The Psalms and Spiritual Disciplines

      So, I took a few days away from the internet. Christmas was busy, and I needed a bit of a Sabbath rest, even from some of the good things. But I am back and ready to share what I plan to do this year with my family.


      I view my children as covenant children. I do not know if God will choose to save them, but I trust that He will, and I am going to teach and train them in a home that reflects the hope and promises of God. One way I can do that is by instilling in them the love for spiritual disciplines using God's very own Word as my anchor.

    I plan to plant my discipline training firmly in the Psalms this year. One of the reasons for this is that there are so many books coming out on the Psalms right now. There seems to be a revival of sorts to read and study the Psalms. I am jumping on that band wagon (because I think it's a good one). Not only will we go through some spiritual disciplines using the Psalms as examples, but we will also look at the different types of Psalms there are and how to properly read and apply them to our lives today. This may seem like a deep thing for kids, but I believe they are never to young to be fed the meat of the Word. And if you don't have children, please join us anyway!

    The Psalms can easily connect to many of the spiritual disciplines that we will go through. Below are just a few:

• Praise: Singing the Word
• Prayer: Praying the Word
• Memorizing: Treasuring the Word
• Meditating: Savoring the Word
• Bible Study: Learning the Word
• Obedience: Delighting in the Word

  

    I plan to take about one discipline each month and give resources. And since I enjoyed singing through the hymnal so much last year, I am going to include a song with each post to help keep that up as well (since singing is one of the disciplines).

   So, this might be a bit of a crazy journey, but I think this will be good for my children... and for my own soul. I hope you will join me as I seek after the Word.  

If you don't have a copy, make sure you grab one of these. This is by far the best book on spiritual disciplines. I remember when my dad had Don Whitney come to our church when I was younger and how overwhelmed I was (in a good way) with the Word of God. I can still remember sitting in the services taking feverish notes on praying through Scripture. This book is one of the few I can say that has changed my life. Whitney has been a good family friend to us and is a godly man.