4 “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy
lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from
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mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee,
thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight...”
Psalm 51 is one of the most honest prayers ever recorded. David wrote it
after the most catastrophic moral failure of his life — the sin with
Bathsheba, the arranged death of Uriah. There is no sugarcoating here.
No “well, I made some mistakes.” He names it: transgression. Iniquity.
Sin.
Notice what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t promise to be better. He doesn’t
make a deal. He doesn’t argue that he had his reasons. He throws himself
on the mercy of God and he’s specific about what he needs: blot out, wash,
cleanse. The same God who wrote “be ye holy” is the one David is running
to with his unholiness. That’s the gospel in the Old Testament.
Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a
right spirit within me.”
“Create.” That’s the same Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 when God
created the heavens and the earth. David knows he can’t fix this himself.
He needs a creative act of God. And that’s still the prayer today. We don’t
renovate our old heart. We ask God to create something new.
Teacher’s Note: If Psalm 51 is in your Bible, you have no theological
basis for saying “I’ve done too much to come back.” David wrote this
after a cover-up and a murder. And he was still called a man after
God’s own heart.
Conversation 4: Trust — When You Have to Let Go and Let God
Lead
Psalm 23:1–4 “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me
beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in
the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil: for thou art with me...”
We have probably read Psalm 23 more than any other psalm. Which
means we’ve also stopped hearing it. Let me ask you to sit with one phrase
tonight: “He maketh me to lie down.” He makes me. That’s not entirely
voluntary. The sheep doesn’t always want to rest. The shepherd insists.
Sometimes God engineers seasons that force us to be still — not because
He’s punishing us, but because He knows we won’t rest otherwise. And in
the stillness, in the green pastures and the still waters, He restores the
soul that we’ve been running into the ground.
Verse 4 is the most remarkable line in the psalm: “Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Not “if” I
walk. Not “if things go badly.” Yea — even so — though I walk there. David
knows the valley is real. He’s been in it. And he’s learned this: the
shepherd is in the valley too. That’s the conversation. Not “God, keep me
out of the valley.” But “God, you’re with me in the valley.” That’s the
prayer that actually holds.
Conversation 5: Urgency — When the Battle is Real, and You Need
God to Move
Psalm 46:1–3 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be
removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of
the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though
the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.”
“A very present help.” Not a help in theory. Not a help when you’ve got
yourself together. Present. Now. In trouble. The psalm was written in the
context of a national crisis — armies, threat of invasion, the world
shaking. And the declaration is: God is here. Right here. In this.
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Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be
exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
And then the most surprising command in a psalm about warfare: “Be
still.” In the middle of the shaking, in the middle of the roaring waters and
the moving mountains — be still. Know that I am God. The battle belongs
to the Lord. Your job is not to fix everything. Your job is to know who He
is.
That’s a prayer conversation most of us desperately need to have. Not
“God, here’s my plan for how you should handle this.” But “God, I know
who you are. I’m standing still. You be exalted.”
Part 4: What the Psalms Teach Us About How to Pray
Let me draw out a few specific lessons from the Psalms about the practice
of prayer itself.
1. Pray with Your Whole Self — Not Just Your Mind
Psalm 42:1–2 “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?”
There’s a physicality to that image. A deer is gasping for water after a long
run. That’s not a composed, collected prayer posture. That’s desperation.
The Psalms consistently model prayer that involves the whole person —
soul, body, emotion, will. When the Psalms say “all that is within me,”
they mean it. God is not looking for polished presentations. He’s looking
for you.
2. Pray With Expectation — Then Watch
Psalm 5:3 “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD;
in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look
up.”
That last phrase: “will look up.” Or in some translations: “will watch.”
David doesn’t just pray and walk away. He prays and then positions
himself to see what God will do. That is a posture of expectation. Too
many of us pray and then immediately resume our panicking. David
prays, and then he watches. He expects God to move.
3. Pray in Community — Not Just Alone
Psalm 34:3 “O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his
name together.”
The Psalms are not only private prayers. Many of them were written to be
sung in the assembly and prayed together. There is something that
happens in corporate prayer that doesn’t happen in private prayer alone.
You are not meant to carry your prayer life in isolation. “Let us exalt his
name together.” That’s why Wednesday night matters. That’s why the
altar matters. We need each other in prayer.
4. Pray Through the Night If You Have To
Psalm 63:6–7 “When I remember thee upon my bed, and
meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been
my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.”
David didn’t only pray in the easy hours. He lay awake in the night, and he
meditated on God. The Hebrew word for “meditate” is related to the
sound a lion makes over its prey — a deep, rumbling, sustained dwelling.
Not a passing thought. A prolonged, intentional focus on God. Some of
the greatest encounters with God happen in the middle of the night, in the
silence, when everything else has gone quiet.
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Part 5: The God Who Actually Listens
I want to end with this, because I think it’s the thing that actually changes
how we pray: the God of the Psalms is not a distant deity who receives our
prayers the way a suggestion box receives notes. He is a God who listens,
who responds, who draws near.
Psalm 34:15, 17–18 “The eyes of the LORD are upon the
righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.” “The righteous
cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their
troubles. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken
heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
His eyes are on you. His ears are open. He hears when the righteous cry.
And then — and this is one of the most tender lines in all of Scripture —
“the LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Nigh. Near.
Close. Right there.
That’s not a God you have to reach. That’s a God who’s already leaning
toward you. The Psalms invite you into a conversation with a God who is
not hard to find, who is not waiting for you to clean yourself up before
He’ll listen, who is not keeping score before He’ll engage. He’s right there.
And He’s listening.
The Invitation: Every psalm we studied tonight — praise, lament,
confession, trust, urgency — ends in the same place: closer to God
than when it started. That’s what prayer does. It brings you home.
Closing: Move Forward in Prayer
Here’s what I want to leave you with tonight. The Psalms don’t teach you a
prayer formula. They teach you a prayer relationship. God is not looking
for the right words. He’s looking for you. The real you. The honest you.
The desperate, grateful, confused, joyful, broken, wondering you.
David wrote his prayers the way he lived his life — all the way in. And God
called him a man after his own heart. Not because David was perfect. Not
because David always said the right things. But because David kept
coming back. Even after failure. Even after silence. Even after “how long.”
He kept coming back to the conversation.
The altar is open tonight. Don’t leave here without a conversation. Don’t
go home and just add “pray more” to your to-do list. Talk to Him right
now, right here, in exactly the condition you’re in. He’s listening.
Discussion Questions
1. Which of the five conversation types (praise, lament, confession,
trust, urgency) do you find most natural in your prayer life? Which
is hardest? Why?
2. David models praying honestly before polishing his words. What
holds you back from being fully honest with God in prayer?
3. Psalm 13 moves from “how long” to “I have trusted” without the
situation changing. Have you experienced a shift like that in prayer?
What happened?
4. Psalm 5:3 says David would pray and then “look up” in expectation.
How do you cultivate expectation in your prayer life rather than
routine?
5. The lesson ended with the picture of God who is already leaning
toward you. How does that change the way you approach prayer
this week?
This Week: A Psalm-Based Prayer Practice
Choose one psalm each day this week. Before you read it, identify what
state you’re in right now. Then read the psalm as a prayer — aloud if
possible. Let it put words to what you’re feeling and anchor you in what
God has already done.
Suggested Daily Psalms:
• Mon • Monday — Psalm 103 (Praise: Count His benefits)
• Tue • Tuesday — Psalm 13 (Lament: Honest with God)
• Wed • Wednesday — Psalm 51 (Confession: Come clean)
• Thu • Thursday — Psalm 23 (Trust: Let the Shepherd lead)
• Fri • Friday — Psalm 46 (Urgency: Be still, He is God)
• Sat • Saturday — Psalm 34 (Community: Magnify Him together)
• Sun • Sunday — Psalm 150 (Praise: Let everything praise Him)
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our
maker.”
Psalm 95:6