Here is a challenge for the coming year. Look at the Psalms and the singing of the Psalms in a new light. In so doing, trust the Lord to use this means to put your soul “in tune” that you might better live each day in response to the work of Jesus Christ.

The Psalms give you a divinely guided tour of your emotions and their appropriate expression. John Calvin puts it this way: “I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, ‘An Anatomy of all parts of the Soul’; for there is not an emotion of which any can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated” (The Author’s Preface, Commentary upon the Psalms; Baker, xxxvi-xxxvii).

Geerhardus Vos follows Calvin in this understanding of the psalter. “The deeper ...