THE SILENT BENEFIT OF THE WORD

THE SILENT BENEFIT OF THE WORD

When you eat, you don’t see the vitamins. You don’t see the proteins entering your muscles, or the minerals strengthening your bones, nor can you observe how each nutrient is working inside you. You simply eat.

And many times, after eating, you don’t say, “How incredible—I can already feel the vitamin C at work!” You don’t feel anything special. But that doesn’t mean the food isn’t having an effect.

Silently, it is nourishing your body.

And if you eat well for one day, you may not notice a major difference. But if you eat well day after day, then after weeks, months, and years, that food ends up having an enormous effect on your health.

The same thing happens with the Word of God.

There are days when you read the Bible and it seems as though God is speaking directly to you. But there are other days when you read and say, “Lord, I didn’t understand much today.” Or you finish a chapter and, five minutes later, can barely remember what you read.

And we might think, “Then why read?”

Because the Word also produces a silent benefit.

Jesus said about the seed:

“...it sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark 4:27).

The seed is beneath the ground. You can’t see it. It seems as though nothing is happening. But a great deal is happening.

That is often how the Word works within us.

A phrase is planted. A biblical thought enters the heart. A principle begins to change the way we think. And perhaps you don’t notice it today, but one day a difficulty, a temptation, a difficult decision, or a moment of pain comes, and suddenly a Word you read months earlier rises up within you.

The seed was there.

That is why you should not read only to “feel something.” Read to nourish yourself.

You don’t eat only on the days when you have an extraordinary experience with food. You eat because you know you need nourishment.

In the same way, open the Word every day. Read it. Meditate on it. Store it in your heart. Even on the days when it seems as though nothing is happening.

Because while you read, God is forming something within you that you may not yet be able to see.

Romans 12:2 speaks of being transformed through the renewing of our minds. That transformation normally does not happen all at once. It takes place as our minds are repeatedly saturated with the truth of God.

So remember:

You don’t see the vitamins, but they nourish you.
You don’t see the seed growing, but it is growing.
And perhaps you don’t immediately see what the Word is doing within you, but keep allowing it to nourish you.

Eat every day.
And nourish yourself every day with the Word of God.

Because there are things God does in us silently, until one day what was growing inside begins to show on the outside.