Day 9... Quiet Thinking

Day 9... Quiet Thinking

Bible verse:

After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. Luke 2:46-47

Twelve years old!  When I was twelve, I certainly wasn't sitting around our church having long involved conversations with a group of Pastors.  When I read this day's lesson I began to feel sorry for myself, because I feel like I have wasted so much time not knowing God, but He quickly tells me that I have not wasted anything at all.  He says that He has been with me waiting for me.  He says it is never too late to know Him and age has nothing to do with it.  I guess maybe I do hear His voice.  I am so blessed.

Now, what will we do with that?  Today's reading is about quiet thinking.  This is the next step in meeting with Christ, stopping and thinking reflectively what about what He has told us, through prayer, and mostly through His word.  We need to think about each piece of Scripture so that we can remember it for the future. 

I have learned through my current studies that one of the best ways to do this is by association.  If we really want to remember something so that we can easily recall it in the future, number one, it has to be important to us personally, and the way to make it easy to recall in the future is to associate it with something that means something to us.  For example if I am studying for an exam at school and I want to do a really good job, then I need to quietly think of ways to make associations in my mind of the subject I am studying so that I can easily recall that information when I am taking the exam.  This is what the author is trying to explain to us today.  We need to make the time to set ourselves apart from everyone and everything to think quietly about the Word that we have studied so that we can recall it in the future when we need to.

As I have said before, I believe that we are all so busy, including myself, living day to day that we are not taking time to process what we have been learning.  Simple things like, where we left our keys when we got home last night, that appointment that is so important for work or our health, a person's name that we just met.  It's not that we are forgetful, we never bothered to remember it in the first place because we are so busy.  "Contemporary society places much more emphasis on doing than being" (Moore,p.50).

Jesus was busy, he did several of the things that we do today without a car, cellphone, or a computer, but the one thing that He did that we are not doing is, thinking about the messages from God.  He took the time to draw away from everyone and everything to "think" about what the message said.  That is why Scripture came so easily to Him, because he spent the time thinking and processing it in his mind so that he could recall it.  To this day, people who make things look easy, that are not easy, do so because they have worked very hard to master that task.  If we want to become masters of the Word, then we must work very hard at it.

Unfortunately there are too many Christians who experience the same spiritual experiences because they do not take the time to think about those experiences and grow into new and wonderful spiritual experiences. 

So, today make a conscious effort to not only quietly converse with God, quietly read God's word, but be sure and take the time to quietly THINK about God's word.  Make connections in your mind with what He is tell us so that we can recall it in the future for others.  What a testament that would be, right?  I know that I am in awe when others can repeat scripture instantly when the situation arises that it is needed. 

Remember:  Take time to stop and just think.  You'll be amazed at the connections you'll begin to make between what you're learning today and what you learned a month or a year ago.

He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  Luke 10:27

God Bless!