The Feast of Scripture

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This piece was written for the January issue of our church newsletter, Grace & Peace.

It was on the bright edge of the new year a few winters ago that I set out to read through the entire Bible in 60 days. This meant two months of reading more than 15 chapters per day. I read as slowly as honey pours from a jar, so this was probably a bigger undertaking than I was prepared for.

But what happened was something beautiful: God’s Word spilled over from my morning quiet time into every crevice of my daily life. I read it over the oven door while the bread rose. I listened to it in the car, while I walked my neighborhood, and as I watered houseplants for a neighbor who’d gone South for the winter. Before I knew it, I was reading Scripture when I sat in my house, and when I walked by the way, and when I laid down, and when I rose (Deut. 6:7).

That winter, I realized God’s command for His people in Deuteronomy 6 wasn’t to just drink His Word along with a cup of morning coffee, but to feast on it in all of life. The point was that they would take it with them, binding it to their hands and foreheads—a picture that wherever they went, God’s words were imprinted on their hearts and minds (Deut 6:8).

For me, this meant taking in God’s Word with my eyes, ears, and both my hands. Between stretching and folding bread dough, I read Psalm 104:

“You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth… and bread to strengthen man’s heart” (Psalm 104:14-15).

As I cared for my neighbors’ home while they were away, I listened to Jeremiah’s call to God’s people:

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce… Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf” (Jeremiah 29:7).

This practice would serve me, not only in beautiful moments, but in the bleakest seasons of my life—in the waiting rooms, hospital hallways, and long afternoons when my grandma was on hospice. The Word of God found me in those places the way a stream finds a man lost in the forest.

“My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word.”

~ Ps. 119:81

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“I open my mouth and pant,
because I long for your commandments” (Ps. 119:131).

If we believe Scripture is sufficient–that it nourishes every part of our life–then what else can we do but take it with us, feasting on it at our kitchen table, thinking on how it applies in our workplace, and meditating on it when we sit in our house and walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise?

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