There have been few things that have impacted my life so deeply as becoming a Son of Solomon. It doesn’t take much. Just pray 9 psalms a day, read one proverb a day, and carry a crucifix and a Bible with you.
That’s it.
It’s not an oath.
It’s not magic.
It’s a discipline.
You don’t even have to succeed at it. I miss one or more sets of psalms weekly, if not more often. I once challenged a young man, “If seven minutes of prayer every day is too much to get you started, just try to say Psalm 125:1 every morning. Do it every morning in the name of Jesus, and see if in a few weeks you aren’t inspired to do more.”
When I founded the SOS prayer movement for Christian men, it seemed to me like a stroke of insight in a time of darkness. Encouraging people to read their Bibles was a plan for small wins leading to big gains. After all, who could get upset about encouraging Christians to pray the prayers God wrote for us? Even Baptists and Catholics might find the notion enticing and join in. With a little providence, we might start a genuine movement of biblical prayer that transcends the collapsing denominational world, all rooted in the only thing that can heal our breaches and lead us toward a truly God inspired unity: the Scriptures of Jesus Christ.
Yet, some people really do despise the idea. Just this week, it was called “too law heavy,” criticized as “classic evangelicalism” and at the same time compared to Cistercian monastic vows condemned by the Augsburg Confession.
What’cha gonna do? Wisdom and discipline, endurance and encouragement just aren’t for everybody. Especially legalists. Even so, I highly recommend them for you as the antidote to that very thing in your own life. Your own reason and strength won’t help you here. You need the call of the Spirit.
Try it. Pray Psalm 125 every morning this week. (Use the name of Jesus, since Jesus is LORD.) After that, you can stop any time. But the beautiful thing about the Psalter is that once you get going, you won’t want to.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
The Mad Christian