Taking Root in the Spirit

Come to a land I will show you, God said to Abraham.  As long as these words remain for us part of an Old Testament story, or an historic event such as the Civil War, they do not impact our lives at all.  Once these words become part of our own history, everything begins to change.  Our freedom begins with the Word of God addressed to us in a personal way: Come to a land I will show you.

Every one of us is meant to hear the Word of God directed to us, penetrating and changing our lives.  In order for this to happen, we must begin to "root down" in Scripture and in prayer.  Verse 1 of Psalm 1 puts it this way:  Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law [instruction] of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.  The word "meditate" in this verse actually in the Hebrew means "to mutter."  In English, the word "mutter" has connotations of craziness, so the translaters choose a more lofty-sounding "meditate."  But in order for the instruction of the Lord to sink deep into the soil of our lives, we do need to "mutter" it over and over. 

It is not so much "Bible study" that we need, as Bible penetration:  Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.  That's what we need--pondering, chewing, letting the Word of God sink deeply into our hearts.  Intellectual study is input---information coming in.  The intellect gathers and prepares the food on which we are to feed; in meditation, the heart eats and digests the food in prayer.  The Bible can mean little to us if we hear it only on Sunday and forget it the rest of the week.

When we approach the Bible not as a book to be studied, but as a library from which the Holy Spirit can choose to illumine our hearts and minds, it becomes a personal "school of the Holy Spirit," just for us.  When I was first "baptized in the Holy Spirit," after someone in the hospital prayed for me, and as a result, began reading Scripture, I wanted to go to ministry school where someone could teach me about the Bible.  In prayer one day, as I was asking to be directed to a greater knowledge of the Word, I heard these words:  I've got you in the school of the Holy Spirit. 

How wonderful it is to be taught by God Himself, who alone knows our hearts and what it is we need to know at any given moment of our lives!  We need only to "show up" every day at school and take notes---keep a journal.  The Holy Spirit will not fail to be present when there is a student of the Word, and He Himself will direct our study.  But we must be willing to accept the lesson of the day and to let it direct us to the next level. 

Come to a land I will show you.  Abraham had no GPS, no map, not even an idea of when he would arrive.  His daily lesson required no previous knowledge on his part---he only had to stop each day and build an altar of prayer to be certain that he was still moving in the right direction and being guided.  The Bible stories are our stories; if we have not yet seen that, we need to "fold up the wings of our intellect," in the words of Catherine de Heuck Doughtery, and allow the Spirit of God to direct our reading and the thoughts of our hearts.  The Word of God will take root in us, directing us in the way we should go.  We cannot know it ahead of time; it unfolds day by day as we read and ponder, mutter and meditate on the food which God gives us in His Word.