Reflection: Attentiveness / meditation
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11
By paying attention to something or someone, you might as well be reaching into your wallet.
You’re bestowing that something with value.
What’s more, by giving attention to something you might increase its value to others. It’s an investment, be it a meal, a bouquet, a book, art, music, poetry…
Psalm 119 is one such poem. In this, the longest of the psalms, the author is meditating on God’s word. He’s treasuring it. He cogitates on The Law and then expresses his reflections through an acrostic poem based on the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. That, fellow readers, is a monumental meditation! In the psalm, he memorizes the Law, sings it, personifies it, obeys it, wears it, eats it, bathes in it, is soothed by it, convicted by it, guided by it, defended by it… Repetitive it may be, but it’s rich enough in imagery and truth for one Puritan pastor to preach it in 190 sermons!*
Faced with today’s “wealth of information that creates a poverty of attention” (Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize–winning economist), how can you and I better prepare to listen to God?
Where will we choose to spend some attention today?
Prayer: Glorious Father, give us your Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so we may know you better. Open the eyes of our hearts that we may be enlightened to know the hope to which you’ve called us, the riches of our glorious inheritance, and your incomparably great power for us who believe.… And may we, your holy people, rooted and established in love, have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And, knowing this love that surpasses knowledge, may we be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 1:17-18; 3:17-19)
*Thomas Manton, which are published in three volumes.