The Better Basis

When the stuff of our spiritual lives are built on the Word of God, there is a permanence about it.  One of the reasons there is so much spiritual floundering is because too much of what we think of as our spiritual life is based on our experiences or feel good feelings. People measure worship and sermons on the basis of how good it makes them feel.  And somehow we find ourselves thinking that the better we feel, the more spiritual we are.  When we have good outcomes to our problems, we go around declaring, "God is good!" but the truth is what we experience or feel has nothing at all to do with His goodness.

 

A much better basis for our spiritual lives is the Word of God as we find it in the Scripture.  It does not change. It proclaims the same unchangeable truth regardless of the circumstances of our life.  It is a dependable source of truth for us in all kinds of weather.  But, knowing such is true is not enough.  We finally have to come to the point of choosing to make the discipline of reading and living with the Word as a part of our lives.  Unless we read it, there is no way it can make a difference in how we walk the twists and turns of our life.  As Lent continues to unfold, we find ourselves hearing this call to read the Word.  It is not something to be done because it is a good religious practice, but because it is something which has the power to change the way we are able to live in the midst of our circumstances.

 

The Word we put into our heart becomes a part of the attitudes we embrace and express with our living.  There is always a correlation between input and output.  What we carry with us from our quiet moments of reading the Word will serve us well when the noise of our life is overwhelming and we do not have time to think.  The more we read the Word, the more it becomes a part of who we are.  We become what we put in our heart.  Read and know this truth as reality for yourself.