"The media relentlessly proclaim bad news: for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A steady diet of their fare will sicken you. Instead of focusing on fickle, ever changing news broadcasts, tune into the living Word- the one who is always the same. Let scripture saturate your mind and heart and you will walk steadily along the path of life."
God doesn't speak out loud to me and he doesn't usually give me visions. Sunday as I read I was I overcome by an overwhelming sense-feeling-thought that what I was reading was direct from him. It was made crystal clear in my heart and mind that the "media" in the above quote was meaning doctors reports and scan results. And by crystal clear I mean like zero doubt about it. As I sat there it was so boldly obvious to me. We are letting our security hang on each scan or doctor appointment. We go into each one nervous and anxious thinking "Is this the one? The one where she will be cancer free? How will we take it if it isn't the one? How will God still look good? Will there ever be a clear scan? Did he really promise healing?" We listen to a steady diet of ever changing scan results and they bombard us. They fight each other until they are at the forefront of our thoughts and then they stand there screaming, refusing to be held back or contained. They are in our face, unable to be ignored, fighting mightily as The Lord and I wrestle them into the captive thought bin. And The God made it clear in next line of the passage that what we need to do in order to captivate those thoughts is for our lives to be saturated with scripture. Tuned into the living Word, the one who is always the same. He wants our lives to be so soaked in the promises of an unfailing, eternal God (like a soaking wet sponge) that there is no room for the doctor reports and results. He desires that they simply roll off of us and flow right down the drain.
After having that revelation I had a very intense quiet time on Monday afternoon. It was completely unplanned and I sat down quickly to look up a verse in Isaiah to send to someone else. I ended up paging through almost 17 chapters with words leaping off the page . . . Intensely showing me what it means to be saturated in scripture.
Isaiah
43:1 Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine.
43:15 I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israek, Your King.
44:8 Do not be startled or afraid. Have I not told you and declared it long ago?
45:2 I will go before you and level the uneven places; I will shatter the bronze doors and cut the iron bars in two.
46:4: I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you.
48:10: Look, I have refined you, but not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
52:9 Be joyful, rejoice together, you ruins of Jerusalem! For The Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem.
54:10 Though the mountains move and the hills shake, my love will not be removed from you and my covenant of peace will not be shaken, says your compassionate Lord.
55:6 Seek The Lord while he may be found; call to him while He is near.
55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways." This is The Lord's declaration. "For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
57:19 The Lord says, "Peace, peace to the one who is far or near, and I will heal him."
58:8 Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord's glory will be your rear guard.
58:11 The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose waters never run dry.
60:20 Your sun will no longer set and your moon will not fade; for The Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your sorrow will be over.
It was as if God was right next to me with his highlighter in his hand. Bolding a word here, highlighting a phrase there, and underlining key parts that expressed what he has promised and encouraged me with in other parts of the Bible. Even if only for that specific day, April 21, 2014.
Peace, comfort, seeking his face, love, his going before me, provision, healing, family, joy. . .
Saturated in scripture.
I know that this isn't necessarily how you are supposed to read and use the bible.
It is just how God used it for me on Monday. To remind me to lighten my diet, lose the sickening, fatty doctor-scan report-result fare and indulge in deliciously-satisfying delightfully-decadent scripture.
Daily. A steady diet SATURATED in scripture
