As we navigate through the end times, there’s a consequence I think we’ve succumbed to without realizing it. Combine the personal technology at our fingertips with the fact that we are in the Laodicean church age marked by obliviousness to our anemic spiritual state, and I think we become entertained and satisfied too fast—regularly. We stop too soon.
I’m working on this in my own life. I’ll talk about my daily quiet time. There have been whole periods in my life when I just looked for a personal verse for the day. But what if God had more for my soul and His glory than just a verse? No. Sorry. I just need one verse.
Right now, I’m reading through the Bible in a year. That would be about three chapters a day. I just went through Leviticus. I was thinking about the concept of becoming satisfied too soon, and so I read five chapters a few days. I was amazed at how much more understanding I received from reading two extra chapters. I got a bigger context and more things to marvel at.
I’ve also decided that just reading it and calling it good is stopping too short. So, I’m writing a summary of what I read and the insights I receive. So rather than just reading, I’m meditating on it.
Maybe another way to put this is, good enough isn’t good enough. Isn’t there something deeper that can capture my soul if I’d just look up some cross references with the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge on my Blue Letter Bible phone app or e-sword computer app? When I find a heart-stirring verse, can’t I ask where else that might be in the Bible in different words, or who was an example of that somewhere in the Bible? Let’s all stop letting those devotional thoughts go by so fast. Let’s push ourselves to go a little bit further.
Let me illustrate another area where we have a whole Christian culture that stops too soon. Remember that beloved song “It is Well With My Soul?” What if Horatio Spafford was satisfied with his work after he finished writing the first verse and stopped? Or if John Newton thought he was happy and done after writing just that first verse of “Amazing Grace?”
I want to challenge the song writers of today to not be satisfied coming up with one meaty phrase and working that into a tune to repeat over and over. You are stopping too soon. Search your heart and pray and find more truths about God to add to that phrase. When you think you’ve done well, challenge yourself to go even deeper and come up with more, until you have a song filled with marvelous truths. It will be hard at first because it’s going to take more time, and you’ll be tempted to stop when you feel like you have one profound thought. But real worship happens when we interact with truths about God in our heart. We can’t let ourselves be satisfied with one little truth repeated 15 times because the writer didn’t take the time to think of anything more.
If you tell me it’s just the style of the day to repeat one phrase over and over, I’ll tell you that it’s a sign of our day. We’re satisfied with too little. We don’t know that we are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. We need to anoint our eyes with eye-salve that we might see.
Tell me what you think.
Jody