Devotional Thought of the Day:
²  You’re blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. ³  That’s right—you don’t go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set.
Psalm 119:2-3 (MSG)

Let us use texts of Scripture as fuel for our heart’s fire, they are live coals; let us attend sermons, but above all, let us be much alone with Jesus.

When I made you a present of that Life of Jesus, I wrote in it this inscription: “May you seek Christ. May you find Christ. May you love Christ.” These are three very distinct steps. Have you at least tried to live the first one?

I have often struggled to find the words to encourage people (and pastors) to meditate on Scripture.

To treat it more than a textbook, or a self-improvement novel, or something they have to do, in order to be better believers, to be loved by God.

I would love to blame it on the enlightenment, or modernism and the need to rationalize and have a purpose for everything we do. But we, conservative or progressive, high church or low church, all seem to be willing to forgo spiritual disciplines like prayer and meditation on the words through which God reveals Himself to us.

It is too easy when trying to encourage people to spend time contemplating God and His love, to resort to tactics which can produce guilt or shame. It is challenging to help someone see the blessing of spending time, no, cherishing the time that comes when we slow down and hear the word of God, describing how we are loved by the Word of God.

Notice that the translation doesn’t say go and find your blessing? It simply acknowledges you are, when you follow the directions to find Him and do. He’s not that far off, even today amid a pandemic.  Spurgeon says we need to be alone with Jesus, he gets the blessing that it is!  St. Josemaria urges us to find Jesus, with the same concept. Not because we have a duty too, but because of the blessing.

This is our time of refuge, our time of peace, it is the time where we are loved and affirmed, and our hearts set on fire, our passion for God grows because we realize how passionate He is about us. It is the time of restoration, a time where we spend intimately with God, a time we need to survive, to take a time out, to breathe, to regain hope, to be healed, to realize that God is even dealing with our sin.

All that and more happens when a believer finds Jesus, right were they are. When they spend time savoring the message of Scripture when they don’t just read it to read it, but let it soak deep inside them.

I can only but urge you to do so, to spend time with God as He reveals Himself to you… and how He is you God, and you are His beloved people.

C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.