Series: Inspired Word of God
Deuteronomy 11:18 ESV
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV
The Word that is not just any word is THE WORD.
It’s inspired.
It matters.
It changes lives.
Deuteronomy 11:18 tells us, “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”
The words had been given to Israel before…
In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 God told them, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Bind them…bind the words ON you.
Keep the words in the forefront of your heart and mind. Another way of saying it would be to keep the words of God…the inspired words from God ever before you.
Looking back to my childhood, I remember lessons I was taught. They were good lessons that helped me learn step by step how to learn, how to communicate the English language, and how to understand math and science. I learned history and how man thinks and socializes.
While they were good lessons and I’m not making light of those lessons, they were not lessons that changed me. They were things I learned about life and society.
I also learned another kind of lesson. Step by step and week by week I learned about God and man and life.
I memorized the list of books and various passages. I learned about the people of God and their journey with God.
That was important, because it gave me context.
Once again, while all of that was good and profitable because it was learning, it really didn’t change me.
What all of those Sunday School lessons and reading the Bible did was to give me a desire to understand God.
I remember memorizing loved the Lord your God. Love with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength. I didn’t know how to DO that when God wasn’t something I could touch or see. So, I asked my da to help me to understand how to love God that much.
I remember whenever I would ask questions like that the response was often something I totally did not understand. He would give me an assignment. (I know now that instead of giving someone a fish it’s better to teach them how to fish.)
It took a while for me to understand that all of the assignments he gave me pointed me to the discovery of the answer I was asking about without giving me the answer.
He made me find the answer on my own.
One of the lessons he gave me had to do with choosing a scripture and sitting with that scripture. Most of the time I had no idea what it meant so after a while I would go back to da and complain about not getting the answer.
He would send me back again and tell me to ask God again and to listen.
I had no idea what I was listening FOR. So I would go back and complain again that I didn’t get an answer.
He would send me back again telling me to listen. He told me to stop thinking and to really listen with my heart. My da would also tell me to read my Bible and to listen.
I don’t remember the day or the hour but ever so gradually I started to really want to hear God.
I also remember that I had read about loving God so many times that I started loving God.
Then I loved God so much that I wanted to hear from God.
Then I wanted (really wanted) to hear from God when I read scripture.
I prayed and asked God to teach me and to show me the way to hear.
Along the journey when I would get stuck day after day, month after month, year after year I would go to my da and he would send me back to God and to scripture.
Without even realizing it (because I had not read Deuteronomy 6:7-9) in a very organic way my da was following the instructions given in Deuteronomy 6:7-9,“Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Looking back I think my wanting to hear from God made me want to hear from God. That led to a lifetime of wanting to hear…
So, today’s Spiritual Practice is to practice.
Practice listening. Sit in silence and love God.
In God, Deborah