DR. LANDON GALLOWAY

I try to pray through the Psalms regularly. They have been the prayer book of God’s people for thousands of years, shaping the inner life of both Israel and the Church. They give us rhythms of lament and praise, protest and surrender. They remind us that prayer is not just about neat words we offer up to God, but about raw cries from the human heart that dare to believe God is listening.

But if I am honest, I sometimes struggle to relate. Not because I do not believe the Psalms, but because right now life is pretty good. I am not in a season of crisis. I do not have enemies hunting me down. I am not hiding in caves, dodging spears, or pacing the floor at three in the morning wondering if God has abandoned me.

I have my fair share of challenges, and there are things I am still waiting on God to do. And yes, some people annoy me, maybe more than a few, but I would not go so far as to ask God to “break their teeth” as David once prayed.

So, what do I do with a psalm like Psalm 10?

“Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)

“In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.” (Psalm 10:4)

“He says to himself, ‘God will never notice;  he covers his face and never sees.’” (Psalm 10:11)

Usually, I have prayed this psalm by identifying with the afflicted. I imagine myself as the one crying for justice, surrounded by “the wicked” who live carelessly and act like God will never hold them accountable.

But upon a recent reading of the psalm, something else struck me. What if this psalm is talking about me?

What if I am the one who sometimes lives as if God is not watching? What if I am the one who fills my schedule and my mind so full that there is “no room for God” in my thoughts? What if my comfort has dulled my awareness, and I have unconsciously slipped into the role of the oppressor, or at least the indifferent bystander?

It is easy to read Scripture as the protagonist. We cast ourselves as the hero of the story.

I am David, slaying giants.

I am the Good Samaritan, showing compassion.

I am Peter, preaching boldly on the day of Pentecost. 

I am the Prodigal Son, broken, but running toward grace.

But what if sometimes I am not the hero?

What if I am the Israelites, more focused on the size of the giant than the size of my God?

What if I am the priest or the Levite, passing by someone’s pain because I do not want to get messy?

What if I am not Peter preaching, but one of the skeptical listeners who thinks they are too sophisticated for the Spirit?

What if I am the older brother sulking on the porch, angry that grace does not feel fair?

Psalm 10 confronts me with a sobering possibility. I might be more like “the wicked” than I care to admit.

There is a haunting line in verse 4: “In all his thoughts there is no room for God.”

Notice, the Psalmist does not say the wicked man has no belief in God. It is not about atheism in the intellectual sense. It is about a crowded life that has pushed God out of the margins. This is what theologians call practical atheism.

Practical atheism does not deny God exists, it just lives as if He does not matter.

It shows up in a cluttered soul that is too distracted to pray. It creeps in when I justify my apathy and call it “healthy boundaries.” It hides in the way I leverage my money, my influence, or my platform more for my own benefit than for others. It whispers when I quietly assume grace is abundant for me, but accountability is optional for me.

The Psalms do not just give me words for pain. They give me vision to see myself honestly. Sometimes, they reveal that the one who needs confronting is me.

When we pray the Psalms, we often approach them as therapy. And that is not wrong. They have comforted countless believers across centuries, meeting us in grief, betrayal, and despair. But if we only use the Psalms for comfort, we miss half their gift.

The Psalms do not just help me voice my hurt. They also help me face my sin. They remind me that prayer is not only about healing my wounds, but also about correcting my ways.

Psalm 10 does not only reassure me that God sees the afflicted. It also forces me to ask whether I have become too comfortable, too self-sufficient, too proud to seek Him. It presses me to examine my life for places where I act like God will not notice.

And that is where the Psalms become more than prayers. They become mirrors.

For leaders, this reading is especially important. It is easy to live as if our vision, charisma, and discipline are enough to carry the day. We may affirm God with our lips, but functionally, we operate as if the outcomes rest entirely on our shoulders.

That is not only exhausting; it’s dangerous. 

Psalm 10 reminds us that the great temptation of leadership is not outright rebellion against God, but quiet disregard for Him. We do not stop believing, we just stop making room.

The tragedy is that when leaders leave no room for God in their thoughts, everyone under their care suffers. Congregations, teams, and families absorb the consequences of leadership divorced from divine dependence.

So the psalm asks us: Are we leading prayerfully or presumptuously? Do we shape our schedules around God, or fit God in wherever He is convenient? Do we preach a gospel of grace, while secretly believing we can run the mission without Him?

What I love most about the Psalms is that they refuse to let me stay comfortable. They comfort me in grief, but they also confront me in complacency. They give me language to cry out when I am afflicted, but they also give me the courage to confess when I am the afflicter.

Praying Psalm 10 is not only about identifying my enemies. It is about allowing God to identify the enemy within.

That is why praying the Psalms regularly matters. Left to myself, I pray the prayers I want to pray, the ones that ask God to fix my problems, to open doors, to bless my efforts. But when I submit myself to the Psalms, I pray the prayers God wants me to pray, prayers of repentance, self-examination, and realignment.

Here is the good news. Even when the Psalms expose me, grace still meets me.

The Psalms do not end in despair, even when they begin with accusation. They lead us through confrontation into hope. Psalm 10 may force me to see the places where I have squeezed God out of my thoughts, but it also reminds me that God is not absent forever. The psalmist ends with confidence that God does, in fact, see, notice, and act.

And because of the cross, I can face the exposure honestly. I do not have to pretend to be the hero of every story. I can admit that sometimes I am the villain, or at least the apathetic bystander, because Jesus has already borne my guilt and offered me His grace.

So, I keep praying the hard psalms – not only the ones that comfort me, but the ones that correct me. Because they do not just remind me that God is near when I am hurting; they remind me that God is Lord when I am drifting.

That, too, is mercy.

The Psalms invite us into a deeper kind of prayer. Not the kind that only soothes my wounds, but the kind that reshapes my soul. Not the kind that only rehearses my hurts, but the kind that confronts my pride.

And in that confrontation, I find what I did not even know I was missing: the grace that comes when I make room for God again.