When You Don't Have the Words: Praying the Psalms
With the Psalms, we always have words to pray
God wants to hear from us. So he gave us the Psalms.
Sometimes we can’t find the right words to express our grief, longings, or even our joy. But in the Psalms, God gives us words to give back to him. The Psalms are deep and vast, speaking from every season of the soul. As we pray the Psalms, they form us. They teach us how to pray and what to pray.
In When You Don’t Have the Words: Praying the Psalms, Reed S. Dunn shows how the Psalms enrich our prayer lives. Dunn gives a deeply practical guide, relating to the challenges we face with praying the Psalms, and highlighting how they can reshape and enliven our prayer.
Praise for When You Don’t Have the Words
I have prayed the Psalms for over thirty years, and I have yet to read a book that more closely resonates with my experience than this one. If you want to know how the Psalms will reshape your prayers, sufferings, hopes, and beliefs about God, then this is the book for you.
—Chad Bird, 1517
I have read a lot of works on the power of the Psalms in prayer, but this may be the most warm, honest, practical, and Christ-centered guide I have read. As a fellow struggler and all-too-often delinquent in prayer, I found Reed’s invitation to Psalmic prayer to be generous and kind; his desire to help me draw near to Christ to be earnest and authentic; and his advice to be practical and wise. This will be the first book I will recommend to anyone who has felt like a failure in prayer and longs to encounter Jesus in every page of Scripture.
—Abe Cho, Redeemer City to City, New York
This accessible book on praying the Psalms is packed with insight and wisdom and is bound to be of enormous help to readers intent on deepening their faith and their prayer life. I warmly commend it!
—Iain Provan, Regent College, Vancouver
- Part 1: A Psalmic Orientation
- The Ancient Path
- The Psalter as Spiritual Formation
- How to Pray the Psalms
- Part 2: The Psalmic Experience
- Choosing to Believe
- The Rock of Our Refuge
- Prayers of Righteousness
- Praying Against Evil
- The Silence of God
- Relating to God
- Meeting God
- Title: When You Don't Have the Words: Praying the Psalms
- Author: Reed S. Dunn
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Publication Date: 2025
- Pages: 224
- Format: Logos Digital, Paperback
- Trim Size: 5.25x8
- ISBN: 9781683598060
Reed S. Dunn is the pastor of Redeemer Hudson, New Jersey. He cares deeply about pastoral care and spiritual formation.