You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan and Becky Allender conclude our series on Psalm 131 by reflecting on how hoping in the Lord draws us deeper into rest.

This is not about a naive or flimsy hope, but one that is grounded in our deepest desires,

that does not fear suffering,

and that anticipates the fullness of redemption that God intends for each and every one of us.

This series we've been considering Psalm 131 and its implications for living, as Becky said last time,

like a human being, allowing our hearts to receive the goodness of God in the land of the living

so that our bodies and our hearts do not despair. And as we come to a

conclusion, we're coming to this final passage, O Israel, hope in the Lord, now and forever. And it's a very

simple ending, but in many ways, I see it as the verse that in some ways comprehends the entirety of the Psalm.

If our hope is in the Lord, our character will not be bound to arrogance.

If our hope is in the Lord, we will not be bound to disquiet to living a life of frenzy.

But there will be something about the nature of our hope in

the Lord that allows us to be able to live a very different life than one that often comes

in the context of our each individual lives and also this culture. And so as we begin to think about that beginning phrase,

Oh, Israel, I just want to say very quickly,

what does the word Israel imply?

Yes, it's the name of the nation of God.

But it actually comes out of the story of Jacob, of wrestling with the angel of God. But it actually comes out of the story of Jacob, of wrestling with the angel of God,

and coming to a point of real humility, but also a point of great desire. And that is, Jacob

wrestles with the angel all night long as daybreak comes. He calls out for a blessing.

And the angel of the Lord, for whatever reason, doesn't want to be caught in the day.

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