Oh – Happy Texas Independence Day!
My time with the Lord went rather long this morning, I got stuck on Jeremiah 6:10 – 21 – that ever happen to you? You dive into a passage and find yourself unable to shake what it is saying? Many times I push through that to keep my schedule – which is obviously more important… Today, I slowed down and paid attention…
To suggest I was challenged by what I was reading this morning would be like saying Everest is a bump. Take a look.
Focus for a moment on verse 10. God wants to warn the people. He cannot. They cannot hear Him. Why? They reject His Word. They do not delight in it. Those are the statements of fact.
When I read those my response typically is to think through whether I see anything like those attitudes, those realities first in my own life. Then I expand that to see if those attitudes exist in the communities with which I am engaged.
The term that leaped off of the page this morning was “delight.” Chase that word through the poetry section of the Old Testament. The reason that the people could not hear the warning of God is that they did not approach the Scripture, the Word of God with delight. Not only had it become familiar, normal, but it had become something that they dreaded, a reproach.
That scares me. It drives me to take close stock of my approach to God’s Word. Is it a chore to meet with Him each day in His book? Am I resenting the time? Filling out my checklist? Or am I coming to that time with delight as if I am meeting my love, my life? The reality for me is that “delight” is not the word that would describe my every encounter with Him in His Word. To whatever extent that delight is diminished to that extent I suffer hearing loss in the presence of God. Not so good.
My time with the Lord went rather long this morning, I got stuck on Jeremiah 6:10 – 21 – that ever happen to you? You dive into a passage and find yourself unable to shake what it is saying? Many times I push through that to keep my schedule – which is obviously more important… Today, I slowed down and paid attention…
To suggest I was challenged by what I was reading this morning would be like saying Everest is a bump. Take a look.
Focus for a moment on verse 10. God wants to warn the people. He cannot. They cannot hear Him. Why? They reject His Word. They do not delight in it. Those are the statements of fact.
The term that leaped off of the page this morning was “delight.” Chase that word through the poetry section of the Old Testament. The reason that the people could not hear the warning of God is that they did not approach the Scripture, the Word of God with delight. Not only had it become familiar, normal, but it had become something that they dreaded, a reproach.
That scares me. It drives me to take close stock of my approach to God’s Word. Is it a chore to meet with Him each day in His book? Am I resenting the time? Filling out my checklist? Or am I coming to that time with delight as if I am meeting my love, my life? The reality for me is that “delight” is not the word that would describe my every encounter with Him in His Word. To whatever extent that delight is diminished to that extent I suffer hearing loss in the presence of God. Not so good.
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