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Delight in God’s Word

My favorite dessert would have to be blackberry cobbler with Blue Bell ice cream on top—plenty of ice cream. I take great delight in that dessert. God calls us to delight in his Word. To savor it, to enjoy it, to revel in it. But perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “If I am honest with myself, I don’t really delight in God’s Word.” Reading God’s Word is more duty than delight. Let me encourage you by letting you know that you are not alone. The Bible is not an easy book. Reading the Bible is an acquired taste, but you can develop a delight in God’s Word. 

I have two simple suggestions to help. First, read the Bible every day. Don’t wait until you delight in it. If you wait to read the Bible when you delight in it, then you won’t ever get started. Read it daily and ask God to speak to you. Ask God to meet you there in the pages. Don’t decide each day whether or not you will read the Bible that day. Decide right now before God that, by His strength, you will read the Bible every day.

Second—and this is big—engage fully when you read it. Engage with God. Pray about what you’re reading. Talk with God about it. Confess, give thanks, and call out. Be active. Be alert. Be praying. Be all there. The more engaged you are, the better you will like it. If you just read to get through the passage or to check a box in your mind, then it’s boring. But if you fully engage with God as you read, then it becomes delightful.

The second line of this passage calls us to meditate on God’s Word. The term “meditate” is used elsewhere to mean to mutter, to talk lowly, or to chat with yourself. That’s the idea. Be vocal as you read and pray. Talk to yourself. Engage with God. Meditate on God’s Word .If you do this, day in and day out over a long period of time, what will happen? You will thrive and flourish. The next verse gives the glad result of delighting in God’s Word. “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.”