I Have Treasured the Words of His Mouth

I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. Job 23:12, NIV

One of the joys of being a Christian is to witness the effects of the Bible on your friends and family. I don't know any saintly people who pray until the candle they are holding melts down.

I speak of every day people, living busy lives and very much into the chores imposed by the world. Some of them have little or no background in this direction. Yet with a few seeds planted, they grow and bloom. Rather than helping them, the examples of pious people real and fake, have hindered their development. They need to follow a very simple but rare path of being alone with God and His Word.

In so many of us there is the feeling that we must make others into our image, or, at least, to follow our own path. This sounds so righteous and nagging of me, but I do not mean it that way at all. It is just that there are so many different ways to come to Christ and his Word, that to just stand back and watch their progress is often the best course.

I love to see people grow in their love and understanding of the Bible. Often, late in life. It is as if people have resisted the urging to make them a certain way, and finally, they find it on their own. I love these black sheep and those who choose their own path.

I once exchanged cassettes with a lady who was in her thirties. She had been treated as a child all her life. We listened to one another's cassettes as we answered back. I had just said that she was a very interesting woman, when I heard a long, agonizing scream on her tape. "No one has ever called me a woman before," she said. Everything about her had been managed and "compressed" to try to shape her life. "It's time you have been," I told her.

When I see people come to God and the Bible, unpressured, and on their own, it is like seeing the bird released from its cage.