by Brandy Webb

A post from a good friend of mine this week on Facebook really challenged and inspired me.  It was a great post.  One of those posts where you know you were supposed to read that, and grateful that it didn’t get lost in the sea of non-essential posts.   She compared God’s word as a home that we should intimately know and dwell.  She stated that over the years she had started treating His word as a vacation spot, instead of home.  This post really hit me because it made me realize I do the same thing.  I am not dwelling in His word.  We are to make sure that the “word of Christ” dwells inside us “richly, teaching and admonishing” us in “all wisdom” (Col 3:16).  

Yet, I tend to study half-heartedly.  I intensely study when I’m stressed or anxious, thus making it my vacation spot.  A place to go when I need to break from my everyday life, but God wants to have an intimate relationship with me, not an occasional phone call.  We are to dwell in Him and He in us.  How are we to do that if we don’t know what He says.  If we don’t know how He thinks.  If we don’t have His living word in our thoughts all the time and if we are not living in His home spiritually.

Did you know that the word “word” is mentioned in Psalms 119, 42 times in the NASB, if I counted correctly.  The Psalmist makes it very clear how special God’s word is to him.  God’s word is what keeps us pure (vs 9), keeps us from sin (vs 11), revives us (vs 50), is a lamp to our feet and light to our path (vs 105), gives understanding to the simple-minded (vs 130), etc…  I have to say I really need some understanding.  

God’s word is absolute.  It was here in the beginning of everything and it will be here forever.  It is infinite.  It is full of wisdom and truth.  It gives us life (John 1:1-4).  We are not to live on bread alone, but on “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut 8:3b).  There is nothing physically we can do that can sustain us.

So, how well do you know your “home”?  I know I need to return to my “home”, and really take the time to enjoy it.  I don’t want to treat it like a vacation spot anymore or a place I go to only around His Sabbaths, kind of like visiting relatives on holidays.  I don’t want to sacrifice my Spiritual home for the sake of trying to establish my physical home.  I can’t take anything I establish here physically with me when I die, but if I establish and dwell in the Word of truth and life, my spiritual home will be eternal.