Are you starving yourself?

My ladies Biblestudy group has been reading One Thousand Gifts together, and oh the treasures to be found in that book! To poorly sum up the book, Ann Voskamp discusses how the simplest pleasures in life are reminders of how much God loves us and how He has intricately woven into our day little hidden love letters. This book has been WONDERFUL to discuss together, and I have learned so much. Last week we talked about how important reading God's word is. How it is to be a lens through which we view the world. His word is healing and brings understanding to the chaos we call life. In all the horrible things that happen, in all the right things that happen, when we live by the light God's word casts on our lives we can see things from His perspective. So the question was posed,

  "What are you doing to daily ingest the word of life?" 

I sadly had no worthy answer. 

Good News Club theme song poster

At the beginning of the New Year, I had boldly declared that this would be the year that I would read the entire Bible. BiblePlan.org has a great daily plan they'll email you to keep you on track. Well, I stayed on track for about 2 months, but then (there's always an ugly "but" in these stories) I got sick, and then I got sick, and then I got sick. Seriously, I've never encountered constant sickness like this in my life. The cold lasted over a month, then the flu came for a weekend, then more sinus issues settled in, and the last thing I battled was Strep throat that put me out flat for 3 days. I did feel like it was a bit of a spiritual attack because this year we started a Good News Club ministry for kids in the park not far from here, and that has had its own ups and downs (more on that later). So back to the plan; the plan failed and I eventually started deleting the emails from Bible Plan before I'd even read them because I was so far behind. So when this question was asked, and I just didn't want to say anything at all.


Later that evening I was thinking about it again. I wished that I could add the habit of reading into my day, so that it would be just a natural thing to do because it would be... a habit! But I'm horrible at adding new things into my life. The ONLY things I do on a consistent level are brush my teeth, shower, go to the bathroom, sleep and eat. I wish habit making came easily to me, but alas.. So then I had this revelation. 

I'm trying to do this on my own!

And THAT'S why it's never worked! I need to have God give me a hunger for His word, one so strong that if I went without his word that I would literally feel starvation pains. So this is my prayer, that I would hunger and thirst for righteousness (Mat. 5:6).

"Come and Dine" is a hymn that beautifully reminds us that there is always a feast to be had. 

Jesus has a table spread

Where the saints of God are fed,
He invites His chosen people, “Come and dine”;
With His manna He doth feed
And supplies our every need:
Oh, ’tis sweet to sup with Jesus all the time!

• 
  “Come and dine,” the Master calleth, “Come and dine”;
  You may feast at Jesus’ table all the time;
  He Who fed the multitude, turned the water into wine,
  To the hungry calleth now, “Come and dine.”

~Charles B. Widmeyer