She found the old Bible in the back of a drawer, wedged behind a stack of birthday cards and a rusted pair of scissors. Its leather was cracked like dry soil, and the edges of the pages curled in surrender to the years. Sarah hadn’t opened it in forever. Life filled itself with other things—calendar alerts, coffee shop meetups, podcasts about productivity. The Bible had become one more “to get to eventually” on a list that never stopped growing.
But something pulled her back to the text that day—not out of guilt or obligation, but hunger. Not for more words, but for more quiet.
“His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.” That was Psalm 1:2. She’d heard it before, of course, maybe even underlined it once. But what did it mean to meditate on God’s Word? What does that even look like when your phone pings twelve times before breakfast?
Joshua 1:8 echoes the same truth: “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” So not just reading it. Not flying through a chapter a day. But sitting with it—slowly, like sipping tea instead of gulping water.
The ancients had a name for this. The Jews called it haga, a word that means both to “meditate” and to “mutter.” Rabbis would sit and quietly speak the words of Torah under their breath, tasting them as they spoke, letting the cadence of Scripture shape their soul. Early Christian monks called it lectio divina—the “divine reading”—where a single phrase could become the bread of prayer for an entire day.
But you don’t have to wear a robe or live in silence to taste this kind of reading.
Sometimes, it starts with one word. One verse. One moment when you’re brave enough to slow down.
I remember trying it once—not in a monastery, but on my back porch while laundry tumbled in the garage. I read, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Just that. I read it again, quieter. I let “Be still” stand alone. Then I read only “Know that I am God.” And somewhere between the rustling leaves and the ticking dryer, it stopped feeling like a verse on a page and started becoming a whisper in my heart.
Maybe you’ve felt that too—the longing for Scripture to feel more alive and less like something you’re “supposed to get through.” It doesn’t happen by accident. Deep roots take time. Like a tree planted by streams of water, as Psalm 1 promises, the soul that meditates becomes steady, nourished, fruitful.
Meditation isn’t always about insight. Sometimes, it’s about intimacy. When you lean in, not to study God, but to behold Him. Not to master the text, but to let the text master you.
That’s what Sarah discovered on her living room floor one rainy afternoon. She took one phrase from John 15—“Abide in Me”—and wrote it on a sticky note, placed it on her coffee pot. Every time she walked past it, her breath slowed. It wasn’t a Bible study. It was communion.
We forget how much stillness can heal us.
When prayers go unanswered, and you don’t know what to say—you can sit in a single psalm until it says it for you.
When fear eats at you in the night, and the to-do list drowns out hope—scripture, savored slowly, can become the anchor you forgot you had.
This ancient practice doesn’t belong to the monks. It belongs to the hungry. And you, my friend, are allowed to be hungry for something deeper.
You may discover that one verse chewed slowly will feed you more than five chapters gulped down fast. You may find that God’s favorite conversations are the ones where you sit in silence together, content to be near.
Let Scripture become more than a task—let it become your table, your quiet place, your meeting ground.
Because the Word of God is living, and when you come to it not like a hurried tourist but like a returning child, it will meet you. And it will speak.
That’s the kind of reading that changes you from the inside out. That’s the kind of delight you were made for.
She found the old Bible in the back of a drawer, wedged behind a stack of birthday cards and a rusted pair of scissors. Its leather was cracked like dry soil, and the edges of the pages curled in surrender to the years. Sarah hadn’t opened it in forever. Life filled itself with other things—calendar alerts, coffee shop meetups, podcasts about productivity. The Bible had become one more “to get to eventually” on a list that never stopped growing.
But something pulled her back to the text that day—not out of guilt or obligation, but hunger. Not for more words, but for more quiet.
“His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.” That was Psalm 1:2. She’d heard it before, of course, maybe even underlined it once. But what did it mean to meditate on God’s Word? What does that even look like when your phone pings twelve times before breakfast?
Joshua 1:8 echoes the same truth: “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” So not just reading it. Not flying through a chapter a day. But sitting with it—slowly, like sipping tea instead of gulping water.
The ancients had a name for this. The Jews called it haga, a word that means both to “meditate” and to “mutter.” Rabbis would sit and quietly speak the words of Torah under their breath, tasting them as they spoke, letting the cadence of Scripture shape their soul. Early Christian monks called it lectio divina—the “divine reading”—where a single phrase could become the bread of prayer for an entire day.
But you don’t have to wear a robe or live in silence to taste this kind of reading.
Sometimes, it starts with one word. One verse. One moment when you’re brave enough to slow down.
I remember trying it once—not in a monastery, but on my back porch while laundry tumbled in the garage. I read, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Just that. I read it again, quieter. I let “Be still” stand alone. Then I read only “Know that I am God.” And somewhere between the rustling leaves and the ticking dryer, it stopped feeling like a verse on a page and started becoming a whisper in my heart.
Maybe you’ve felt that too—the longing for Scripture to feel more alive and less like something you’re “supposed to get through.” It doesn’t happen by accident. Deep roots take time. Like a tree planted by streams of water, as Psalm 1 promises, the soul that meditates becomes steady, nourished, fruitful.
Meditation isn’t always about insight. Sometimes, it’s about intimacy. When you lean in, not to study God, but to behold Him. Not to master the text, but to let the text master you.
That’s what Sarah discovered on her living room floor one rainy afternoon. She took one phrase from John 15—“Abide in Me”—and wrote it on a sticky note, placed it on her coffee pot. Every time she walked past it, her breath slowed. It wasn’t a Bible study. It was communion.
We forget how much stillness can heal us.
When prayers go unanswered, and you don’t know what to say—you can sit in a single psalm until it says it for you.
When fear eats at you in the night, and the to-do list drowns out hope—scripture, savored slowly, can become the anchor you forgot you had.
This ancient practice doesn’t belong to the monks. It belongs to the hungry. And you, my friend, are allowed to be hungry for something deeper.
You may discover that one verse chewed slowly will feed you more than five chapters gulped down fast. You may find that God’s favorite conversations are the ones where you sit in silence together, content to be near.
Let Scripture become more than a task—let it become your table, your quiet place, your meeting ground.
Because the Word of God is living, and when you come to it not like a hurried tourist but like a returning child, it will meet you. And it will speak.
That’s the kind of reading that changes you from the inside out. That’s the kind of delight you were made for.
