The other day I was wondering why most find traveling to the Holy lands so satisfying. There were many questions and several (inadequate) answers. Was it the travel itself? No, sixteen hours in an airplane each way is tolerable, but not pleasant. The accommodations? There’s a reason for the phrase, “There’s no place like home.” The sites? Well, it’s possible. But after a week or so most tourists get a glazed-over look in their eyes, that says, “I’ve seen these same rocks somewhere else.” Is it the people in your group and those you meet along the way? Sure, acquaintances become friends, even like an extended family. They make the journey memorable, and sometimes not. Could it be the thrill that comes with adventure? Going some place new and exotic? Experiencing a culture different from your own? All true, but totally satisfying? Probably not.
As I was preparing a day-by-day summary of this year’s trip, I began listing a key Scripture passage or two with the sites we visited. A light went on. Everyday on our trip the Book was opened. Several times a day, at each site, on the bus, and in between, the Word was read and explained. Then followed times of personal thoughts and reflection that encompassed all the senses—what we had seen and heard. Some would jot memory-prompting notes. A few would expand their ideas in writing. Thoughts developed into an exchange of additional insights. Discussions about the Scriptures could be heard while riding, at meals, in rooms, on the paths in and out of other sites.
A week ago we received 2 3/4 inches of rain in a 24-hour period of time. That isn’t anything to write home about from many parts of the country. But in the flatland areas of Los Angeles, that is an unusually high volume of precipitation. Outside my office, water was sitting on top of the grass. The ground was saturated, it couldn’t absorb anymore moisture.
I would never say that we read and heard and pondered and conversed over so much Scripture we just couldn’t absorb anymore. However, the shear volume of God’s Word had filled our leaky cisterns to a level of satisfaction many of us had never before experienced.
God must have had a similar idea about the saturation of His Word satisfying the soul when he told Israel,
“This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children (that is, “You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children,” v.7; Amplified Bible). Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates” (Deuteronomy 6:1-9, The Message).
Satisfied? Does flooding your soul with the Word satisfy? There may be something there for us to understand and utilize the 340 days of the year we won’t be traveling.
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