Like a Hole in the Lungs

Today I went to youth group. Yes, I know, I know. I shouldn't darken the door of youth group since I'm two years out. I'm like something the cat drug in.

But I just couldn't resist playing musical chairs with those delightful 12-18- year-olds. And life's no fun if you can't sing "Trading my Sorrows" along with a very stiff, worship boy-band with mild to moderate intonation problems.

Anyway, Pastor Brian gave a talk on a well-worn topic -- how we let other things such as tv, phones and general busyness crowd out time with God. It was very convicting, especially since I calculated I'd spent about 4 hours on the phone yesterday and who knows how long on the internet. Still, I crunched in a good 3 minutes in the word.

But besides that gnawing guilty feeling that comes after hearing a sermon like that (and when you glance over to see that unzipped, yet unread NIV sitting on your desk), it's hard to really put messages like that into practice. I think I know why.

For all the lecturing we get on WHY we should get in the word, there's a considerable dearth of information on HOW to do it. Nobody told me that just reading the Bible isn't fulfilling, isn't ENOUGH. I discovered that myself. I wish they would have told me that you have to ingest what you read, mull over it, meditate on it. I wish they told me that passing your eyes over the text doesn't really count because you're giving it no time to transform you.

Encounters with God's word aren't supposed to be commonplace. They're supposed to be enough to shake you up, to energize you for the entire day, to whet your appetite for more. The way I see it, my paltry devotional habits don't suffice. (Here's an odd analogy -- it's like having a hole in your lung. No matter how hard you work at breathing, nothing's getting absorbed and all that life-giving oxygen is headed back out to the atmosphere.)

I think what could suffice, though, is this. Maybe taking a psalm or a small, 5-10 verse chunk and reading it about 10 times over, then writing a journal entry/prayer in response.
Or perhaps taking 2 or 3 verses and memorizing them.
Maybe sketching out a reading plan would work, so it's not haphazard and undirected.
And maybe preparing your heart beforehand by singing, writing, praying, being still.

I think this would all take a lot more time than I'm used to giving. But I can't help but think I can't live without it.