Some believers are hard to shake. Trouble comes and they hold, and you wonder where that comes from. Jeremiah tells us, and he says it in the middle of a complaint about his own pain.
“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.”
Jeremiah 15:16, KJV
He says this a few lines after calling woe on himself for being born a man of strife (Jeremiah 15:10). A few lines later he asks God why his pain is perpetual and his wound refuses to heal (Jeremiah 15:18). Between those two, he tells you what kept him.
He ate them. Reading puts the words in front of you, and eating puts them into you.
You can cover three chapters before breakfast and take nothing in. The eyes move, the book closes, and by mid-morning you could not say what was in it. Nothing went in.
A meal is a small amount of food, taken in and kept long enough to be used. Jeremiah stayed with what he found until it was in him, and nothing about that is beyond you. A verse you have eaten is part of you, and what is in you is what you still have when the day turns.
You may have been reading for years. You may know your way around the Bible better than most people in your church and still be hungry, because knowing where the food is kept is not the same as eating.
Look at who put those words within reach. Jeremiah says they were found. God had already spoken, and the words were lying there for a man with a wound that refused to heal. He fed him in that week rather than a better one, and He will feed you in the week you actually have.
This is how the Son of God lived. Hungry in the wilderness, He said man lives “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Scripture was what He lived on, and He asks you to live on nothing He did not.
Take one verse today. Not a chapter, one verse, and the one that stopped you rather than the one you meant to get to. Read it, read it again, say it back to God in your own words, and tell Him what you do not understand in it.
It will feel like too little. You may feel you are wasting a morning that could have covered more ground, and that feeling is not a sign you are doing it wrong. Stay with it until you can say it without looking.
You will find out later whether it went in. The verse comes back to you in the afternoon, in the middle of the thing you did not know was coming.
Eat what God has said, and it will be there when you need it.
Prayer
Father, give me a real hunger for Your Word. I have read without feeding, and I have closed the book with nothing in me.
Teach me to stay with what You have said until it is in me. Let it hold me on the days I have nothing else.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Today’s Challenge
Read Jeremiah 15:15-21, Ezekiel 3:1-3, and Psalm 119:97-104. As you read, watch for:
- Jeremiah 15:15-21: watch for what he says he has suffered in verse 15 and what he asks God in verse 18, and where verse 16 sits between them
- Ezekiel 3:1-3: watch for what God tells Ezekiel to do with the roll before he is sent to speak, and what he says it tasted like
- Psalm 119:97-104: watch for how many times he calls it his meditation, and what he says it made him able to do
Then ask yourself:
- What did you read in your Bible yesterday, and how much of it is still with you today?
When you stay with one verse and nothing seems to happen, what do you find yourself assuming about God in that moment?
Key Takeaway
Eat what God has said, and it will be there when you need it.
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