If there is one thing I have learned from attempting to walk in faith, it is the power of storing scripture where I can retrieve it.Reading it daily, truly meditating on it, memorizing it, brings power, wisdom and perspective that is not accessible from any other source. But, where to start?
Someone once told me an easy place to start reading the Bible is with the Proverbs. There are 31 chapters, one for each day of the month. On January 1, you would read Proverbs 1. On January 3, you read Proverbs 3. Each verse is applicable, relevant and filled with wisdom.
As I write this, it is January 2. Today's Proverb is chapter 2:
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
This leaves just one question for me to consider. Is this true? If it is, I have everything to gain. If I apply this, treasure God's word and ask Him, I will understand and revere God's wonder. I will find knowledge and wisdom. I will understand righteousness, justice, equity and every good path.
If it is not true, I have nothing to lose. I will have read words that have endured for thousands of years, words that, regardless of their religious weight, encourage me to live a life of integrity.
Go ahead. Give it a shot.
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