Taking the Time to Smell the Fragrance of God's Word

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:16

Isn't it amazing that with all of our modern conveniences, most of us are more time pressured than ever? And yet with the advent of technology, there is a certain portion of my day that is given over to it, almost like an obligation. And why? What never ceases to amaze me is that no matter how many times I do the same dumb thing and think I will get a different result, I never, ever do. (The definition of insanity.)

I deceive myself thinking I need to keep up with the news. There is so much information on the internet I could never digest it all, yet I attempt this vain thing all the time. I was reading a writing book by Dani Shapiro called Still Writing, and she commented that she used to take a cigarette break from her writing (before she quit smoking). She said now that had sometimes (unfortunately)been replaced by the internet break. She did not recommend it at all, because it only served to distract from her focus, and yet the temptation to lose focus by surfing the net is so easy to do. How about checking facebook a dozen times a day? Yet this all adds up to precious minutes, minutes that add up to hours, hours that add up to days of mindless wandering all in the name of my "recreation."

On the other hand, time spent in the Word of God is never fruitless. Years ago, my sisters and I enjoyed doing counted cross stitch. We made little gifts for each other. One for my older sister had the verse from Proverbs 24:3 along with a pretty little house. The verse said: "By wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established." As I stitched along, I wondered what that verse meant.

The other day, in my reading, I came across the verse again and decided to look up some cross-references.One of them was from Proverbs 9.

"Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars; She has sent out her maidens, she calls From the tops of the heights of the city: “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks understanding she says,“Come, eat of my food And drink of the wine I have mixed. “Forsake your folly and live, And proceed in the way of understanding.” Proverbs 9:1-6

I looked up some cross references again, for the part about the food that was prepared, and it led me to Luke 14:16-24, about the wedding banquet. The primary application was for the Jews who would not accept Jesus as their Messiah, so the gospel went out to the Gentiles, but in another way, could this not be wisdom from the Word of God speaking to us?

"But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many;
and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it;please consider me excused.’Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out;please consider me excused.’Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’
And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’“And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.‘For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

Could not the dinner be the Word itself, it is all prepared for us, to nourish us, build us up, to help us build our own spiritual house? But with all the distractions of technology, I let it pass me by. Yet there is no excuse, for as never before do we have the Word available to us for study, with online Bibles and teaching aids.

My husband planted some wildflowers in the front of our house, yet it was not until late in the summer that they finally, gloriously, bloomed. The colors are vivid shades of fuchsia, yellow, white, and reds. Underneath are small lacy white and delicate purple flowers. One day, I noticed they had a beautiful fragrance, but you had to bend close to the flower in order to detect it. Once you put your nose close to the petals, the sweetest smell exuded from it. Could that be how it is with the Word of God? On the whole, it just looks like a big book, formidable, even, until you pick it up and start smelling the sweet perfume within? This perfume reveals to mankind the loveliness of none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

My pastor says you have to build an appetite for the Word of God. Well, start with just a taste then. And know that the Bible is from first to last, His-Story.Ask God to reveal to you these truths as you peer into His lovely Word:
O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. (Psalm 34:8)
"Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Psalm 119:18

Like Newborn Babes...

"Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." I Peter 2:1-3

I recently became a grandmother, and came home from my trip to see my beloved grandson. The first time I held him, I felt this overwhelming sense of love and the reminder of how helpless a newborn baby is. It is interesting that Peter asks us to be like newborn babies. I am reminded of how much we are like them by watching my grandson.

He could not hold his little head up, but had to be supported when we transferred him from one lap to another. Isn't that like how we must depend on God to lift our head? In Psalm 3, we find David's lament when he had to flee from his own son who wanted to steal the kingdom from him. He, like my grandson, needed help from outside of himself. He says:

"But You, O LORD, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts my head." Psalm 3:3

The next verse says, "I cried to the LORD with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill." This also reminds me of how we are like babies. My little grandson makes a lot of cute baby noises: squeaking and what I call "rooching" as he fusses a bit and squirms to settle and calm himself. And when his little tummy starts to rumble, he cries. Just like God the Father, his needs are met with his feeding, which is promptly made ready for him.

For us, that milk that we hunger for is God's Word. At first, we may not recognize that it is the substance we are truly longing for. But when we become new creations in Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit and this spirit is not satisfied with the things of this world. Sure, there are so many distractions, but none of them will fill us like the Word of God will.

But Peter gives us a clue as to when we will want the milk of the Word of God, and that is if we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. It is easy to avoid the Word of God if we are fearful of being condemned, but Peter says we must know the Lord's grace to desire the Word. I believe the more we look into the Word, the more gracious we will know Him to be.

But we must approach Him like that newborn baby. The baby doesn't have any pretenses.Their little belly is growling;that's all. So we must approach God's word as needing it as desperately as the baby does its milk.
I have a habit of reading the Word in the morning and sometimes I feel as if the enemy whispers that I am just going through a daily ritual. But not if I ask the Lord to reveal Himself to me in a fresh new way, that I might know more of His gracious kindness.

"Open my eyes, that I may see
Wondrous things from your law." Psalm 119:18

Is the Bible wondrous to us? It is if we know it speaks of grace from Genesis through Revelation. God's very first action after Adam and Eve sinned was to clothe them with skins, which tells us how our sins were covered when Christ bore them on the cross for us. David, who did not have the completed canon of Scripture, understood this when he said:

"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered." Psalm 32: 1

If the Word seems stale,we can read through Psalm 119, where the Psalmist continually is asking for more revelation of the Word. We can ask of God the petitions just like the Psalmist did. If we see that God Himself has provided everything we need, then we can be just like little babies who cry out for our daily feeding of God's Word. God will answer, and provide that milk, in which we find our heart's deepest longings have been met through the Person of Jesus Christ.

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in HIM." Psalm 34:8

We admit that we can do nothing without Him. Just like my grandson, who slept peacefully in my arms after his feeding, we too can rest in His complete provision, which we learn of daily through the gracious milk of the Word of God. Corrie ten Boom once wrote a book called: Don't Wrestle, Just Nestle. That title seems to sum up the privilege we have as God's helpless little children.

Now we too can rest: "Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears, And my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living." Psalm 116: 7-9

and finally, Psalm 23:1, 2 "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures...