It's one of those moments that make being a grandparent so grand. At a community circus, my wife handed two-year old Lucy a wad of cotton candy. The tot stared at it, then wrapped her pudgy fist around the pink tuft and—of all things–brushed it against her skin! Back and forth she rubbed the soft pink cottony thing into her cheeks.
Looking down, my wife saw what was going on and urged Lucy to eat the sugary treat. Popping it into her mouth, Lucy registered an expression that validated her new delight with cotton candy's real purpose—it's supposed to be consumed!
Lucy's misappropriated cotton candy incident reminds me of a story told by Rev. Theo Asare, whose entire life is devoted to getting Africans to understand the Word of God in their own language (by all means visit theovision.org). Theo once visited a fellow African who was at the beginning stages of constructing a new home. In the wet cement foundation, this man had jammed a printed copy of the Bible. When Theo asked him why he had done so, the man replied, “I want to build my home on the foundation of the Word of God.”
Like Lucy, this man (no doubt a skilled builder) had missed the point: the Bible is supposed to be consumed. I wonder how many of us have missed the point when it comes to God's Word.
We think we're so much further along in our Christian walk. Yet many of us barely nibble at the Word of God. And some of us get about as much out of the Bible as Lucy did her cotton candy when rubbed across her face. Worse yet, we’ve given the whole matter scant thought.
But like cotton candy, the Bible is supposed to be consumed, internalized—not merely nibbled at.
Want to live a blessed life? Really? Here’s the formula in Psalm 1:2: Be one of those who “delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.”
Let's stop merely reading the BIble.
Let's consume it!!!