One of the ways I struggle with fixing and building things is feel. How do you know when you’ve tightened the bolt and are not over-tightening? By feel. How do you know how when the wire strippers are going to cut the wire coating, but not the wire itself? By feel. You only get that feel by doing, but if you’ve never done it before, well, you’d like it to be more than a feeling.
How does one begin to read the Bible? If you’ve never done it before, where do you start? How do you start? To say to someone that you just feel what you are to do – well, that makes no sense. Psalm 119 was written to help people read the Word of God. Although it contains 176 verses, it’s broken down into 8 verse segments – very manageable for reading each day.
The first 8 verses open to us with an important lesson on reading the Bible. To read God’s Word is to pursue blessing. It’s an open invitation and incentive for you to put in the work. The more you read, the more you will be blessed!
But that still doesn’t help with the how. And that’s where God comes in, because He is there to assist you in reading His Word. And what is amazing is that God does this from within. It’s as if He is guiding you so that you learn the ‘feel’ of reading His Word.
We are reminded that the Word of God belongs to God. It is His Law, His testimonies, His ways, His precepts, His statues, His commandments, His judgments. They all belong to Him!
Plus, learning His Word comes through God, and never apart from God. The Psalmist models this for us in verses 4 and 5; verse 4 presents the truth of our need for God’s Word: “You have ordained Your precepts that we should keep them diligently.” Then verse 5 goes into prayer for God’s assistance with this, “Oh that my ways may be established to keep Your statutes.”
At the heart of reading God’s Word is a partnership. You have work to do in opening up His Word and reading. But you rely on God to do His work, teaching you, blessing you, giving you the feel of His Word.