O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
– Psalm 119:97
I want you to imagine that you are applying some kind of lotion or cream to part of your body, let’s say your arm. It could be a skin moisturizer, or perhaps some kind of medication to reduce pain or swelling. Picture what your application hand is doing with the cream. What is the motion, the continuity and duration of what that hand is doing? If my suspicion is correct, you picture a hand that is moving back and forth, around and around, possibly slowly, in an effort to get the product sufficiently suffused into your skin. Am I correct?
For the last three weeks I have been working on memorizing the twelfth chapter of the book of Romans in the Bible. It is a challenge that came from J.D. Walt through the Wake Up Call daily meeting with Jesus. For me, this has involved much repetitive writing, typing, and oral recitation of the verses. Day by day, verse by verse, over and over again. What I have come to realize is that through this process I have been saturated with the living Word of God in a way that, in my humble opinion, is exactly how God wants the Word to be suffused into us. Please do not think I am discounting any habit of reading the Bible. What I am saying, based on my recent experience, is that there is an experiential difference when we take a section of God’s Word and slowly, repetitively, apply it to our minds.
This idea is a theme throughout Psalm 119. The writer is clear regarding how precious God’s Word is to him, and how profitable it is to “meditate on it all the day.” Psalm 1 reflects the same idea, as the writer says of the righteous person that “his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” These and other passages portray a joyful benefit that comes when God’s Word is allowed to suffuse the hearer. Something transformational happens within us. We discover that the words of scripture not only reflect beauty and wisdom, but hold the power to change us through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we read scripture, it is more than just reading an ancient document. By faith—and confirmed through experience—we see that scripture is a conduit through which God actively speaks to our inner being. It is no wonder those who meditate on it declare the experience to be so joyful.
Over the next couple of weeks I will be sharing some of the ways that Romans 12 has been speaking to me personally. Perhaps you will resonate with my experience. If you have taken up the Jesus Manifesto challenge and have been working on internalizing Romans 12, you likely have insights of your own that you could share. Please do so! I appreciate and will share all comments to that end. After all, our journey in scripture is certainly personal, but not private. God’s Word speaks to us in our common life. Surely this will be a wonderful example of how that happens.
Are you ready? If so, I will see you along the Winding Path tomorrow with Romans 12:1.
The Winding Path 