Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God.” Matthew 4:4
I opened my laptop and skimmed through the Twitter feed. My eyes caught on occasional posts by friends, but I didn’t have time to read everything.
I opened my e-mails. I subscribe to several writing groups, so dozens of messages filled my inbox. I surfed through the subject lines, stopping only when I noticed a topic I was interested in.
Later that evening, my husband and I watched a home remodeling show. Because of our recording device, we were able to forward quickly through commercials, but also forwarded through repetitive or boring parts of the show. It took about ten minutes to watch a 30-minute show.
My habit of skimming has trickled into other areas, as well. Today when I sat down to do the homework for a small group Bible study, I raced through the lesson, glanced briefly at the verses in my Bible, and checked that off as another task accomplished.
Yet when Jesus confronted temptation, He made a declaration that makes me want to slow down. He proclaimed the importance of every word that comes from the mouth of God. When God speaks to us in His Word, each truth is valuable–the warm and fuzzy passages, the difficult and confusing verses, and even the stories that seem so familiar we think we can rush past because they have nothing new to teach us.
Faith step: Read a section of Scripture slowly, drawing sustenance from every word.
