As you wrap up your time of spiritual retreat, writing a short liturgy is a great way to synthesize the key themes and takeaways from your time with God. This not only allows you a moment to reflect on what has been significant today, but it also gives a concrete and easy way to return...
Category: Let the Thirsty Come
Learning-to-Lament Worksheet
Use this template to gather phrases and verses from the lament psalms that connect to your heart and situation. Then, use these excerpts to help you express and write your own prayer of lament to God. Click here for a printable PDF version of this worksheet. Movements of Lament Psalm _______ My Lament Turn to...
Praying Difficult Emotions
The lament psalms show us that the best thing to do with difficult emotions is to run to God. In the laments, we see that God welcomes us to express our hearts honestly to him and to look to him for help. In this activity, we use the psalms of lament to help us express...
Lament Passages Sorted by Type
Jump to lament component: 1. Turn to God Hear And Answer Me! Have Mercy I Seek the Lord In Anger Remembering Previous Faithfulness Turning with Complaint 2. Bring Your Complaint Why? How long? Complaints against God Voicing Troubles Abandoned or Betrayed The Attack of Enemies Against the Wicked My Emotions and Distress My Sin Injustice...
Lament Psalms Sorted by Emotion
Sorrow and Grief: 102 – Languishing away in sorrow, feeling God opposes me.I mingle tears with my drink… For you have taken me up and thrown me down. 6 – Moaning because of opposition and personal sin.My eye wastes away because of grief. 13 – Mourning and oppressed, feeling God is distant.How long, O Lord, shall...
Introduction to Lament
The following activities borrow heavily from the book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy – Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop, used with permission. For a more in-depth exploration of biblical lament, we highly recommend this book. Around a third of the psalms in the Bible are prayers of lament – people crying out to...
Part 7: Lament
This is Part 7 of our Let the Thirsty Come retreat series, which highlights different aspects of spending extended quality time with God. In this retreat we seek to bring our griefs and sorrows to the Lord and cry out to him. We are not only invited and welcomed to do so by our good...
Writing a Liturgy of the Moment
The idea of a “liturgy of the moment” comes from the book Every Moment Holy by Douglas McKelvey. The idea is to have a short memorized prayer that you can use meaningfully when a specific circumstance arises. For example, a prayer for when you hear birds singing, when you’re waiting in line at the supermarket,...
The Word in Our Hearts
Scripture memorization goes hand in hand and dovetails beautifully with Scripture meditation. Sometimes, dwelling deeply on God’s Word through Scripture meditation leads fairly naturally to a text being fairly well memorized. However, purposeful memorization of Scripture makes it possible for us to dwell deeply on God’s word throughout the day. Meditation gives Scripture memorization its...
Part 6: Liturgy
This is Part 6 of our Let the Thirsty Come retreat series, which highlights different aspects of spending extended quality time with God. In this retreat, we explore how to foster rhythms of turning our hearts, our eyes, and our minds back to the promises and reality of our ever-present, life-giving Savior. Josh unpacks how John 15...