WATCH TODAY’S EPISODE ON YOUTUBE.
CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
Proverbs 7:1–4 NIV
My son, keep my words
and store up my commands within you.
Keep my commands and you will live;
guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.
Bind them on your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and to insight, “You are my relative.”
CONSIDER THIS . . .
The celebrated Trappist monk Thomas Merton once remarked about reading Scripture, “Cover less ground more slowly.” It’s a wise word.
One of the short rhyming sayings I often speak to the children at my church is this one:
“Bit by bit, day by day, the Word of God will light our way.”
To “keep words,” and to “store them up” and to guard them “as the apple of your eye,” calls for a long, slow, and steady pace. It’s far more like a close familial relationship than a crash course. Today’s text tells us to say to wisdom, “You are my sister.”
Somewhere along the way in the modern church, we began reading Scripture with the goals of speed, mastery, and personal relevance. We want to read the whole Bible in a year or less, and we want to gain immediately applicable, relevant biblical knowledge to solve our problems and make us better people.
This isn’t how biblical wisdom works. I’m with Brother Louis (a.k.a. Thomas Merton), “Cover less ground more slowly.” Dwell on these words. Ponder and pray through them. The goal isn’t to quickly delve into the text in order to extract something out. Rather than extraction, we need an immersion approach.
The hope is to become immersed in the Word of God to the end that the worldview of wisdom slowly begins to shape our view of the world and our vision of God. It’s not about leaving our world to go into the Bible to get something to take back to our world. It’s about a fusion of the horizon of Scripture with the horizon of our own lives and communities. As we read our way into the Word, the Spirit will lead our path into the world.
I often find my own prayers can wear me out. I get stuck in the ruts of my own words and weary of seemingly going nowhere with them. When I “keep” and “store up” the wisdom of God in my heart, it has a way of getting me unstuck. These words are substantial and dense with meaning. They are going somewhere, and I am relieved of the burden of finding the way. My work is to follow after them.
I often find the simple practice of slowly storing up the wisdom of God in my heart doesn’t feel all that spiritual at the time, but it always leads to a more authentic life in the power of the Holy Spirit. I find my own well-intentioned intensity and earnestness get in the way more often than not. Wisdom is not simplistic, but it is a simple way.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you are the wisdom of heaven on earth—pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. You are my wisdom, and I am your witness. I want to know you better today. Praying in your name, amen.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
How are you keeping and storing up the words of God in your heart? If you are not actively about this work of storing up the wisdom of the Word of God in your heart, where is your wisdom coming from?
SING
Today, we will sing “Standing on the Promises” (hymn 434) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
John David (J. D.) Walt Jr. is the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed and the pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas.
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7 Responses
Storing up the Word by remembering, and remembering by daily repetition.
Living By Proverbs 7:1-4
I’ve spent 5 1/2 decades devouring the Bible and storing up God’s words within me. I’ve diligently sought to absorb and obey His words. They’ve been the apple of my eye. I’ve read them almost every day, as a living love letter written directly to me, not like a dry theology textbook. I daily dwell on them, ponder them, savor them, let them work in me, allow them to change me, and let them direct how I live and pray.
Little by little God has written His words on the tablet of my heart. They have gradually been stored up within me. God’s wisdom continually calls, challenges, and comforts me like a dear relative and best friend. Everyday my fingers type it on my keyboard, and I post it far and wide. (Proverbs 7:1-4) “Bit by bit, day by day, the Word of God will light our way.”
How I Write
I wake up very early each morning with words floating into my awareness, some individually and some in groups. They begin repeat themselves and little by little and to assemble themselves into sentences.
I don’t want to get up so early, but eventually several sentences are dancing together in my consciousness. I realize that if I don’t arise and write them down, I might forget them. So I raise myself out of bed and post those intruding thoughts on Facebook. As I do more words and thoughts drift into my awareness and arrange into more sentences.
Eventually the flow slows to a trickle. The last several years I’ve been going to The Wake-Up Call by Seedbed. (Google it for a great blessing.) There I copy and paste the sentences (that I’ve posted on Facebook) in the comment space of the Wake-Up Call blog in whatever order that I feel prompted. After that I read their blog, and it causes a few more sentences to come to me. I add those sentences to what I’ve written in their comment section and post it all there.
Next, I copy what I’ve posted on Wake-Up Call and go to my WordPress blog called Free Gas For Your Think Tank. (You can also google it.) WordPress has a feature called “dailyprompt” which gives an idea to write about each day. I click on it and what I have written matches the “daily prompt.” A few more sentences float through me and I add them and post it all on my blog.
Finally, I post a link to my blog on my Facebook page. Then I go to X and break apart my blog into individual sentences or sections posting them on the former Twitter as tweets.
This process of usually takes two to three hours. This morning the floating words suggested that I describe how they work in and through me. That’s what I’ve just done.
Also, before I got out of bed this morning this poem also developed in my mind:
How I Pray in Tongues
As I speak up
Words I don’t know
Begin to flow
From deep within
Releasing love,
Joy, peace, and hope
And awareness
Of God’s presence.
That’s the essence
Of how I pray
In other tongues
And languages.
Spirit- given,
O what a thrill,
I taste and see
Jesus is real.
Steve, thank you for sharing. I always go to your comments to add to the instructions in the Wake Up Call.
Thanks for sharing this! I look forward to reading your comments.
“O God, we are like little children going to school, beginning to spell out by slow processes a name written into the nature of things, and that name is turning out to be ‘J-e-s-u-s.’ To that name every knee shall bow. Amen” (E. Stanley Jones, In Christ, January 7)
I have used The Bible Recap several years now and I am so thankful that I found that plan. It got me to reading the Bible every day and helped me to understand the background and the audience that the chapters were addressing. She kept reminding me to look for God and learn of his nature through the words. Reading three to four chapters a day helps me see the bigger picture than just a few verses from a chapter, and she encourages to dig deeper into the scriptures through additional Bible study. For someone who has trouble getting into the Bible every day, the plan is a great way to start the journey! But it is not the end of the journey, by any means….
I listen to WUC and The Bible Recap. TBR is daily scripture reading (or listening) followed by helpful commentary (the recap). It has been an immeasurable help in my studies. Definitely scripture and transformation focused!