Delicious And Nutritious Words

How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.

Psalm 119:103

Suppose you were to look at an apple sitting on your kitchen counter. You might admire its shape and color. You might think about the nutrients in it and consider the effect it would have on your body. But until you eat it, all its potential is lifeless for you. Once you eat it, all its nutrients come to life in you and are applied to your cells to impart their power.

When you eat, your digestive system knows how to use the food to nourish your body. The nutrients from your food are absorbed into your bloodstream and then deposited in the right cells. This process works without your conscious effort. All you have to do to fuel your body is ingest the proper foods.

The Scripture often uses the idea of eating to describe the taking in of God’s Word: “When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight” (Jeremiah 15:16). What does that analogy communicate? Just this: the Word of God nourishes your spirit just as food nourishes your body.

The Word of God is not something that is applied to the surface of your life for cosmetic purposes. It is to be taken into your life, where it can nourish you from the inside out. God’s words shape your thoughts and renew your mind. They become the mold in which your life is formed. In the same way, when your spirit knows how to digest and apply the Word of God, it will taste sweet and delight your heart.

Let your Word be my nourishment. Feed me from its delicacies.

It is not hasty reading, but seriously meditating upon holy and heavenly truths that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee’s touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian.

Joseph Hall(1574–1656), English bishop and satirist