Don’t Let the Flood Waters Overwhelm Me, Neither Let the Deep Swallow Me up: Prayers from the Psalms

We are living in troubled times. First the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, then the horrible flood this week in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Despite these terrible tragedies, we haven’t to be despaired to the utmost. Our lives are always threatened by death. Everything is always at stake. Therefore not, because God lives.

These experiences haven’t only made the authors of the psalms in the bible, but countless humans experienced comfort and hope for their lives through the psalms. Yes, that is true, I’m not alone but in God’s hand.

I know many people who can’t do anything with the bible, but who in spite of that love and honor the psalms. Here people “like you and me” talk, cry, shout, sue, pray and despair, of themselves, of their life situations, of God. That is no smart talk from the pulpit, but here in many texts it is about pure survival.

I myself loved the psalms all my life. I cried and hoped with the authors of the psalms – and they with me. They gave me words when my voice was chocked by tears, they let me believe, when I was in despair of God.

The psalms are not political correct or conform to society, but come directly from the heart of the praying man. They frankly say and mean it so: “Pest and Cholera”, “death and doom” for the enemies, for the powerful and godless. That is pre-Christian, pre-humanistic, archaic.