{"id":14350,"date":"2026-06-06T23:15:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T03:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14350"},"modified":"2026-06-06T23:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T03:18:24","slug":"a-psalm-of-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14350","title":{"rendered":"A Psalm of Praise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Is anyone happy?
\nLet them sing songs of praise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— James 5:13<\/p>\n

It’s happening! I’ve almost finished making all twelve pages for my website, PrayingwiththePsalmists.com<\/a>!<\/p>\n

This is a website to go with my not-yet-published book, Praying with the Psalmists<\/em>, with one page for each chapter. But the goal of the book is to get people experiencing the joy of writing their own psalms. And I think you can pick up tips from the website even if you haven’t read the book. I’ve got a page for each of the ten types of Psalms in the Bible, so on each page I link to this blog so you can see examples I’ve written, and use the comments to post your own examples when you try it out. (It’s much easier to use the moderation in WordPress for comments, plus with blog posts I can continue to add examples.)<\/p>\n

But I was all set to post the page for Psalms of Praise – only to discover I haven’t posted any such example psalms yet.<\/p>\n

I was honestly surprised to discover this. But when I looked back over my Praying with the Psalmists category<\/a>, it turned out that every time I’d thought about writing an example psalm of Praise, it turned into a Thanksgiving psalm<\/a> or a Salvation History psalm<\/a> or a Creation hymn<\/a> or a Blessing psalm<\/a>. The fact is that all the types of Psalm include praise, but the ones I put into the category of Psalms of Praise (Psalms 29, 47, 48, 92, 93, 97, 98, 100, 103, 113, 117, 145, 147, 149, and 150) are the ones I was left with, where the whole point is Praise.<\/p>\n

My very favorite Psalm, Psalm 103, is a Psalm of Praise. (Here’s the story of why it’s my favorite<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I think part of me is leery of praising too loudly when my life is going great and my dreams are coming true – when there are serious issues in the world around me. I don’t want to fall into hash tag #blessed and casually imply that if you were spiritual like me, you’d have a great life, too. Or maybe it’s an aspect of “foreboding joy” that Brene Brown talks about. Sometimes we don’t dare relish our joys, because we’re afraid they’ll stop.<\/p>\n

But, on the other hand, there’s that verse in James I quoted above. I am<\/em> happy! God is granting me some desires of my heart! If this is not a good time to write a psalm of Praise, what is?<\/p>\n

Psalms of Praise, unlike Thanksgiving Psalms, are more about God’s character and attributes than specific things God has done. But I’m especially happy today because I recently got an agent for that book I mentioned, Praying with the Psalmists<\/em> – and this week an editor asked to see the full manuscript! What’s more, the editor who asked edited not one but two of my Sonderbooks Stand-outs<\/a> in Christian Nonfiction from last year!<\/p>\n

As if that weren’t enough, I’m going on a dream vacation to France in about a week, to see Mont Saint-Michel and Giverny, places I’ve always wanted to see but we never quite got to when I lived in Europe. (You will hear about my trip on this blog, I promise!) And I still love my job and have dear friends around me, and my small group has a habit of noticing joys – and they’re just piling up!<\/p>\n

So yes, this is a good time to write an example psalm of Praise.<\/p>\n

The key concepts found in the Psalms of Praise in general (not every concept in every Psalm, but some of them in every Psalm) are:
\nPraise
\nJoy
\nMusic
\nMajesty
\nGoodness
\nFaithfulness
\nLove<\/p>\n

I’m honestly not sure where to start, so I’m going to play off my favorite, Psalm 103:<\/p>\n

Praise the Lord, my soul;
\nall my inmost being, praise God’s holy name.
\nPraise the Lord, my soul,
\nand forget not all God’s benefits –
\nwho redeems all my mistakes
\nand comforts all my sorrows,
\nwho doesn’t give up on me,
\nwho is faithful when I am faithless or flighty,
\nwho fills my life with good things
\nand crowns me with love and compassion,
\nwho pops joys into my life
\nuntil I can’t help but notice,
\nwho blesses me with gifts
\nI never dreamed to ask for,
\nand grants above and beyond
\nthe things I do ask for.<\/p>\n

Father, my life hasn’t turned out
\nanything like I thought it would or should,
\nbut through every detour,
\nYou were faithful.
\nThrough every hardship,
\nYou compassionately pulled me through.<\/p>\n

And now you’ve led me to
\na vocation doing what you made me to do –
\nbuying great books for children
\nto read freely,
\nsinging your praises in the choir,
\nmeeting with friends in a life group
\nto pray and study your Word,
\neven playing games with friends,
\ndoing puzzles,
\nwalking in nature,
\ntraveling to beautiful places,
\nand even writing books.
\nTruly my cup overflows.<\/p>\n

You let humans mess things up in this world –
\nyet you teach us and guide us,
\nyou love us and walk with us.
\nLet us sing to you in grateful praise!
\nPraise the Lord!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, the disclaimer: Part of the reason I write these example psalms is to show readers that they do not have to be very good! I don’t claim to be inspired by God, but sitting down to write them does me good and lifts my spirits – and that’s what I want for you.<\/p>\n

Try it yourself! Paste a psalm of Praise into the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. — James 5:13 It’s happening! I’ve almost finished making all twelve pages for my website, PrayingwiththePsalmists.com! This is a website to go with my not-yet-published book, Praying with the Psalmists, with one page for each chapter. But the goal of the book is to get people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-praying-with-the-psalmists","category-psalms-of-praise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14350"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14353,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions\/14353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}