The Psalms: Learning to Be a Woman After God’s Own Heart

Welcome to A Mother’s Thinking Love: Living Ideas, Lovingly Shared! This post will be a little different from my usual, but it has been on my heart lately. After spending my entire life in church, the Psalms have become more and more important to me over the last few years. Today, I’ll share what brought this about and what I’m learning. Join me for: “The Psalms: Learning to Be a Woman After God’s Own Heart”!

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Approaching the Psalms in a New Way

A few years ago, I was picking out a new “Read the Bible in a Year” plan. There are many out there, and I like to try a new one each year. This particular year, I found a plan that listed reading one Psalm each day. This stood out to me, as I had not tried it before, so I decided to go with it. It didn’t take long for this to change me in the most profound way. The simple act of reading a Psalm each day became so important in my life that I’m still doing it! In fact, most days now, it’s more than one Psalm. Since that first year, I have thought about why this habit was so life-changing, and I think I have a few ideas.

Lessons from the Psalms

King David, depending on the source, is credited with writing roughly half of the Psalms. Both in the New and Old Testaments, David is called “a man after God’s own heart.” This always amazes me and gives me hope. Even children in Sunday School can attest to the fact that David experienced high-highs and low-lows. He knew victory and defeat. David praised God and sinned against Him. He led his people well and fell short of his duties.

If a man like David can be considered “a man after God’s own heart”, I think reading his writings can help us learn to walk on that same path, however slow and feeble our steps may be. From the Psalms, we can learn how to review and respond to every event in our lives. We can learn how to properly orient our hearts and minds in God’s world. Let me share a few examples of what I mean.

• In Psalm 51, we find David’s response to his own sin. Although he sinned egregiously, when confronted about it, David did not ignore it. He confessed and pleaded for God’s forgiveness. David’s prayer was not an “oops, sorry”. It was the prayer of a man truly broken over and grieved by his own sin. May I be so quick to repent and turn from my own sin.
• I once read, and I can’t remember the source, that God wrote two books for us: Creation and the Scriptures. In Psalm 19, I think we find a beautiful picture of this. In this Psalm, David teaches us to look out at Creation. If only we could get our eyes off of our screens and on the heavens that declare God’s glory. In the second half of Psalm 19, David praises God’s law, statutes, commandments, and judgements and asks for God’s help in keeping them. May I look out into Creation at God’s handiwork. May I love God’s Word with whole-hearted devotion, and, by God’s grace, obey it.
• In Psalm 13, there is a phrase that often comes to my lips: “How long, O Lord?” As I walk through dark valleys, witness evil, and live in a world that blasphemes our Savior, the cries of my heart match the cries of David’s in this Psalm. When it seems like evil wins at every turn and hardships never end, it is easy for me to despair. In Psalm 13, while David does show us to cast all our cares on our Heavenly Father, he reminds us that, in all things, we have cause to praise Him too:

⁵ But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me.

While this short list only scratches a little of the surface of the treasure of the Psalms, I hope you can see the idea.

Journeying Through the Psalms

Although I started by simply reading one Psalm each day, I now often incorporate Psalms several times throughout my days. Here are some ideas based on my own journey:

• If you’re just beginning in the Psalms, you can, like I did, read one Psalm each day. There are 150 chapters in Psalms. By reading one chapter each day, you can easily read through the Psalms twice in one year. You also have 65 days left. You can use those days to break a couple of the longer Psalms, like Psalm 119, into multiple days.
• Alongside reading through the Psalms, you can choose one to memorize. I chose to start with Psalm 23. I would read one Psalm a day, then I would try to memorize a little more of Psalm 23 each day. I didn’t have a deadline for memorization. I just kept working at it until I was ready to memorize a new Psalm.
• When I began memorizing Psalms, I found a lot of resources for learning to sing the Psalms. Some of these resources help you memorize the Psalms word-for-word and some are songs based on the Psalms. I appreciate both. If you can, try to learn to sing through the Psalms. Singing makes memorizing much easier, in my experience. Singing through and memorizing the Psalms also helps give you true, pure, and lovely things to think about.
• This year, I decided to study one Psalm a bit more in-depth each month. This has, usually, been the Psalm I am working on memorizing. For example, while memorizing Psalm 23, you could also look into what life was like for a shepherd in David’s day. You could read John 10, when Jesus calls Himself “The Good Shepherd”. I like to write down what I’m learning ,if possible, so I can revisit it later. You can find my “monthly” Psalm in my free Family Worship Guides.

Managing Our Time for the Glory of God

I realize I outlined quite a few steps. These are habits I have built over the course of a few years, and they are not the only, or even the best, Bible reading and study habits. What I have learned is that, when I start with grand plans, I inevitably fail. When I start with small habits, however, they often grow to larger habits. So start “small”, but realize God uses our small, weak efforts for His glory.

If I hope to become a woman “after God’s own heart”, I will have to order my days accordingly. Elisabeth Elliot famously said, “There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.” When I first read this, it made me say “ouch”. Ordering my days to the glory of God is a daily struggle. It’s a minute-by-minute struggle. It is, however, a battle worth fighting, and I must engage in that fight every day.

One popular idea that makes this idea seem impossible for busy wives and moms, in particular, is the idea of “quiet time”. We’ve all seen the Instagram influencer with coffee, Bible, pen, and paper, ready for her “quiet time” of Bible study and prayer in solitude. As a homeschool mom, this was not, and still is not, realistic for me each day. Instead of pursuing my own quiet time, a lot of my time in the Psalms, and Bible reading and prayer in general, is spent with my daughter. And, let me tell you, it is the most precious time.

Closing

I hope you have enjoyed reading “The Psalms: Learning to Be a Woman After God’s Own Heart”! My time in the Psalms has become an anchor in my days. How do you approach the Psalms? Do you have any favorite resources for memorizing them? Share in the comments below!