Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Eternally Curious | The Writings | Psalm 107

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

What is wisdom? How are you experiencing the feeling of longing? Are you eternally curious? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Psalm 107 encourages us to have hearts that are open to God's wisdom for our lives. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 107

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. The pastor and theologian Frederick Beekner once said, To be wise is to be eternally curious. I love that definition of wisdom because it dismantles some of the common assumptions that we have about wisdom or a wise person today. It's easy to think of wisdom as the quantitative accumulation of knowledge

something that can be stockpiled through the acquisition of resources like books or podcasts. We always need more of it. But if Beekner is right and to be wise is to be eternally curious, then wisdom is not the mere sum total of accumulated knowledge. It's the disposition of the heart and the mind. It's an ongoing awareness of something beyond us that changes us in our deepest sense of being. Now, in that sense, wisdom is far less about what we have and far more about who we are in relationship to God and His ways.

That's the picture of wisdom that we get in Psalm 107. This chapter sits at the headwaters of Book 5 in the Psalms, introducing us to the final stretch of chapters in the book. And that placement is fitting because Psalm 107 incorporates the language of wisdom to people in Exempt, to help them see themselves differently and live differently because they see God and his ways more clearly. As we approach God's words together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our time. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath for a new day by your grace. God, thank you for your word. Jesus help us abide and remain and stay with you as we engage with your truth in this time. Holy Spirit, you are good, you are faithful. We ask you to move in and through this time

in Psalm 107. As we read these words, let these words read us and restore us in Jesus' name. Amen. The first three verses of Psalm 107 present us with the context for the original audience. Let's go and read them right now. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he is redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east, from the west, from the north, and from the south. Now this introduction of three verses, it invokes the language of Exodus, with the word redeemed, and the experience of exile with that word gathered, indicating that the message here is really meant for people living in the midst of uncertainty and trouble, whether that's the physical exile of God's people away from

the promised land, a real historical event, or the more far-reaching exile that's still very real as real, the exile of sin and death and evil as our world isn't the way it's meant to be. This introduction is important to note because in the Bible's conception of wisdom, wisdom is not crafted in the confines of comfort and control, like the safety of a little classroom. The wise person is often forged in the crucible of uncertainty and turmoil in real life. And that point that we see here, it's emphasized in the following four sections of Psalm 107, which will cover in broad strokes here moving forward. Each of these four sections, they highlight a different way in which a wise person is

created by God as they encounter the movement of his kingdom in the hardships of real life. Again, not in the safety of a manicured classroom setting, but in the danger, in the uncertainty, and the turmoil of real daily life. Let's look at those four sections now. Verses four through nine, portray those who experience a kind of exile or estrangement from God through wandering, hunger, and thirst. Those are some of the key words that it uses. verse nine summarizes the point of how we should see God differently in light of this whole section.

This is what it says. For he, for God, satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Let's just pause for a moment here and reflect. Think about the words that Psalm 107's using. How are you currently experiencing the sense of longing, of wandering, thirst, and hunger in your soul? Is it possible that by the world's standards, you should be experiencing a thriving, flourishing life, and yet you find yourself filled with things like accolades and wealth and pleasure, but you're somehow emptier than ever. Earlier, we considered how Beekner calls

the wise person, someone who is eternally curious. So here's a question for you. Are you eternally curious about the deep longing and thirst and hunger in your life? See, this. This Psalm invites you to cry out to God with those things, seeing them and naming them, but crying out to God because He is a God who satisfies. The second section of Psalm 10-107 in verses 10 through 16, they speak to those who are held captive. This is the real-life circumstance where wisdom is forged in the captivity of being held in bondage, being a prisoner.

Perhaps it's in the bondage of things like unwanted addictive behavior or an unexpected diagnosis that now is holding your life hostage. Take a moment, think through that idea, that concept, that realm of life, where life is not the way it's supposed to be, and just be curious about how you might be living as a prisoner right now in your life. As you consider that, get curious about how God desires to meet you where you are and give you a life that is abundant, flourishing with him. Feel the freedom to cry out to him because he, is the one who hears you and delivers you. The third section where we see a need to encounter the wisdom of God. It's found in verses 17 through 22. And here, Psalm 107 shows us the fool, the one who

continues living in patterns of sin, even though they know better. While their folly promises life, it's leading them on the path toward death. So going back to you, are there sinful patterns in your life that have gone unaddressed for far too long now. Perhaps you've hidden them or normalized them, but you need to bring them before the love of God to be transformed. Reflect on those areas of your life now and know that you are free in the gospel to live in the light and call out to God because he will deliver you and heal you. The fourth major section of Psalm 104 uses the metaphor of sailors at sea to draw our attention to the immense power of God in his ways, even though our lives are not the way they're meant to be. So here, as in other parts of the Bible, the sea acts as a

metaphor for the presence of chaos, an agent of destructive uncertainty over which God is victorious. Now, this portrait would have been especially important for someone living in the time of exile for God's people. As for them, any sense of stability or predictability. over the ebb and flow of life was absent. Let's go to our lives then. How have you seen that absence of stability in your own story? How is it affecting your life, the way you see yourself, other people? Perhaps that's the kind of chaos that happens in the uncertainty over how the tides of governmental power may turn. Or maybe other areas of life. I mean, the presence and potential for chaos is so real, whether it's in the movements of the economy or your job, your feelings, your

family, your friendships. All those things are real and absolutely noticed by God, important to God. They matter. And yet the message of Psalm 107 is that God is present in and victorious over the chaos that we perceive. There's more at play than we can see. The person in chaos is able to cry out to God, and he will deliver them. That's the repeated refrain throughout all of these four sections. If you look really closely, you'll notice the pattern. Every section says, they cried to the Lord, and he delivered them. See, God's way, always, always intersects with the way of our lives. Maybe not with the timing we expect or in the way we expect, but God's ways always intersect with the way of our lives. Why? Well, because the fundamental disposition that he displays toward his people and

his purposes is the disposition of steadfast love. If you look at this Psalm as a whole, you notice how it's a book ended with the mention of God's steadfast love, his Hecad in verses 1 and verses 43. They're at the very beginning and very end. And you'll see how the steadfast love of God is implemented and mentioned in each of the four sections we need Zaman together. In the wandering, the imprisonment, the foolishness, the uncertainty, all those people encounter the steadfast love of God. It's not assumed, it's mentioned explicitly. That love, as verses 33 through 38, describe, that love of God that is steadfast, that's never giving up, that love, it creates life and fruit and renewal and flourishing. That's what happens to the person who's forged in the wisdom

of the Bible who's curious about God and his ways. We started our time together talking about wisdom. But you may be curious as to why Psalm 107 hasn't brought up the words wise or wisdom at all so far. It's a great observation. The explicit mention of wisdom is here in the final verse of the Psalm. And it kind of summarizes the movement of the entire Psalm as a whole. Here's what we read in Psalm 107 verse 43. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

A wise person recognizes how God's steadfast love operates. In a real sense, Psalm 107 is trying to cultivate our curiosity about the way of our lives and the way of God's love. To live with wisdom is to pay attention to the ways that God meets us in our lowest, most vulnerable moments, and consider how his unmovable, unbreakable love is making us into something, into someone new. So how exactly do you cultivate a wise curiosity about your life and the way of God's love?

Well, first, one thing you can do is just consider rereading the major sections of Psalm 107 and prayerfully reflect through how it reveals areas of your life that up to this point may have been covered up. How is God revealing something about yourself, your story, and his story? In this sense, wise, holy curiosity, going through Psalm 107, it might require you to slow down. to put your device away, to spend more time in silence than you might prefer. But God is crafting and creating a wisdom in you that you couldn't create on your own. While some of us may need to use silence to cultivate a holy curiosity in our lives,

others of us may need to grow in speaking up and letting the community of faith engage with us in a reflection on how we're doing, where we're going, and who we're becoming. See, this isn't something we can only do as individual people. Like, it's just us and God. We need other people. So you may consider texting or calling a friend this week and asking them, Hey, can you help me get curious about what's really going on in my life? And get curious about how God's love might be at work in ways that I don't see yet.

Whether you incorporate silence or conversation, Psalm 107 is trying to draw you into a deeper awareness of what's happening under the surface of your life so that you can be positioned to cry out to God for his deliverance and receive his steadfast love. In addition to drawing our attention to the ongoing curiosity associated with wisdom, Frederick Beechner also said this about it. Wisdom is a matter not only of the mind, but of the intuition and heart.

According to Psalm 107, he is exactly right. Real wisdom, biblical wisdom, wisdom before God, it's not about retaining facts that inform us. It's about receiving love that transforms us. True wisdom impacts our hearts because it reveals the heart of God. As you prepare to go into the rest of your day, ask this, am I wise enough right now to see the movement of God's steadfast love in my day-to-day life? In the ways that I'm longing, that I feel captivity, in the ways that I'm living foolishly or trying to live with uncertainty?

In which of those areas do I need to continue crying out to God? Do I need to connect with other people? How do I need to allow the Holy Spirit to stir up a holy curiosity about my need for God and his steadfast love toward me in Jesus? God, as we continue into whatever you have for us today, would you stir in us a holy, wise curiosity

about our lives and about you, about your steadfast love that's displayed in the way you hear us, deliver us, and transform us. Would you grow within us a wisdom that glorifies you, blesses others, and tunes our hearts to be most deeply satisfied in you, the one who loves us? In Jesus' name, amen.