This summer I had a bit of a reset with my devotional life.  During my time off, I decided to meditate through Psalm 119 in the Legacy Standard Bible translation.  What I found to be extremely helpful was to take up a clean journal and write my way through each passage.  I would read a section of Scripture and mediate by writing a prayer and response to what stood out to me in the text.  Inevitably, whatever the psalmist was praying about began to impact how I prayed in the context of my own life circumstances. This is simply the spiritual discipline called meditation.  Such devotion prompted me to communicate back and forth with God and has been so sweet, refreshing, and essential to my spiritual life. 

As a Bible preacher, I often rely on my weekly routine of studying passages that I will preach to keep me spiritually refreshed.  Seeking the meaning of a text within its original context and then applying this to my heart in anticipation of preaching it is powerful.  The adage holds true that you know you really understand something when you can teach it to someone else. Even Einstein agreed to this relationship in saying, “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” So, the regular accountability from week-to-week pulpit work is important and essential, to my own personal walk with God.  

At the same time, preparing sermons or any form of Bible teaching is not a one-for-one for spiritual fulfillment. There is something else that is essential; namely, pouring out my soul to God.  David modeled such deep devotion for us in the Psalms.  Jesus exemplified this reliance on the Father when he withdrew to pray, often all night long.  Paul poured out His heart in one of the longest prayers in Scripture as he remembered the people he loved and served. He even made mention of them by name along with their needs. We cannot escape the cloud of witnesses who were not only students of the Bible but were also deeply affected by it.    

Praying is personal and to experience a genuine devotional life you must engage God with all your soul (Deuteronomy 6:5). Your devotional life is more than finding the meaning of a text to clearly communicate it.  Walking with God is living your life out loud with him, and there is no substitute for that.  He speaks to you in His Word, and you speak to Him (Hebrews 1:1–2). 

There is a real danger to the soul when someone is willing to professionalize their spiritual life.  It is a mistake to think that slick pastors are the only ones vulnerable to succumb to this temptation.  Christian schoolteachers, homeschool moms, lay leaders or Sunday school teachers, and even Christian school kids and kids in youth groups often fall prey to this sin.  When the Bible strictly becomes a curriculum or a homework assignment, there is a risk of failure on a heart level.  God’s Word tells us that Scripture is powerful, living, and active whether someone is soft-hearted or hard-hearted toward it (Hebrews 4:12). This means when you read, hear, or are taught the Bible it is having one of two effects on you: softening your heart or hardening it.     

Meditating on Scripture maintains a soft heart.  Such a heart stays open to God. When your heart is affected by God’s overwhelming grace in your life, there is an amazing effect. You will desire to devote your time to God’s Word which will have an amazing impact on how you engage in your day-to-day life. By going to God’s Word, you go to God, and in doing so, you will see deficits you would have otherwise been blind to.  By going to God’s Word, you go to God and will see new ways to praise and thank him for all the many ways he is providing for you.  By going to God’s Word, you go to a God who will take all your anxieties and burdens as you lay them down at his feet.  By going to God’s Word, you are moved to go to God and pray for others. At the same time, going to God’s Word can actually be a burden if approached with the wrong motivation.      

I personally, have tried to pray through directories and prayer lists and have found this to be stifling.  At least this has been the case for me.  I have also struggled to keep to a regimented Bible reading plan. Starting from a duty to prayer lists or stringent reading plans puts me into a competitive frame of mind. It’s like I’m in a wrestling match and the opponent is the fear of failing to do my assignment. Wouldn’t I be a spiritual failure if I lost? Here is the problem with my goal-oriented devotional regimen, its end is fear-based results and not meeting with the Lord whom I love. Please hear me when I say, you should do what works for you.  I am confessing my weaknesses by way of help to someone who might resonate here.  For me, praying through a list can easily turn into an exercise where I process names more than interceding for their lives.  On the other hand, I have found great success by praying through an informed church directory list as I pray out loud with the fellow pastor-elders here at Anchorage Grace Church. This kind of focused attention, interceding on behalf of our flock for specific requests has been very powerful and even invigorating.      

Spurgeon brings to our attention an important truth that helps begin to wrap up my point, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” If devotions are not simply reading plans, what are they? I would submit that God’s inspired reading plan is found in the Psalms.  In terms of what the Bible offers in its totality, the Psalms are a one-of-a-kind collection of devotional life. They are the expression of what communing with God looks like and sounds like.  These poetic songs are heart cries of the soul and basic testimonies of desperation where a child of the Lord is reaching up to God, desperate to hear him answer.  Psalms are like proverbial tracks engineered to run you on when you seek to communicate with God.      

We misunderstand their purpose when we overcomplicate questions regarding where and how much or how little we think we are supposed to read.  Asking, “How much is enough?” or “How much is overkill?” are not the questions we should be asking.  Here is the awkward part of my blog. I am going to now recommend a plan after spending a lot of time tearing apart the idea of having a plan. There are two parts to my plan. First do not have a plan that is based on what you will accomplish. Second, do have a plan that has the goal of drawing you closer to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

This was the case for me this summer as I journaled and prayed through Psalm 119 and benefited so much that I went back to Psalm 1 and began to work through each chapter, one at a time, day by day.  Being affected by the greatness of God displayed in the life of the psalmist motivated me to draw even closer to God through more of His Word.

Psalm 1

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the way of sinners, 

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 

2 But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, 

And in His law he meditates day and night. 

3 And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, 

Which yields its fruit in its season

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,

But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not rise in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.