A Kind of Rhythm

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. ~ Psalm 119:130

Jeremiah captures my sentiments exactly when he wrote, “When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight.” God’s written Word…I can think of nothing more intimate and amazing. What a tremendous Ebenezer!!

There’s another form of God’s word that stirs within me. His spoken word, through the Holy Spirit. Hearing from the Lord through conversation, prayer, thanksgiving and praise, and petition is so sweet.

The beautiful pairing of knowing the Lord and hearing from Him through His written Word and spoken word is summed up nicely by John Piper:

I don't think there is anything more basic to knowing the supremacy of Christ, loving Him, and obeying Him—and being the church for each other and for the sake of the world—than to hear God speak to us in His Word and then to speak back to Him with the praises and the longings of our hearts.

God has ordained for Himself to be known primarily by the Word. Through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we are enabled to read that book with illumination and let our hearts cry back to Him what we see in it. It becomes a kind of rhythm.

It is absolutely crucial that my prayer be saturated with the Word and that my Bible reading be saturated with prayer, because this is how we commune with God. And this communion of hearing and speaking is what leads to our transformation, which is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Here is an example of that kind of rhythm…

Pray the beatitudes: Father, grant that we would recognize our poverty of spirit. Let us mourn for our sins and not be indifferent or unconcerned for our own soul. Work a meekness into our heart. Grant us to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Give us the heart of a peacemaker and a reconciler. Make us pure and keep us pure, O Lord. And if You will for us to be persecuted, give us grace to count it all joy and to remember that our reward is great in heaven (source: www.desiringgod.org).