The Psalms of Disorientation

The Psalms of Disorientation are prayers that question God, God’s ways, and God’s presence, from a place of pain, failure, disappointment or persecution. These are the “winter psalms.”  These prayers train us stop in the middle of the messiness of life and bring it all before God, including our raw and honest emotions of sadness, fear, and anger. Of the three ‘movements’ of psalms (orientation, disorientation, reorientation) more psalms fall in the disorientation stage than any other.

Click on individual psalms listed below for links to prayer guides. This website is a work in progress. New guides and new music are regularly added.

Note on the hard sayings of the psalter: A subgenre of biblical lament, the ‘cursing psalms’ are honest and gritty prayers that God’s people have prayed in the face of evil and injustice in the world. Should a follower of Jesus pray these raw and angry prayers today? If so, how and when? See the introduction below.