Personal Log 10.29.21

We live in an hour where the faith of many are being shaken, for some it's a good thing, for others it's a scary thing & they may be sinking a little…

My advice is this: ground yourself in the Word. 

Be mindful of your gates, both your eye gates & your ear gates, be careful what you allow in the garden of your spirit & your soul.

Saturate yourself in the written Word, focus on the Word made flesh & you will not sink. Peter started to sink because he was distracted, he took his eyes off of the Word. The Word is always above the circumstances, the waves/storms of life, the Word reaches out & lifts you up & causes you to rise above.

Multitasking is great at times but not when you're at your charging station (quiet time, devotionals, intense Bible Study, personal worship, etc). Before I started having some vision issues I would turn everything off & have my trifecta before me: a notebook, an open Bible & a Strong's concordance, then dive deep into Scripture. If I was unsure of something, I'd read several commentaries to get the gist of just how this was supposed to be interpreted & applied. Now I have Biblegateway, Blue Letter Bible & a simple text editor to jot down thoughts but like before, I turn everything else off to eliminate distractions so I can focus solely on the Word & what the Holy Spirit is revealing to me.

Psalm 119:11 “Thy Word ('imrâ = word of God) have I hidden (ṣāp̄an = treasure/store up) in my heart that I might not sin against Thee”

Intimacy w/ the Lord is huge, it's a really big deal. A couple of weeks ago I headed up the Men's Group & we all sat in the darkened Sanctuary for 30 – 40 minutes, not saying a word, just calming our souls & meditating on the person of Jesus, it was great practicing the spiritual discipline of being quiet before the Lord (Psalm 46:10, Psalm 62:10).

The word generally used for intimacy in the Hebrew is the word yāḏaʿ, it's found in so many interesting places & contexts, let me refer you to Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (daʿaṯ = discernment, understanding, wisdom from yāḏaʿ = to be acquainted with). This verse could literally read “My people are destroyed for lack of intimacy”.

Other verses dealing w/ intimacy:

Daniel 11:32 "a people who know (yada) their God will be strong & do great exploits"

Daniel 12:4 "knowledge (daʿaṯ) will increase..."

Habakkuk 2:14 “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge (yada) of the glory of the LORD” 

If you're not grounded/intimate w/ both the written Word & the Living Word, chances are when the storms of life come you'll find yourself below the water line.