Magnet

You may remember that a few days ago in the post “Whew,” I shared my struggle with part of the assignment that I gave the men in the Tuesday morning workshop.  What I did not tell you then is that struggle caused me a great deal of despair.  My core passion is engaging, establishing, and equipping men in personal first hand study of God’s Word.  The despair was rooted in that core passion.  I was concerned that the difficulty of the assignment would discourage the men from using the tool that was introduced that week. The concern was that prescribed step was too large a jump from where we had been.  The fear was that the men would throw their hands up and quit on the process.

I was wrong at a number of levels.

First – and I know this – I teach it – I have written about it here – I discounted the reality of Hebrews 4:12 and Isaiah 55:11 which I just wrote about, two days ago.  I am learning in crystal clear terms that if you give a man a Bible (not a study Bible just the text), a blank sheet of paper, a pen, and a few tools in the form of process to follow, the promise that Jesus made to us is validated in spades.  The Holy Spirit does His thing, John 16:13, he leads those men into truth – in spite of any dumb facilitator’s (who will remain me) giving an assignment that may be too hard.

Second I underestimated the hunger of the men in the group.  That hunger caused by personal encounter with the Word.  Proverbs 27:7, Jeremiah 15:16; Ezekiel 3:1 – 3; and Revelation 10:9 talk about the sweetness of the Word of God when we begin to eat it.

The Word is a magnet to our hearts.  The closer we get to it, the less we allow between us and the Word, the stronger the draw.  Not even a hard assignment from a misguided facilitator can thwart that pull.  I forgot that.