Over roughly five centuries several different authors wrote from a number of different perspectives a guidebook for Israel's ongoing conversation with God. That collection of writings is called the Psalms and it's an invitation to express our hearts to God.

The book of Psalms is more than just a simple book. As Aaron shows in this talk, the writers of the Psalms didn't leave anything off-limits or out of bounds, but chose instead to provide a language of complete and utter honesty before God. Within the Psalms we have many different words that encourage us and invite us to be honest before God and that help us to develop a sincere relationship with Him through whatever circumstances we might find ourselves living through.

Life is a continual experience of acquisition and loss and when we experience loss it always leaves a mark. In order to be healthy and whole we need a way to process through our loss, to truly feel it and to experience all of the stages of grief. The Psalms serve us in this way, they liberate us to experience our loss and to move through it in a way that keeps our hearts alive.

Following his message on Psalms of Lament, Gene takes a praise break this Sunday! As we look at the language of the heart, it's important for us to understand the necessary push toward being uninhibited in our emotions towards God. We were meant to be emotionally vibrant creatures, not frigid ones. When we choose to engage with both loss and joy, lament and praise, we deepen our hearts and encounter a richer connection with God and with one another.

The Psalms are full of language describing the joy and the blessing of approaching God and recognizing how near He is. Whether this language is about God's proximity or about God's intimacy, the idea of the closeness of God is, if anything, even more true for us today. Listen as Brian and a few special guests share what this means for us and how we grow to recognize this blessing in our lives.

Confession is a word that can carry a lot of baggage, but as Brian shares in this message, the language of confession we read in the Psalms invites us into the grace of God. As we learn these "vocabularies of prayer" in the Psalms series, we want to take particular time on how we approach God when something is wrong with us: knowing that He wants to help us and restore us.