Yesterday, we began to focus on relationships in our lives shedding buried pain and hurt. Today, staying focused on relationships, let’s evaluate our relationship with the Word.

The Word of God is God’s letter to us. The Word is what God left for us as our inheritance to fully know who He is and His extreme love for us. The Word is God, and we can have an active, living, breathing relationship with it.

John 1:1 In the beginning before all time was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.

Hebrews 4:12 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power making it active, operative, energizing, and effective, it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and the immortal spirit, and of joints and marrow of the deepest parts of our nature, exposing, and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

So many of us can struggle to develop a consistent relationship with the Word. I know, I was one of those people. It’s easier to just do a devotion, or wait until Sunday to hear, but God intended for us to have a consistent relationship with the Word. He shows us Himself through it; we see who we are through Him; we see our inheritance as a child of God.

When I first began my relationship with the Word, I set aside time to read, but I struggled. First, I struggled just staying awake long enough, then I struggled to understand, and I also struggled because I didn’t see the Word like so many others in my life who saw the Word applicable to their lives. I wanted that, but growing up I saw the Word as a story, and God as a person I would encounter when I got to heaven, so the Word was stories to me.

I began to pray a prayer that I pray today and I haven’t changed that prayer. Before I begin reading the Word, I ask God to show me what I need to see and let me hear what I need to hear that I want to see His Word alive in me. The Word is alive so I choose to breathe in that breath of life from the Word.

As I began praying that prayer, I would keep a notebook nearby to write down anything that I would understand. One day, I was reading about the life of David. During that time, I had taken a break to make a pan of cornbread to go with supper for the night. I go back to reading and began to get so interested in what I was reading and at some point, the oven timer went off and I continued to read and couldn’t find a place to stop, because I didn’t want to stop. For the first time the Word was not a story! I was reading the life of David and was seeing my life through it.

Eventually, I had to stop and go get the cornbread out of the oven. I ran and pulled the cornbread out then got back to reading and writing. As I began to write, it dawned on me that in my hurry to just get the cornbread out so I could get back to reading again, I realized I didn’t use any oven mitts to grab the skillet. I had grabbed with my bare hands. I looked at my hands and not even burned or anything. That day, my life and my relationship with God and His Word changed. The Word became alive to me and I never read the Word with a struggle again.

God wants us to find Him in His Word. There are moments in the finding; He wants to be found.

Jeremiah 29:13-14 Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me as a vital necessity and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you…

Prayer Starter