Author: Dave Dishman (Page 254 of 475)

Certain courses of action, like reaching through the bars to pet the lions, won’t work out for your best. Those around you cringe, understanding what you obviously cannot comprehend (this really happened, more than once).

Messengers to king Jehoiakim cringed as they watched him listen to a message read in his presence from the Lord:

As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed…neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.

Earlier Jeremiah described the Lord moving in his anger—like a lion he has left his lair. King Jehoiakim poked the lion and earned his doom—his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. As so it was.

The issue at play? Jehoiakim and his entourage didn’t believe the God Jeremiah wrote of really existed. They saw the gods as ineffectual, make-believe, ideas to keep the rabble in check. These men were gods themselves, in charge of a kingdom, making important decisions. Words on a scroll delivered by a wild-eyed prophet served as entertainment, not as warning.

It may sound overly dramatic, but we disdain the Lord’s words to similar results. Paying attention to the Good Book pays off in the end.

Just because you believe the lion is tame doesn’t mean it won’t bit your arm off.

Jeremiah 36 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Jeremy Avery

A valuable trait for any of us involves listening. I know some good listeners, those who give attention to the speaker and ask good questions in response. I also know many, many people who never truly listen but merely formulate their opinion—which they interject at the next pause.

James puts it this way: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

Quick to hear. In every situation, listen carefully, seek to understand, answer slowly and thoughtfully. In this way you’ll promote understanding and the righteousness of God.

I find these challenging words from James, who in the next breath encourages us to be doers of the word, and not hearers only.

Few things prove my doing better than my listening.

James 1 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Beth Macdonald

How many times have you heard the advice, Follow your heart, it won’t lead you astray? The assumption being that deep down inside, we know what we want and what we want is good for us.

This view of the heart insists that before interacting with the world we exist as beautiful, unblemished creatures. If we make contact with that part of ourselves, we’ll steer ourselves with clarity.

Advertisers revel in this thinking, allowing influencers to promote like wildfire spreading through dry timber. Prophets of our day trumpet the message and anyone looking to undergird their lifestyle finds ready support—I’m just following my heart.

But Jeremiah uncovered an inconvenient truth about our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

According to the scriptures, our inner guiding spirit is duplicitous and diseased. The heart cannot be easily understood, let alone trusted implicitly.

The choice lays before me. Trust my heart, or trust the words of the Lord.

Ironic, but I can’t ask my heart for guidance on this question—it will lie to me. If I ask the Lord (and take time to listen), I’ll get a better result.

Or, I can just read the words of Jeremiah where it’s all spelled out.

Jeremiah 17 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Nick Fewings

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty.

Jeremiah’s prayer of lament expresses the attitude I need toward the scriptures in my hand. If I eat them as Jeremiah says, digest them, take them deep into my soul, then they do the work they’re intended to do.

No other source exists for bending us closer to God. Without the words of God, our techniques or meditation or silence or worship fall short—sometimes even bend us away from the heart of God. The devil masquerades as an angel of light, you know.

So, eat his words. Chew the cud. Ruminate like a bovine. Let God’s words bring joy and delight. A true relationship with the Lord waits, available on his menu at your fingertips.

Order up.

Jeremiah 15:16 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Louis Hansel