Chew Your Food!

[bluidkiti]

Chew Your Food!

by Marilyn Ehle

“I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways” (Psalm 119:15).

My husband’s maternal grandmother was a delightful woman with characteristics and actions that still bring laughter as we recall her presence with us. She placed high emphasis on “looking good” and so she occasionally wore one of her nicely trimmed hats while hanging laundry on the backyard line. (Who knew when some stranger might drive in and see her?) Another comment grandchildren remember was an emphatic, “Chew your food!” Some insist that she even said each bite should be chewed 100 times before swallowing.

Swallowing food without adequate chewing certainly isn’t good on the digestion, but there is another kind of swallowing that has far more negative effects. How many of us open our Bibles or devotional books each morning and quickly read—perhaps even pray—and then go about the business of the day without thoroughly “digesting” what we’ve read? We assume we have eaten a meal when in reality we have only swallowed a few words. The nutrients will pass through without producing all their God-intended, life-changing purpose.

The word meditate has within it the meaning of imagining, pondering, even repeated murmuring—in other words, chewing. Dallas Willard writes that in our reading of the Bible, our “aim must be to nourish (the) soul on God’s Word.” True nourishment never takes place, either in our bodies or our souls, without slow chewing of the food.

~ Lord, I am so often in a hurry when I open the Bible. I fool myself into thinking that I am eating a meal with You when in reality I am merely smelling a distant aroma of a well-cooked meal. Please help me never be satisfied with anything less than truly meditating on Your Word, pondering it, imagining You speaking personally to me.

Questions: What steps can we take to begin to nourish our souls on a more regular basis instead of hurrying through our devotions? What does it mean to “meditate” on God’s Word? What happens when we don’t take time to spend with the Lord?