The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. [Isaiah 55:10-11 (NLT)]
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! [Anonymous]
Back in January, many people made resolutions to read the Bible. If you pledged to read the entire Bible this year, good for you. Like many who make that resolution, however, you may already have fallen behind schedule and are tempted to quit. Having tried to do it in a year, I feel your pain. After finally getting through Leviticus, Jeremiah nearly did me in with his doom and gloom. It’s not just the reading that takes time; it’s the understanding, the digesting, of what we’ve read that can slow us down. After all, there’s no point of reading it if we don’t understand it! I could read the words in a college astrophysics text but, if I didn’t understand them, I’d know no more about astrophysics on the last page than I did on the first. This year, I’m reading the Bible in chronological order and, in spite of my goal to do it in a year, it will probably take longer. For those who are discouraged or soon will be, I thought I’d rerun a previous devotion for you.
When in Africa, four hunters each bagged an enormous elephant. The elephants weighed 14,000 pounds apiece and, after butchering and processing, the men ended up with 7,000 pounds of edible meat in each of their freezers. Resolving to eat their elephants in one year’s time, they had to consume about nineteen pounds of meat a day. Within a day or two, George, realizing there was no way he could eat all that meat every day, quit. Tom made good headway until he got to the elephant’s trunk. It had a gamey taste and, with its 100,000 muscles, was tough to chew; discouraged, he also quit. Abe tried hard but he was a slow eater and only averaged five pounds a day. Knowing he’d never meet the deadline at that rate, Abe also quit. Ted, however, understood that some is better than none so he ate a little bit every day. If he was hungry, he ate more and if he wasn’t, he ate less and just picked up where he’d left off the previous day. When he encountered the chewy trunk, he moved over to the tender tasty ear for a while before returning to the tough part. One look at the calendar told him he’d never be done in a year but he didn’t let that bother him. He just kept eating the elephant, one bite at a time, until it was all gone.
That one bite at a time philosophy goes for reading the Bible as well as for eating elephants! While it’s nice to have a goal, sometimes that goal isn’t feasible. Not achieving your day’s objective, however, isn’t a reason to quit. As Ted learned, some is better than none if you want to accomplish anything. Like the elephant’s trunk, some parts of the Bible are really tough and hard to digest. When Ted got to the trunk, he took a break and moved to something easier to chew before returning to the tough part; we can do the same with our reading. Ruth, Esther and James are far easier to digest than Chronicles, Lamentations or Isaiah and we can move around in our reading when things get tough. Some people read slower and some parts of the Bible take a whole lot longer to digest than others. While setting a target date is admirable, it may be unrealistic; struggling to maintain an unrealistic pace can turn what should be uplifting into drudgery. Ted changed his objective from consuming his elephant in 365 days to polishing it off eventually and he achieved his goal. The same philosophy works for our Bible reading. If we read a little a day, taking it one page at a time, sooner or later, we will come to the end.
I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. I praise you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. … Be good to your servant, that I may live and obey your word. Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. [Psalm 119:11-12,17-18 (NLT)]
P.S. No elephants were harmed during the writing of this devotion!
On the days his restaurant is closed, a French chef friend works in his kitchen to make gallons of demi-glace. Hundreds of pounds of veal bones get roasted along with carrots, celery and onions. After deglazing the roasting pans with wine, he adds tomato paste, seasonings and water and simmers the concoction. At some point, he strains out the solids and continues simmering (and straining) the hot broth. More than twenty-four hours later, his stock has a rich brown color and a gelatinous consistency. After all of that simmering, less than one gallon of thick sauce remains for every ten gallons of liquid he added. Chef packages and sells this richly concentrated sauce to other restaurants that use it as the “mother sauce” or backbone of their own sauces.
A young pastor friend admits to not being good at reciting Bible verses from memory. A product of the computer/Internet age, he just taps in a key word or topic and, almost instantly, the verses are right in front of him in whatever translation he wants. There’s no need to memorize verses when, with just a few keystrokes, the words appear. I may read the Bible every day and predate the age of computers but I’m no better at knowing verses by heart than he. If I remember my passwords for both computer and Internet, I can find whatever verses I need. While that works when I’m researching or writing, my desk is not where most witnessing opportunities occur. I could plead age as an excuse but I didn’t memorize Bible verses even when my brain was younger and possessed far less useless trivia than it does now. My pastor friend and I both profess to love God’s word and yet we don’t seem to love it enough to learn it by heart.
Having heard that I write Christian devotions, the man looked across the dinner table and asked, “Have you always been religious?” The unexpected question from a Jewish man I barely knew caught me off guard. While I knew he wasn’t asking for a long salvation story, I needed to answer his simple question. I faltered through a brief explanation that I couldn’t remember a time I didn’t consider myself a Christian but that my faith grew deeper as it carried me through some really rough spots in life. Having no idea where I’d go from there, I heaved a sigh of relief when the table’s conversation moved to another topic.
While under arrest in Caesarea, the Apostle Paul spent two years sharing Jesus with Felix, the governor. Nevertheless, after two years of testifying about salvation through Christ, Paul couldn’t seal the deal and Felix never came to believe. I’m reminded of a charming salesman who worked for a friend of ours. Although he diligently went out and made sales calls, no matter how many times he called on a potential client, he couldn’t close a deal! Eventually, as nice as he was, he had to be let go. After all, salesmen are expected to make the sale. Fortunately, God doesn’t work that way; if He did, the Apostle Paul might have been out of a job after failing to seal the deal with Felix!
In our house, we have an unwritten agreement to accept each other’s choices when it comes to giving. God had laid it on my heart to help a young family in our church through some difficult financial times. When I told my husband I’d written a generous check to them, he said I didn’t need to ask him. “I wasn’t asking,” I replied, adding that I hoped he was in agreement with me. Although that check was not dependent upon my husband’s authorization or approval, I still wanted him on board with my decision to write it.
Devotions of the Heart 