What Are You Walking Toward?

Claire Black: Welcome to True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. I’m Claire Black. Together, we’ll explore God’s truth for us, one drive at a time. Buckle up. You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus!

True Girl, do you ever feel like everybody has an opinion about who you should be, what you should like, or how you should live? Friends, YouTube videos, influencers—even your own thoughts can pull you in a hundred different directions. Psalm 1 shows you how to become the kind of girl who isn’t easily pushed around—a girl with strong roots—roots like a tree planted by streams of water!

Grab your walking shoes. Dannah Gresh and Suzy Weibel are taking us on a Holy Girl Walk through Psalm 1—and this time, they’re headed deep into the redwoods of Northern California in search of one very BIG tree.

What’s a Holy Girl Walk? It’s simple: you walk while you memorize and think about God’s Word. Dannah leads hundreds of moms and daughters in taking a Holy Girl Walk every year. You can do it anytime, but from November 1–12, True Girls everywhere are walking together as we memorize Psalm 1. Each day, ask your mom to check the True Girl social media—Instagram or Facebook—for tips on memorizing the verses, plus conversation starters for you to use while you walk. Dannah even has a Holy Girl Walk podcast!

Basically, Mom, be sure you’re following Dannah Gresh and True Girl on social media, because we always offer lots of free resources to build a great mom-daughter relationship.

Okay, grab your mom, grandma, sister, or a friend; lace up your shoes; and get ready to grow some strong roots! It’s time for “A Holy Girl Walk to the Big Tree.”

Dannah and Suzy are on Big Tree Loop in the Prairie Creek Visitor Center in California. They’re looking for a tree that’s more than 1,500 years old!

Here’s Suzy.

[footsteps]

Suzy Weibel: Dannah! STOP! Don't move.

[footsteps stop]

Dannah Gresh: What?! A bear?

Suzy: Better!

Dannah: Better than a bear?

Suzy: Look at this guy!

Dannah: Eww! Why are you holding that?!

Suzy: Because he’s adorable.

Dannah: I would describe that as enormous . . . and yellow . . . and excessively slimy.

Suzy: He's a banana slug. Look at him!

Dannah: I am looking . . . from over here.

Suzy: Did you know banana slugs can grow almost as long as your hand?

Dannah: Did you know you could put him back down?

Suzy: You don’t want to pet him?

Dannah: Hard pass!

Suzy: Suit yourself. Let me gently put him back on this tree stump where I found him.

Dannah: Okay! While we walk, mind if I see how much of Psalm 1 I can remember?

Suzy: Sure, but I don't have it memorized yet, so let me pull it up in the Wonder app. My phone’s here. Let me open the app. Psalm 1 . . . got it . . . and go!

Dannah: Suzy, this is the ESV version. Here I go; are you ready?

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Suzy:  That's great!

Dannah: Thanks. I still have some work to do.

Suzy: You know what I never noticed before?

Dannah: What’s that?

Suzy: There’s a lot of movement in the first two verses of Psalm 1.

“Does not walk in the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the company of mockers.”

Those are all verbs, right? It’s almost like someone’s walking down a path and another person shouts, “Hey, walk this way!”

Dannah: Uh huh!

Suzy: At first she’s just walking along. Then someone advises her to go another way. She does. And then she stands there. Before long, she sits down where she’s been led. Then she's living like she belongs there.

Dannah: Whoa! That got serious fast!

Suzy: It did. Because voices lead us in our walk through life. They don’t just tell us what to think. Eventually, they can influence or change where we’re going.

Dannah: For example? Like . . . well, I like to watch youtube videos sometimes. 

Suzy: Me too!

Dannah: Imagine you start watching videos from someone you really like. Maybe it’s animal videos or tips on friendship or funny stuff. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But suddenly mixed in, this person starts saying things about what makes a girl valuable, and she starts obsessing with the “Outfit of the Day” videos—you know— where she shows you what she’s wearing and how to get the look. And, well, she makes it all about the outside.

Suzy: It all started out okay. But then, she started saying, “COME THIS WAY!” And you keep listening. Pretty soon, you’re not just listening to an idea, you’ve walked in the way of it, stood for it, and you’re now sitting in it . . . belonging in it.

Dannah: Walk. Sit. Stand.

Suzy: Yup! That’s how it progresses.

Dannah: We’re always listening to somebody. We can’t exactly go live in a redwood forest and never hear another opinion. Although . . .

Suzy: Dannah. No.

Dannah: I could do it!

Suzy: With the banana slugs?

Dannah: Good point!

Suzy: So back to Psalm 1. What does it say to do instead of being led by voices that call us to walk the wrong way?

Dannah: Instead: “delight  in the LORD’s instruction, and” . . . meditate . . . “on it day and night.”

Suzy: It’s so cool that the Bible isn’t just a big “NO!” but a “YES!” to something better. Delight in the words in our Bibles. Think about it!

Dannah: Yeah!

Suzy: But the word “meditate” can be used in kind of weird ways these days.

Dannah: Yeah, some people think it means to empty your mind. When the Bible uses it, it means to fill your mind with God’s truth.

It really just means we keep bringing God’s Word back to our minds. We think about it. Say it. Repeat it. Ask God what it means. Let it get stuck in our heads.

Suzy: Day and night.

Dannah: Yes. I realized a few years ago that I don’t do that.

Suzy: Well, it’s hard.

Dannah: That’s why I started walking while I did it. Fewer distractions. And funny thing, I didn’t set out to memorize the Scriptures I was thinking about, but I did. Really easily. It turns out walking fires up the part of your brain that does memory work. So when I walked and meditated, BAM!

Suzy: That’s awesome.

Dannah: I call it my Holy Girl Walk. I walk and think about things that make me more like Jesus.

Suzy: I love that because some of the funky influencers out there say we should take walks and tell ourselves things about ourselves.

“You’re enough!”
“You can do good things!”
“You can do anything.”

Dannah: Yeah, those things don’t actually help us with anxiety or stress or sadness. Well, they might for a second or two, but I read some research that says those things might actually end up making us feel worse because we’re telling ourselves something we don’t really believe.

Suzy: But when we use Scripture when we walk, we're meditating on what is true!

Dannah: Exactly. I find it very calming to delight in God’s Word while I walk.

I love a Holy Girl Walk. I’m not trying to empty my mind. I’m filling it with truth.

Suzy: There’s still a voice in your head saying, “Walk this way!”

Dannah: Yes. And I’m turning up the volume on that voice of God while I let the other voices . . .

Suzy: . . . like the ones on YouTube . . .

Dannah: . . . fade a bit into the distance. So, I make sure I’m walking in the direction God wants me to go. 

Suzy: Speaking of directions. Are you going to tell me where we’re going?

Dannah: If this map’s correct, we’re . . . yes . . . look over there!

Suzy: What?! WHOA! That is the biggest tree I have ever seen!

Dannah: Meet Big Tree!

Suzy:  That's it's name?

Dannah: Yeah.

Suzy: Okay. That is a big tree.

Dannah: Isn’t it magnificent? It's an ancient coastal redwood. They estimate it's more than 1,500 years old.

Suzy: FIFTEEN HUNDRED?

Dannah: Yes! And it's 286 feet tall.

Suzy: That's, like, ninety-five yards, almost the length of a football field—except Big Tree is standing straight up in the air. 

Dannah: And that magnificent trunk is almost twenty-five feet across. I'm not talking around . . . I'm talking across!

Suzy: I could probably drive my car through there if we carved it out!

Dannah: Indeed. Some of the redwoods actually have such a tunnel in them.

Suzy: Dannah, you’re really excited about this tree!

Dannah: I am! Look at it! Fifteen hundred years, Suzy! Think of everything that has happened while this tree has just been standing right here. And look at the ferns around it, and all these other redwoods, and Prairie Creek runs right through this forest. I mean . . .

Suzy: Dannah. 

Dannah: What?

Suzy: You’re delighted.

Dannah: Yes, I am.

Suzy: No, I mean. You’re DELIGHTED. Like Psalm 1: “Instead, his delight is in the LORD's instruction.” 

Dannah: Oh, I see what you did there. But yeah!

Suzy: You haven't stopped thinking about this tree since you found out about it, have you?

Dannah: No. I've read about it. I've looked at pictures. I've learned how old it is, how tall it is, how big around it is.

Suzy: You've been thinking about it over and over.

Dannah: I've been meditating on Big Tree!

Suzy: And now your delight is rubbing off on me.

Dannah: That's exactly what meditation does. We tend to grow in delight for the things we keep turning over in our minds.

Suzy: So when Psalm 1 says the blessed person “delights in the LORD's instruction and meditates on it day and night” . . .

Dannah: Those two things belong together. We think about God's Word. We repeat it. We memorize it. We talk about it. We notice things we didn't notice before. And the more we discover about God in His Word . . .

Suzy: . . . the more there is to delight in.

Dannah: Exactly.

Suzy: Although, I'm just saying, God's Word has significantly fewer banana slugs.

Dannah: And for that, I am also delighted.

Claire: So, will you join us in meditating on God’s Word this November? It’s easy to listen to voices that can lead you the wrong way, but God’s Word will always lead you the right way. We don’t want you to just grit your teeth and obey it—though, yes, we definitely want you to obey God’s Word! We want you to delight in it. And delight grows when you spend time thinking about what God has said.

So join us for the Holy Girl Walk, November 1–12. It’s easy! Lace up your shoes, grab your mom, get outside, and walk together while you memorize and meditate on Psalm 1. And just another reminder that there are mom-daughter conversation prompts on the True Girl social media channels.

That’s our big challenge for November, but there’s another! Our True Girl subscription box includes a “No Grumble November” challenge. Take the whole month to cancel grumbling and focus on gratitude. This box includes daily devos, Scripture memory cards, a coloring page, and the No Grumble November calendar with prompts to be grateful all month long. Learn more at MyTrueGirl.com. Subscribe today to be included in the shipping of the No Grumble November Box!

Okay, be sure to come back next week, because Dannah discovered something magnificent while she was meditating on Psalm 1—something she’d never heard before. In fact, for roughly the first 1,500 years of Christianity—hey, that’s about as old as Big Tree!—Christians often had an understanding of this psalm that may surprise you. What was it? You’ll have to come back next week to find out.

The True Girl podcast is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

 

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.