Pathlight to Praise

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

Hebrews 4:12

If I’m being honest, for the first twenty-four years of my life I rolled my eyes at the Psalms. I know, I know – the Holy Spirit has had plenty of material to work with in my life. Whenever someone would say that their favorite book of the Bible was Psalms or that their favorite Psalm was such and such I would just shake my head. I’m not remotely drawn to poetry or poetic language and found the language in Psalms just too flowy for my taste. I mean, most chapters could probably be summarized in a sentence or two rather than verse after verse after verse – if Paul was artsy (and he lived a thousand years earlier) he would definitely have been the king of long drawn out Psalms! Give me an Epistle any day over a Psalm.

And that was my attitude for over two decades. That is, until a storm came into our lives that changed the entire trajectory of where we were headed: from overseas tribal church planters to…? Only the Lord knew because we certainly didn’t have a clue what was next. Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe how much we were hurt. Just a few months later, after the Lord decidedly closed that door to a future we thought we would have, I was sitting on the back patio of my Nana and Papa’s home reading the new Bible Cameron had given me earlier that year. I decided that I should read through the Psalms and, lo and behold, as I was reading through chapter after chapter of this book that I had long neglected, do you know what I read? I read me. All of the emotions that I couldn’t ascribe words to because they were just a giant tangled ball of mess inside of me I was now seeing on paper through the psalmist. All of the pain, all of the frustration, all of the anger, all of the cries for justice, it was all there. Verses that I had heard repeatedly growing up, studied at Bible college, and skimmed through for years were now practically written in bold size seventy-two font. That day the Lord and I built a core memory together as He met me through the pages of His Word and we began to work through that tangled up messy ball of pain and the Lord led me, with the Psalms acting as a pathlight, from the darkness of pain to a place of praising Him.

Recently I heard it said that, because the Psalms are written from places of such deep emotion, we struggle to learn from them until we ourselves are in a place of deep emotion. Couple that with the knowledge that Scripture is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12) it is truly amazing how the Spirit works through His Word! We can read the same passage (or in my case, an entire book) a dozen times and then, one day, it’s as if the Holy Spirit is saying, “Hold up a moment. Let’s read that again.” and He then proceeds to minister to us on a heart level through His Word. What a truly good and gracious God we serve that He desires us to know Him and has given us His Word through which we can and, on top of that, He gives us His Spirit to teach us.

Not only that, but He has uniquely gifted each believer in such a way to further the equipping of His church and thus magnify His glory (1 Corinthians 12). One of the ways He is training up His church are through teachers and what a blessing it is that we can learn from others! If you’re like me and not naturally drawn to the Psalms or struggle to glean from it or maybe you’re looking for a supplemental resource for your daily quiet time with the Lord, I highly recommend that you check out Pathlight to Praise. In this 150-day devotional you will be guided through all 150 Psalms as an excellent resource to then springboard into a deeper personal study for yourself. We are blessed to have Kristi Neace as part of our Watermark Church faith family and I am doubly blessed to call her my mother-in-law! I truly believe the Lord will use her newest book to minister to the hearts of many as He draws us into studying His heart displayed in the book of Psalms.

About the Author

Caitlin Neace is a fulltime pastor’s wife. She and and her husband, Cameron, and their two cats, Pierogi and Poptart, have called Union home since July 2023. When not working on her Pampered Chef business, Caitlin enjoys playing board games, puzzles, reading, watching dystopian movies, and organizing – spreadsheets are her best friend!