The Psalms invite us into the very heart of biblical meditation.

From the very first sentence of this masterful book, often called the “Prayer Book of the Bible,” the Psalms reveal to us the wisdom of meditating upon the commands of God, finding blessing as we delight in the law of the Lord, meditating upon it day and night (Ps 1:2).

Listen now as Richard Foster guides us through the first two verses of Psalm 1, a passage that “encapsulates the entire Psalter.”

We hope this meditation is a blessing to you today, and make sure to join us for Create Space, together learning to dwell with God as we meditate on his Word.

Meditating on the Old Testament deepens in us our reverence of God.

This week, we join our hearts with Moses, praying to Almighty God, “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). We are reminded that the Lord is with us wherever we go, and so we can “be strong and courageous” (Josh 1:9). And, though God is strong and mighty, Hosea reveals to us the Lord’s tender heart of compassion, alluring and speaking tenderly to his people (Hos 2:14).

But first, we begin in Genesis 22, with Richard Foster guiding us through this foundational promise of God, remembering his blessings to us and invitation to share those blessings with the entire world.

Listen now, and make sure to join us for Create Space, together learning to dwell with God as we meditate on his Word.

Can the technology we use everyday have a redemptive end?

A few weeks ago, Jon Bailey (Co-founder of Dwell) and Tripp Prince (Head of Product at Dwell) sat down with Richard Foster to ask him this very question. 

This conversation explores a wide range of topics, including the aim of the spiritual life, the role of technology in discipleship, and how to recover the centrality of biblical meditation.

Listen now, and make sure to join us for Create Space, together learning to encounter God through meditation on his Word.

Few people have done more to encourage contemporary followers of Christ to rediscover the ancient rhythms of Christianity than Richard Foster.

For decades, as an author, speaker, and spiritual director, Foster has encouraged us to cultivate an intentional life with Christ, rooted in his Word, open to the witness of the Church through the ages, and led each moment by the guiding hand of the Spirit. It is this way of life that we aspire to at Dwell, and one of the primary reasons we are thrilled to have him lead our Dwell community through the discipline of biblical meditation this summer.

Foster speaks to the necessity of daily time in Scripture in his modern-day classic, Celebration of Discipline, which opens with these words: “Superficiality is the curse of our age.” With countless distractions at our fingertips, attentiveness to the Lord and his Word is more important than ever before! Meditation on Scripture is medicine that heals our inattentiveness and awakens in us a longing for God. Simply put, a habit of daily meditation is essential if we are to become people of substance and depth.

Over the coming weeks, join us as Foster leads us through the Scriptures, creating space each day to dwell with God in and through his Word.

Richard Foster: Full Biography

Born in New Mexico in 1942, Richard J. Foster spent most of his growing-up years in Southern California, where he became friends with a group of Quaker youth. He came to faith in Christ in that small Friends gathering, and their ministry was pivotal in Richard’s life. When as a teenager his parents died, his church family provided the funds for Richard to pursue his education. Because of their generosity, he was able to graduate from George Fox College and Fuller Theological Seminary.

Now married to Carolynn and holding a seminary degree, Richard became the pastor of Woodlake Avenue Friends Church in Canoga Park, California. Although he would later describe that church as “a marginal failure on the ecclesiastical scoreboards,” Richard’s time at Woodlake would prove to be deeply formational. Faced with the challenges of pastoring, Richard turned to the devotional classics for soul sustenance. From these writers Richard learned to practice the spiritual disciplines. He also attended the Sunday school class of one of his parishioners, Dallas Willard, with whom be became fast friends. Richard also befriended the pastor of a nearby Lutheran church, Bill Vaswig. Although they were neighbors for just a few years, the friendship of these three men endured throughout their lives.

Richard and Carolynn moved to Oregon in 1974, where Richard joined the pastoral staff of the Newburg Friends Church and the teaching staff of George Fox College. He continued to practice the spiritual disciplines and to teach them to congregants and students. In 1977 Richard wrote Celebration of Discipline, which was published by Harper & Row in 1978.

The success of Celebration of Discipline presented multiple opportunities, including an invitation to join the faculty of Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. Richard, Carolynn, and their two sons, Joel and Nathan, moved to Wichita in 1979. His position at Friends gave Richard freedom to travel and speak about the spiritual life. In many conversations, people asked Richard for a next step beyond what they had learned in reading Celebration of Discipline. Richard discerned a pattern: that people were trying rather than training to become like Jesus, that they held a myopic rather than a synoptic view of the path to Christlikeness, and that they were scattered rather than gathered. How to address those needs became a focus of Richard’s work.

After years of writing, teaching, and traveling, Richard sensed a call to silence. In 1986 he said no to all public ministry and focused on listening to God. During this time Richard felt led to establish a ministry devoted to the renewal of the church. With help from James Bryan Smith, Roger Fredrikson, Marti Ensign, Lynda Graybeal, and his old friends Dallas Willard and Bill Vaswig, Richard founded Renovaré in 1988.

Richard went on to write many other books besides Celebration of Discipline, including PRAYER: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Streams of Living Water, and Sanctuary of the Soul. He also led an editorial team to publish a study Bible focused on spiritual formation. He served as President of Renovaré until 2008 and continues to serve in an advisory role. He and Carolynn now live in Colorado, where they look forward to visits from from their nine grandchildren.

So often, we disconnect the letters of the New Testament from their deeply relational context.

Especially over the past few centuries, these letters have been placed “under the microscope,” so to speak. They are sliced, diced, and prepared into small samples, with each word or phrase subjected to a wide range of tests and analysis, hoping to uncover a previously unknown truth, unlocking the deep mysteries of life and faith in the process. And while we should all aspire to be careful and faithful students of Scripture, might it be that we’ve lost sight of their intended purpose?

This week, as we dive into the words of Sts. Paul, Peter, and John, we must remember that the recipients of these words were known and loved by these early leaders of the Church. When Paul wrote his beloved reflection on the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-26), he had specific men and women on his heart and mind that personified and revealed to the world these beautiful virtues. When he offered a word of correction or rebuke, it was not a general word of truth but a moment of tender but firm fatherly advice to his spiritual children (Eph 4:29-32).

Similarly, Peter’s reflection on the power of God to guard and protect his people brought comfort to a fledgling church in need of reassurance (1 Pet 1:3-5). Likewise, in times of great trial and difficulty, John encourages his beloved children to set their eyes on the future hope of the kingdom, “that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). On and on we could go, yet one thing is abundantly clear in these ancient words: the way of Christ is encountered, nourished, and sustained from within the community of faith.

To be human is to be social, fashioned and formed in the image and likeness of a communal God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We recenter and discover afresh this original design when we journey through life with other followers of Christ. At times, we will be invited to use our strength to support and carry them through seasons of pain and loss. In others, we may be the weak and needy members, learning to receive just as we learn to give.

Yet in each and every season, we look to the letters of the New Testament and remember afresh, we are called to know and follow Jesus Christ as we are known and loved by his body, the Church.

The laws of the Lord are true;
each one is fair.
They are more desirable than gold,
even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
even honey dripping from the comb. (Ps 19:9b-10)

In his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Throughout human history, civilizations have risen and fallen, each with their own stories of justice, goodness, and mercy, as well as evil, cruelty, and hatred. At times, laws are enacted to protect the powerless and give voice to the voiceless. Yet, it seems humans are equally capable of unspeakable injustices towards their fellow man, legislating immorality and approving wickedness as the law of the land.

Of course, no one is so bold as to acknowledge the brokenness of their beliefs. As Deuteronomy 12:8 reminds us, we as humans are all too quick to do what seems right in our own eyes. We assume our motives to be pure and our intentions ordered towards the collective flourishing of society. Yet are our hearts truly this benevolent? Can we trust our own ability to discern what is good, beautiful, or true?

Increasingly, our struggle is not only against unjust laws, but the very notion of the law itself. We live with a perpetual allergy to constraint, in any form or fashion. The western world is built upon the foundation of individual choice, freedom, and autonomy. Could it be that this default lens through which we see the world keeps the world of Scripture in general, and the Psalms in particular, at arms length?

Do you believe that the law of God is truly good? Can you join your heart and life to the words of Psalm 19? “The laws of the Lord are true…more desirable than gold…sweeter than honey.” Time and time again, the Psalms go out of their way to celebrate the gift of the law, the goodness of God in revealing his will and his ways to his people. The boundaries of the law are good and pleasant (Ps 16:6), limiting and constraining us when we are prone to rush headlong into places of chaos and self-inflicted pain.

Similarly, until you reject the modern notion of absolute freedom, you will always be a slave to your own disordered desires. Is the sheep that wanders away from the flock truly free? Is the shepherd abusive and manipulative when he leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one, bringing it back into a life of constraint?

If boundaries are unjust, they deepen brokenness and perpetuate pain. Yet, a life bounded by the love of God, hemmed in on every side (Ps 139:5), discovers a freedom unlike any the world has ever known. And so, saturate your heart and mind with the ancient words of the Psalms, tasting the sweetness and lingering in the delight that comes from a life of faithful obedience.