The gym I go to works on a circuit. Two and a half cycles on the circuit is one complete workout. This is the first time in my life that I have been a gym member, and I`m not particularly athletic so it is definitely a new challenge for me. Usually I get just over two-thirds of the way through the circuit when my body starts to really rebel, but seeing the end just a few machines away makes it easier to push through and finish. The toughest days however are the days when I feel the fatigue just halfway into the circuit. This was how I felt on Thursday. I was panting a smile to the person facing me who was also struggling as my muscles began to liquify, perhaps even curdling a bit. I still had so much to go. Every day is a fight of willpower, but this day was worse. Why in the midst of this then, would the Bible come into mind?
My first thought was, "How cliché!" I`ve heard devotionals talk about how reading the Word is a discipline much like going to the gym, but you just do it and get on with it. In some ways, they make the perseverence sound otherworldly and sterile. Truth is I do struggle with my daily devotionals. Some days it is easier to take the time with God and His Word, and other days it is a fight, complete with spiritual cramps and sweat! As I was pondering this, I realized I only had a few machines left and was almost to the end of the workout. I never give up in the middle of the workout because I know it is a small sacrifice and is never more than I can truly handle. I also go quite regularly as it is only by other`s gifts that I am able to have joined. To give up midway or to skip weeks at a time would waste the resources with which I have been entrusted.
In Biblical times, rabbis would introduce the Torah to young students by putting a drop of honey, the sweetest substance known in Biblical times, on their tongues. The rabbi would tell them that this sweetness represented the Law. I once attended the Bar Mitzvah of a student whose father was a Jewish immigrant from Iran. He told a similar story from his own childhood just a few decades ago. He was from a very poor region, but on the first day of Hebrew school the rabbi took the costly jar of honey that he had saved for since the previous year and told the children to hold out their slate boards. He then poured the honey in such extravagance over all the children`s slates until they were covered completely and the honey was spent. The children were shocked at such a gesture, but they licked their slates until they were full. The rabbi then simply said that such was the Word of God.What precious resource we have been given in the Word of God, what incredible wealth has been entrusted to us. As I left the gym, drenched in sweat, but pleased with the result, I asked God to give me the grace to persevere in my devotional life. I do not want to take for granted the generous gift of the Word He has given me.
