Tom Tripp – Guest Columnist
I encourage you to spend a little time each day in God’s Word (possibly using a good daily devotional). Why? Because when we spend time listening to the heart of God revealed to us in Scripture, the peace of God, and the hope of God, and the strength of God, and the priorities of God, and the character of God grow in us.
Think of spending a little time with God each day as being like daily chitchat in a marriage. Marriage counselor Dr. John Gottman spends hours watching couples interact, and he speaks to the importance of daily chitchat. He writes, “You might think I’d find viewing hour after hour of such scenes unbearably boring. On the contrary: When couples engage in lots of chitchats like this, I can be pretty sure that they will stay happily married. What’s really happening in these brief exchanges is that the husband and wife are connecting—they are turning toward each other. In couples who go on to divorce or live together unhappily, such small moments of connection are rare. More often, the wife doesn’t look up from her magazine—and if she does, her husband doesn’t acknowledge what she says.”
Connecting Gottman’s comments to our faith, Dr. Henry Cloud remarks, “It’s not in the mountaintop experiences that long-term relationships are built but in the moment-to-moment connectedness of simply sharing life together. That is one of the keys to lasting relationships of any kind. And that is exactly what God wants from us as well. He can create all the mountaintop experiences with us that he desires, and sometimes he does. Most people of faith can point to a time or two when they’ve had some encounter with God that was out of the ordinary. But they will all tell you that those times are rare exceptions. The rest of their relationship with him is built on the little day-to-day connections, the kind of chitchat connections that Gottman observes in healthy marriages. As you simply share with God the things that are in your heart and on your mind, you will grow deeper and closer in relationship with him.” (The Secret Things of God, p. 178-179)
Or consider the story of an old man who lived on a farm in the mountains of eastern Kentucky with his young grandson. Each morning, Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading from his old worn-out Bible. His grandson, who wanted to be just like him, tried to imitate him in any way he could. One day the grandson asked, “Papa, I try to read the Bible just like you, but I don’t understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bible do?”
The grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and said, “Take this old wicker coal basket down to the river and bring back a basket of water.”
The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, “You will have to move a little faster next time,” and sent the boy back to the river with the basket to try again. The boy ran faster, but the old wicker basket was still empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead. But the grandfather insisted, “I don’t want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water,” and he sent the boy to the river again.
By this time, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to please his grandfather, so he walked to the river, scooped up a basket of water and ran as fast as he could. Out of breath, he said, “See, Papa, it’s useless!”
“So you think it is useless?” the old man asked. “Look at the basket.”
The boy looked at the basket and, for the first time, he realized that the basket looked different. Instead of a dirty old wicker coal basket, it was clean now. “Son, that’s what happens when you read the Bible. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, it will change you from the inside out.” ■