The Shortest, Toughest but Most Delightful Journey

UV 1351/10,000 The Shortest , Toughest But Most Delightful Journey
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
Psalm 119 v 97
The law is a double edged weapon for it can make the one who heeds and obeys it to climb up while it causes the one who disregards it to stumble and fall. The Word of God contains the DNA of the Lord. It shows us the image to which each of us should conform to. When we love the Word, we will treasure it in our hearts and minds. The most difficult distance to cross for every human being is the 12 inches between his mind and his heart. The Word needs to stay sufficiently long in our minds to intermingle with our innermost thoughts, deepest emotions and most important decisions. We need to meditate on it all day and all night it will be like health-producing medicine working in the innards of our being even as we sleep. We need to pray and meditate on it 24x7. Just as a cow ruminates and chews on its cud 18 times, we need to bring the Word from our minds into our mouths, share it, speak it, chew it 24 times- once every hour. From our mouths, send it back to our minds for further processing, relishing, nourishing and then back to our mouths till it is ready to be assimilated forever into our hearts and spirits. Once it travels to our hearts, it is ready to bless us and make us a blessing.
The whole trouble is that our minds are like a reverse sieve. It retains what is negative and releases what is good and positive. Hence, we need to have a thought process that is constantly renewing our minds, purifying our thoughts and emotions and strengthening our will. We need to so remember the specific portion of scripture the Lord speaks to us each day in such a way that it affects or sanctifies all the members of our bodies- the intellect, the tongue, the appetite, our limbs, our eyes and ears. If we are just superficially skimming the Word, it does not penetrate to all these members and as a result as St Paul writes- a different law-the law of sin will operate in the members of our bodies and it will be in conflict with the higher law of God that operates in our minds.

The love for as well as of God manifests itself in the Word. David wrote in the Psalms that had he not loved the Word, he would have perished in his afflictions. Our afflictions or troubles take on meaning in fact when we love the Word and meditate on it all day and night as we will learn the purpose of it and its alignment with the will of God. The Word becomes a map and a compass, an anchor and a rock for us in the ups and downs and rough and tumble of life. It introduces certainty, assurance, security, dynamism and stability in the midst of change and turmoil. Loving the Word means not just being contented with reading a portion here and there and now and then but it means delighting in recalling it, searching for the inner meaning of each word and its practical application in our lives. We need to find the hidden meaning and delight in hiding in it. Each new discovery should cause us to rejoice just as a gold miner exults on finding fine gold in the deeper shafts of the mine. The Word will quicken or bring to life our dormant understanding and gifts of wisdom, knowledge and insight.

Prateep V Philip