will & t +1

Every morning Will and I engage in battle.

A battle for our affections and energy and time.

Our “flesh” (the part of us that wants ease and instant gratification and coffee) wars against our Spirit (the part that wants God).

Our main way of fighting looks like reading the Bible and praying, and sometimes talking about what we are reading together.

We come every morning weak and broken, as if the night robbed us of all our ambition to seek our joy in Christ. So we do what George Muller did and articulated so well: we seek to make our soul happy in God. That is Will’s aim before he leaves to go to work or school, and my aim before Cedar and Mercedes wake up from their first nap.

But we need help. Even before we pick up the Word of God, we need help to even want to pick up the Word of God.

Our pastor has helped us with a truth and hope-filled acronym. Our weapon to fight against the desire to read the Word is the Word. There are no other tricks out there. This is all we have. And it’s the most powerful weapon on the planet.

I.O.U.S.

Incline my heart to your word and not to selfish gain. Psalm 119:36

• Nearly everything in me wants to run to everything but the Word. Coffee, breakfast, instagram, email, Mercedes, laundry, shower, cleaning. All good things, but not good if used as an excuse to keep putting it off. “Draw my heart to your Word, O God! Make it the way I bend or lean or what I most likely will turn to with my few quiet moments before Mercedes wakes up. Make your Word what I am most inclined to.”

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. Psalm 119:18

• “And when I open your Word and read, make me to see WONDER! Wonder upon wonder!” This is the one I keep bugging God about. “Wonder, God! I want to see wonder!”

Unite my heart to fear your name. Psalm 86:11

• Ever sit down to read and realize that you need to vacuum or look up that thing online or wipe down the counter or reorganize that shelf or write that email? “God, bring together all those stray pieces of our hearts and minds and unite them in one single purpose right now. Right now I am all yours.”

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love. Psalm 90:14

• I want time reading the Word to be like eating a big fatty hearty rich breakfast that stays with me until 2pm. “Satisfy my heart so I don’t want the quick fixes of this world.” The Psalmist (Psalm 63) likens communion with the Lord to being satisfied with fat and rich food.

Right now I’m looking up from where I usually read in the morning and notice a little bare spot on our wall that might fit four letters like these, placed vertically, quite nicely.