Seven "Go-to" Psalms

The Psalms

I recently heard (thank you, Lourine Clark!) about a spiritual discipline that Eugene Peterson practiced throughout his life. He prayerfully selected seven psalms from the Bible that he felt would “cover the waterfront” of his spiritual needs. He then made a commitment to let those psalms change his life. He would read them, meditate on them, commit them to memory, and pray them back to God as needs arose. I am confident that Peterson did not neglect the rest of the psalter. But he wanted a limited set of psalms to penetrate his heart and transform his character.

I imagine that, to do it well, a project like this would take a lot of time. Memorizing seven psalms would not be an easy task for me. In an interview, Peterson said, “I picked pretty long psalms, so I’d have to work at it.” I suspect that, for most of us, it might be wiser just to start with one psalm and see what happens.

But if you were to select seven “go-to” psalms, which would you chose? The idea intrigues me, and I might give it a try. I am not sure which psalms I would select, but I suspect I would need:

  • A psalm of praise (ex. 18, 33, 92, 95, 100, 103, 107, 111, 138, 146, 150)
  • A psalm of lament (ex. 6, 13, 22, 44, 56, 71, 77, 88, 142)
  • A psalm of comfort & assurance (ex. 2, 3, 16, 23, 27, 34, 37, 40, 46, 62, 63, 91, 112, 121, 139, 147)
  • A psalm of confession & pardon (ex. 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143)
  • A “warfare psalm” that asks God to fight for me (ex. 7, 9, 10, 35, 41, 59, 68, 69, 143)
  • A wisdom psalm that teaches me to follow God’s way (ex. 1, 14, 19, 37, 73, 90, 112, 119, 127)
  • A messianic psalm that points me to Jesus (ex. 2, 8, 16, 22, 24, 45, 89, 110)

Which seven psalms would you choose?