What Word Are You Standing on Today?

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Abba, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Abba, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  Psalm 119:9–11 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?     By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart;     do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart     that I might not sin against you. CONSIDER THIS She was always there. It was like Mrs. Betty Jane was always waiting on me there in her furniture store on Main Street in my childhood hometown of Dumas, Arkansas. Of course, she wasn't waiting on me, though being with her made it feel as such. Sometimes when you show up somewhere unannounced people can make you feel like an interruption. There are those rare people who make you feel like you were the plan. Mrs. Betty Jane was the latter.  On every visit, like clockwork, she greeted me with this question: “John David, what word are you standing on today?” At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. But you know. She wanted to know what word from God—specifically what Scripture text, I was staking my life and faith on that day. She always knew the word on which she stood and rarely would it be the same word she had said before. It had most often come out of her morning time in the Word with the Lord. Upon being asked, she would say something like, "Psalm 119:11, 'I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.' Psalm 119:11."  In classic spelling-bee form, she would cite the verse, say the verse, and then cite the verse again. And my, how she loved Psalm 119; the longest chapter in the whole Bible.  She had the most well-read Bible in town. She began every year with a brand new Bible and proceeded to read it through before the year was out. She wrote almost as many words in her hand along the margins as were already written by the hand of God. (I’d give anything to have one of those Bibles now.) She loved the Word of God because she loved the God of the Word. She would say things to me like, “John David, you can’t do the will of God unless you know the Word of God.” I learned from her how to stand on a word; how to lift it off the page and plant it like a seed in my heart. She taught me to read the Scriptures until they were reading me; to keep it on the tip of my tongue, a ready-word in and out of season. She trained me to read past shallow learning and into the depths of soul-understanding.  Outside of my family, Mrs. Betty Jane was the first real Christian I ever knew. Sure, I knew lots of religious Christians, but she was the real deal. She didn’t salute the authority of Scripture like a flag or creed. She lived it. And because Scripture was her authority, she walked in authority. She had, as it was often said of Jesus, “an authority unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees.” As our little town declined and business after business closed, her furniture store somehow held on. There was a steady stream of people through the doors, but they weren’t coming to buy furniture. They were coming to see Mrs. Betty Jane. They were looking for prayer, a word of blessing or counsel, and, more often than not, help with the rent or the water bill. I miss her, but I’ll never forget her. I never speak of her that I don’t also speak of God and the Scriptures. Because she stood on a word that endures forever—her memory forever endures. She taught me to stand on a word. And now she is teaching you. THE PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION Father, thank you for Mrs. Betty Jane and all the people she inspired many of us to remember today from our past lives. Help us to become those kinds of people for others now. Cause your presence in us to create spaciousness for others—like we were waiting for them to show up—like they were part of our plan. Train me to be uninterruptible, ever open to receive your plan for my days. Something tells me that's what people who stand on the Word of God become like. Would you teach me to stand on a word? It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good.   Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!