| Delightful - article by Joel Hempel It’s 51 degrees today following a week or more of grey, rainy weather. Marcia and I were delighted to go for a walk in the sun. Soon, we will be visiting our granddaughter in Springfield. That will surely be a delight. Then, we have a week planned in Jupiter, Florida. I always wanted to go to the Cardinals’ spring training. You can be certain we will enjoy that! In a book I am currently reading entitled Prayer by Timothy Keller, he says Paalm 1 is a teaching psalm. It teaches about meditating on God’s Word – what the psalmist calls the law of the Lord – and what it means to delight in it: Blessed are they who . . . delight in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. . . The psalmist’s metaphor of a tree planted near a stream is rich in insight. First, to meditate is to do far more than read God’s Word or even think about it. Although thinking is essential to meditating, meditation is more than understanding a verse.
Reading the Bible from cover to cover every year is a wonderful spiritual discipline for some people. Although I have tried, I could never get into it. I wanted to slow down and reflect on what I was reading, but the pace didn’t permit it. So, I settled on daily studying and reflecting on the Word of God at my pace. In addition, I have learned that delighting in God’s Word means asking the Holy Spirit to work on me as I study a passage. That passage may be within the Bible, embedded in a hymn, or developed in a devotion or other Christian text about God’s Word. When one slows down and creates space and time to read, reflect, and apply the Word of God to our lives, Jesus – THE Word – draws closer. Rabbi Levi saw a man running in the street and asked him, “Why do you run?” He replied, “I am running after my good fortune!” Rabbi Levi tells him, “Silly man, your good fortune has been trying to catch you, but you are running too fast.”* When the Spirit of Christ runs after us to draw closer and have a more intimate relationship with us, it’s hard to imagine we can outrun the Wind. But we can! We can make choices that distance us from Jesus and God’s Word. If we want to grow in faith and the certainty of God’s love, if we want a more complete grasp of his mercy and forgiveness, it is available to us. Especially when Jesus is talking, the writers are communicating the Gospel, or the Christian way of life is being presented, we are invited to slow down and sink our roots into God’s Word and the WORD who is Jesus. Then, watch the fruit grow! You will not only delight in the Word; the WORD will delight in you. *From Sabbath, Wayne Muller | 
