Committed to memory

It is of no use to commit whole pages to memory, merely to recite them once without hesitation; you must think of the meaning more than the words - of the ideas more than the language. (Dorothea Dix)

If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them. You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings. Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand—you don’t require burnt offerings or sin offerings. Then I said, “Look, I have come. As is written about me in the Scriptures: I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.” (Psalm 40:5-8)

I used to think I had to memorize all these verses in the Bible to be a Christian. I am not much of a memorizer, though. I can do it, but to simply recite these verses I have learned over the years is not really anything all that profound. In fact, they can be like 'clanging cymbals' or 'noisy gongs' if all I do is memorize them, but they don't really 'get into' my heart and affect the choices I make. The most profound 'use' of the Word of God in my life has been when his Word gets into the mess or muddle of my life and finally straightens things out in a way I could never do on my own. 

The more of his Word that gets 'worked into' the fibers of my being, the more I find my character begins to change. My 'internal drive' is different than it was before - I don't just see things from my crazy, mixed-up mind's eye view, but I see them as he sees them. As Dix said, the 'meaning' matters way more than the words. When we allow God to speak 'meaning' into our lives through the power of his words, we find the shedding of bad habits, forsaking of favorite sins, and dismissal of taunting temptations. Why? The power of God is at work - not just our willpower or 'self-help' plans.

All of God's Word is "useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Reciting it from time to time is fine but allowing it to dig into the recesses of our mind, the failures of our past, and the hurts bottled up within our heart makes for a much better use of his Word. Only then will it begin to teach us how to forsake what is wrong and embrace what is right. 

We create all kinds of ways to 'appear holy', but there is one action we can take that will actually begin to help us live holy lives. It is getting God's Word into our lives - not as recited verse alone, but as the living, breathing Word of God. Those two verses above are the ones I recall from time to time, to remind myself that God is hard at work whenever I take up his Word and ask him to bring it alive within. Just sayin!

Not my will, but thine

Pressure is the exertion of force upon a surface by something in contact with it. When we use the term, "I am under a lot of pressure right now", we are simply saying, "There are a whole lot of EXTERNAL influences in CONTACT with my life right now". Something, or someone, comes into CONTACT with our lives - but they are not "invading" our inner life - their contact is on the surface! This may not be earth-shattering to some, but I think if we really begin to latch onto this, we may just see how much control we have over what actually can affect us on the "inside". It is what we 'let in' that matters - not so much how much EXTERNAL pressure we are under.

If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. (Proverbs 24:10)

What we allow into "contact" with our lives will exert some kind of force against us. Even air exerts some kind of "force" upon that which it surrounds! We cannot escape the fact that things and sometimes people bring "pressure" of some kind! Try as we might, there is no way to live "pressure-free". The important thing to keep in focus is not that we will experience pressure, but how this "force" will impact us. The "force" something exerts is only on the surface - making what we have on the interior most important when it comes to 'resisting' force. If the right stuff is on the inside, the surface may take a little beating, but the force will not be able to breakdown the stuff on the inside. The "force" may put something "under pressure" beyond what the surface normally withstands, but if the interior is filled with the right stuff, the "resistance" to the pressure is greater.

We sometimes see pressure bringing out the best in ourselves and others. We might find pressure exposing the best in us - simply because the best stuff is really exposed by the force. If the right stuff is on the inside, even force won't be able to change that! God reminds us that our "strength" is revealed under pressure. Remember that strength is not just the ability to resist something on the surface, but it is designed to expose what is on the inside. Understanding pressure this way helps us to realize that what God plans for us to reveal is his strength, not our own. Whenever we think external forces have to be dealt with in our own strength, we are facing "pressure" with a resistance which in incapable of enduring the force. A "force" is any strength, power, or energy which is exerted upon the surface of something. I can "force" you to sit down, but if your spirit is really seeing yourself as standing up, have you really been seated? Not really - you have just given into the force, but everything in you remains rigidly resistive to the "force". Resistance is really application of an opposite strength. When life comes at us, demanding us to "sit down", God's strength gives us the strength to oppose the demand. The force exerted met an opposing strength it could not match! I wonder how much we might view pressure differently if we saw it as a means of exposing the opposite strength? Not the opposite strength we can muster from our own reasoning or tactical expertise, but the inner strength of being in the hands of God. When the opposite strength meets the external force, the source of the strength becomes evident. If it is our own "mustered" strength, it will soon yield to the force! Just sayin!