Read, Read, Repeat
January is under way and the flurry of nudges and prompts to get our Bibles open has dissipated. Whether you were persuaded to embark on a reading plan, or simply resolved to read your Bible more, this moment, as the New Year noise subsides, can be unnerving.
Sometimes, we do all the things…set the alarm, make it out of bed before the house awakes, brew that cuppa, sit down with our Bible, open it up…and wonder how we are supposed to glean relevant, real life truths from it.
Knowing that it’s God’s word can make us hesitate.
In that hesitant moment, can I suggest the simple step of reading? Take a manageable portion. There’s no extra credit for longer chunks. This is all God’s word and all of it, whether it's a few sentences or a few chapters, is life-giving.
Read it. And read it again. And then read it again. Take a moment. Maybe grab a pencil, if you’re a ‘write-in-my-Bible’ person, and read it again. Read it out loud. Read it slowly. Read it quickly. Listen to someone else read it.
Repeated reading allows us to engage with the words that God has given us.
This season, we’re back in John’s gospel. Chapter 6 kicks off with that familiar story of the packed lunch that fed five thousand plus people. Given that we’ve likely read these verses before, we might think the repeated reading tip doesn’t apply. But this is where it comes into its own. As we read it closely, carefully and repeatedly, we begin to notice things that we’ve never seen before.
It wasn’t until my fourth time through that the plentiful grass in v10 popped into view. My eye had previously always gone straight for the surprising abundance of leftovers. As I slowly scanned back over the scene, noticing that the people are made to sit down on that grass, I was reminded of psalm 23 and the way in which David speaks of the Lord ‘making me lie down in green pastures’.
This same Lord, the one who David speaks of, is right here in this packed lunch moment. As we feast on the account of this miracle, we are seeing the abundant, never-running-out, spiritual provision of our God.
Our God, who reaches into that hesitant moment as we wonder how we can hear Him speak, and shows us that we have all we need in Jesus. This is the Jesus we encounter as we carefully, attentively and repeatedly read God’s word.
