This Sunday begins another summer in the Psalms for City's Church. And after several years now,

we're now more than halfway through the book. So if you've been with us for the last several years,

you know that we've now crested that halfway mark as of last summer, and we're into the second

half of Psalms. The Psalms are something of the Bible's prayer guide and songbook. You know this,

if you're familiar with the Psalms. They teach us in more than a hundred shapes and sizes

how to sing to God and how to pray, not all kinds of things.

They model the inner life of genuine faith,

the emotional life of a follower of Christ.

They give us the mountains and the valleys that come with trusting and following him.

And we all know if we followed him for any amount of time,

that there are great mountains and there are great valleys.

So the Psalms are this extraordinary gift

in that they help us to see and taste

and even begin to feel what true followers of Christ, the people of God,

feel by faith.

In Psalm 86, you can hear it in Jody's reading, Psalm 86 is a valley song.

It's one of the darker and lonelier Psalms. It's a valley song. It's one of the darker and lonelier psalms.

It's a desperate song.

It's not a hopeless song, but it's a desperate one.

It teaches us how to pray when trouble comes.

I think this prayer does.

It teaches us how to pray when trouble comes. I think this prayer does. It teaches us how to pray when trouble comes. Do you know how to pray when trouble comes to you? Not just, Lord, help me or fix this in my life.

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