How to Pray

Pray the Psalms: Psalm 1

Guideposts Executive Editor Rick Hamlin shares how to pray Psalm 1.

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Guideposts Video: Inspiring True Stories

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I’m Rick Hamlin, and every morning I start out my day with one of the Psalms. I use this little Bible– I actually found it on a subway seat– and it’s got all the Psalms. And I just read them. I see where my imagination goes. Because there’ll be a verse that speaks to me, and there’s probably a real good reason why. Here, from Psalm one.

“And he should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season.” Well when I read that, I thought of a tree I jog around, an old copper beech. Big tree, the roots go down real deep. And the image came. I needed to be like that tree– firm, well rooted, flexible. And it was a perfect image because it was also a moment when I had a lot of fear that I was overcome by.

I had read an article about a guy who lost his job. He’d been out of work for two years. I thought, what if that happens to me? I said no, I didn’t need that fear. I’d gotten this other image from a Psalm. Now I’m talking about this because in the next year I’m going to be praying the Psalms very consciously on our site in a blog. And I’d welcome you to log on and check it out.

Because I would like you to think, what things speak to you? And I’ll tell you what things, in the Psalms, speak to me. There is 150 of them. So it’s going to take me– and some of them are quite long, and I’ll break them up– so I think it will take me the whole year. But I’d love you to join me.

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