January 20, 2022
Psalm 1:1-3 NIV
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
CONSIDER THIS
Good morning Anchor Buddies! Let’s try this one today:
ME: I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits. . .
YOU: And in his word I put my hope.
By the way, that is Psalm 130:5, my first word, last word text for the year. I am learning to speak it aloud upon waking, in the quiet stillness, before I get out of bed. Once I say it aloud, I find the words begin to plow through the field of my mind. Scripture often comes to us in the first instance as a prescriptive text. In other words, it is prescribing some way of thinking or intentioning or acting. But the more I engage with a text, the more it becomes descriptive—creating the very reality of which it speaks.
As an example, I will read and say, “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope,” and I will think, “Yes, that is what I need to do. I need to wait on the Lord and to hope in his Word. Of course! I need to be more patient.” It becomes something I should try harder to focus around and work on. “But when will I do that,” I wonder. It is so easy for it to remain as a kind of prescription which I carry as a good intention. But when I begin to dwell on the text—the biblical word is “meditate”—turning the words over in my mind, allowing them to roam freely through my heart and soul, I find myself actually experiencing what it says.
I discover as I ruminate on the words, “I wait on the Lord, my whole being waits. . .,” I find myself waiting on the Lord and focusing on gathering up all the parts of myself and bringing them into some integrated sense of my whole being.” My mind, heart, soul, physical body, strength, feelings, passions, all of it, comes into the waiting room. The text begins to describe the very thing that is happening. Yes, I am waiting for the Lord, my whole being is waiting. And as I find myself in the waiting place, I am in fact, hoping in his Word.
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.
As long as I focus on this text as something I need to do, I am not doing it. When I dwell on the word itself, it begins to create the reality. Psalm 84 offers another great example of this dynamic of prescriptive vs. descriptive at work.
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
This text tells the deepest truth of every human being who has ever walked the face of the earth. Blessed are the ones who come into an aligned agreement with it. Just saying it doesn’t make it so. It takes anchoring down into the text, laying claim to it and allowing it to lay claim to you. To say that God’s Word does not return to him voice is to say God’s Word designs the world it declares. To engage the Word of God in this fashion is to be shaped by the Word.
This is a deep thought today. Do you read me? ;0)
Again Anchor Buddies,
ME: I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits. . .
YOU: And in his word I put my hope.
THE PRAYER
Yes, Lord, I am weary of my own best intentions. They are so seductive and yet so superficial. I don’t want to be shaped by my best intentions but rather by the Word of God’s powerful action. I want to come into deep hearted alignment and clear minded affirmation of your Word. Help me understand the working of your Word and how my working needs to give way to waiting on you. Holy Spirit, interpret this way of the Word to me. I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
THE QUESTION
Are you ready to trade your own prescriptive initiative of what you think you ought and should be doing and doing more of to structure and strengthen your faith—which is a heavy burden—for the easy yoke of allowing the substance of the Word of God to shape your life? This can be a very hard concept to grasp. Stay with it.
For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com