July 2 – The Word of Delight (Psalm 119:97-104)

“Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.”
(Psalm 119:97)

IN WORD:
Even when we are convinced of the necessity of reading our Bible daily and applying its truths, we can get bogged down in the obligation of doing so. Somehow, perhaps not coincidentally, when we determine to learn Scripture with an open heart, the rest of life seems to close in around it. Schedules get more complicated, demands get more intense, pressing needs seem to preclude our time of meditation. Our enemy makes sure of it, and God allows him to — it’s a test of our devotion to the Word of life.
But even when we stick with it, there are times of delight and times of passive indifference. It’s human nature. What thrills us one day can often bore us the next, even when the subject is something as substantial as God’s Word.
What are we to do? How can we maintain our delight in the Bible? Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. We can easily come to view the Scriptures as irrelevant relics of a different age — one that has little consistency with an era of global multiculturalism and technological marvels. We need to remember that the human heart and its relationships are essentially the same as they were thousands of years ago — steeped in self and sin and prone to conflict and dissatisfaction.

IN DEED:
If you see the Bible as a collection of ancient writings, it might impress you, but it will not change your life very much. If, however, you see it as the vessel that holds the deep mysteries of God, the key that opens life’s secret ways, it will have amazing transforming power. The Word of God could do no less — it breathes life into dead souls and causes all that was stale and stagnant within us to flourish.
When the Bible becomes boring to you, perhaps it’s because you have reached a spiritual plateau on your journey into God’s heart. Ask Him to take you deeper. It is hard to imagine any good father who would reject such a request from his child — least of all ours.

“The Bible is a window in this prison-world, through which we may look into eternity.” -Timothy Dwight-