Psalms, Prayer Book of the Bible - Bonhoeffer

Here are some quotes from Bonhoeffer's book on the Psalms. I really love this book, and it has opened up the wonder and mystery of the Psalms to me, and learning that Jesus prays the Psalms along with us is most wonderful thought.


All these quotes are from Chapter 1.

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.

The disciples want to pray, but they do not know how to do it. That can be very painful, to want to speak with God and not be able to, to have to be speechless before God.

If one among us who is able to pray would only take the other along in his prayer, if we could pray along with him, then we could be helped!

If he (Jesus) takes us with him in his prayer, if we are privileged to pray along with him, if he lets us accompany him on his way to God and teaches us to pray, then we are free from the agony of prayerlessness. But that is precisely what Jesus Christ wants to do. He wants to pray with us and to have us pray with him, so that we may be confident and glad that God hears us,

The child learns to speak because his father speaks to him. ... So we learn to speak to God because GOd has spoken to us and speaks to us.