Every once in a while, God places ordinary people on our paths who live extraordinary lives of faith. The first thing we notice about these “heroes of the faith” is that they know they are only ordinary people. The difference about them is in what they love, the choices they make, the patterns and habits and practices that mold them.
They are not just “special people,” born with extraordinary abilities and giftedness. But they make choices and are willing to respond differently.
Mark the faithful ones. Psalm 37. 37 Watch carefully what they do. How do they strengthen themselves spiritually?
How would that look in our own everyday lives?
Tim Keller was one of those people. He connected the dots between God’s Word and prayer as if his life depended on it. Because it did. He would be the first person to admit that.
For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You. 2 Chronicles 20.12
One of Keller’s spiritual secrets is no secret. For about the past 20 years, he read through the book of Psalms every month. In what sounds like an impossible venture, Keller was only following a morning and evening schedule first published in 1549 in The Book of Common Prayer. Keller followed the schedule, covering about five psalms a day, morning and night, the bookends of his day.
…but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law He meditates day and night. Psalm 1.2
Keller knew what it was doing to him. God’s Word was shaping him. Not just memorizing or praying the psalms, but his own prayers were engraved by the psalms.
In a podcast, Keller noted that in the Psalms, we find ways to express our particular emotions before God. “In the Psalms, you have every possible situation. The more you read the Psalms, the more you will know how to pray.”
Through the decades, Keller experienced that impact on his life. “When the psalms are coming through 150 every 30 days, there are going to be psalms that grab you….When I feel anxiety, I keep my psalms up and my exercise up,” said Keller in an interview eight months ago.
One hundred fifty psalms every 30 days – a few in the morning, a few at night -- can be accomplished in less time than checking your Instagram account. What is strengthening us? What is lulling us into the mundane? What is changing what we pray, how we pray, altering the patterns of our lives, and being changed by it?
Mark those faithful ones. What has shaped them? What is molding us?
How differently would we pray? How differently would we live?
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