If the CROSS conference had existed twenty years ago, when I was a college student, I would have been here. So it feels relatively easy to put myself in your shoes. I’ve asked myself, What was it that I needed to hear as a young adult about how to meet God each day?

If it were just one thing, I think it would be this: gather a day’s portion. You might call it “faithful realism” in daily Bible intake. In short, not trying to do too much. Not trying to acquire a lifetime’s worth of Bible knowledge in a few short months, or weeks! (And not falling off the wagon and doing nothing when you get discouraged.) Rather, adopting a modest, realistic approach in seeking to meet with God, in his word, and seeking to be faithful over time. And coming to God, through his word, to be fed, to be nourished — to receive, not achieve.

So, gather a day’s portion. I’ll flesh out this vision in five brief aspects, but first let me set the scene for where the phrase “gather a day’s portion” comes from in Exodus 16.

Bread from Heaven

In Exodus 14, God’s people have just been freed from slavery in Egypt and passed through the Red Sea. Moses and the people erupt in a song of praise in the first half of chapter 15 (vv. 1–21), but in barely three days, the people already are grumbling (Exodus 15:22–24). God responds with grace — he “heals” the bitter water, and brings them to a place of plenty, an oasis with “twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees” (Exodus 15:27).

Once they set out from the oasis, soon they are grumbling again (Exodus 16:2), now to the point of delusion (Exodus 16:3). Again, God responds with grace. He says in Exodus 16:4, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day.”

This bread from heaven they call “manna,” and Moses gives the further instruction in verse Exodus 16:16, “Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat.”

Gathering Every Day

Now, Exodus 16 is not first and foremost about Christian Bible reading today and how to meet God each day. But it does give us a glimpse into who our God is, and what it means to have him as our God and for us to be his people. He is the kind of God who provides for our needs on an everyday basis. He is the God who is with his people every step of the way, to give us, by his own hand, daily provision in the wilderness — any place in the world — to get us safely to his promised land. And he loves to feed his people a day at a time.

“God loves to feed his people a day at a time.”

Jesus taught us to pray to our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and he warns us not to adopt the build-bigger-barns mindset of the rich fool, who put his hope for the future in his own store rather than in the Father’s daily, active care (Luke 12:13–21).

God wants our sitting down with his Book, to meet with him each day, to be more like coming to dinner than going to the grocery store. Come to eat and drink, here and now, for today, not mainly to store up for someday in the future. God doesn’t mean for us to focus on developing our own stash and personal pantry, but to feed straight from his warehouse.

So, coming to God’s word to gather a day’s portion has come to have at least these five brief aspects for me.

Plan

First is a plan, which includes time and place. It was no accident that Jesus rose early, and the united testimony of centuries of faithful saints has been that the quiet of first thing in the morning is far and away the best time for far and away the most Christians. One way I think about it is that I want God’s voice, in his word, to be the first voice I hear each day. Most will find out over time that it is worth it to get off your screen the night before, and get to bed on time, and get up early — before all the people who stayed up too late on their screens — and meet with the living God, in his word, in those quietest and least-distracting moments of the day.

Plan also includes place, which I mean in two senses: in the world and in the word. In the world means the physical location in which you’ll open your Bible. For me, I want an uncluttered desk or table. In the word means a planned place in the Bible to open to. I would not recommend opening at random, or just bouncing around each day with whatever feels interesting on the spur of the moment. This is where a reading plan can help for balance in the long term and clarity about where to go today. Find a time-tested reading plan, and take each day’s assigned readings as God’s gift to you that morning for his feeding of your soul.

Pace

Second is pace. This is so important. I suspect so many seasons of Bible reading are ruined by rushing and impatience. Modern life can be so hurried. There are so many options and still just 24 hours in the day. So, we hurry. We hurry through meals. Hurry on the roads. Hurry to scroll through our feeds. Hurry when we read articles and books, often just skimming, because we feel like we’re always running out of time. But hurry ruins Bible reading. I think it hampers most reading, but Bible reading all the more.

In a life of hurry, let your daily season in God’s word be your first stance against the tides. Slow down when you open the Bible. Find the pace that accords with nourishing your soul for the day. God’s word is not fast food. For me, this means I need enough time to lose track of time. I need to find the pace that frees me to follow rabbit trails and check cross-references that come into my own head, or check the ones in the margin — that I have space to try to understand Scripture in the world of Scripture. What previous and later scriptures sound like this one, or use the same categories and language and terms and images?

Pause

Third is pause. What I want to highlight here is the importance of meditation. Not just reading. As you read, and slowly, find some place to pause, to linger and ponder some striking truth, some unexpected ray of God’s goodness, some glimpse of his beauty.

In meditation, you pause and ponder some truth, roll it around on the tongue of your soul, seeking to not only understand it but enjoy it, or feel the weight of it. Which leads, then, to addressing God (in prayer) as his word has addressed us and gone deep in us in meditation.

Prayer

So, fourth is prayer. Meditation is a bridge between Bible reading and prayer. Instead of doing your Bible readings over here, and then pivoting to prayer lists over here, let your Bible reading lead to meditation, and meditation then lead to prayer.

Here’s my little arc for what I’m seeking to do each morning with my Bible open:

Begin with Bible.
Move to meditation.
Polish with prayer.

To meet with God is not only to hear his words in the Bible, but also to speak back to him, in response to his word, in prayer. It’s a relationship. First, God speaks in his word, and we listen deeply and take it all the way in through meditation. Then, amazingly, God wants to hear back from us. In Christ, we have his ear. He means for us now, in light of what he says in his word, to address him in praise, thanks, confession, and supplication.

Person

Fifth and finally is the person, whose name is Jesus. Meeting with God, in his word, is no mere activity. It’s not mainly an exercise in learning. It is meeting with a person, who is not only God but also man like us. To see Jesus — by the Spirit, through the word — is to see the Father. To know him is to know God. To enjoy him is to enjoy God. To feed your soul on him is to have true life.

“Our most pressing need is not to master the Bible but to be mastered by God in Christ, through his word.”

Bible reading and meditation and prayer are means to an end. They are God’s means of grace to the great end of knowing and enjoying Jesus as the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:45–46), as the great Treasure hidden in a field and found in joy (Matthew 13:44), as the Surpassing Value worth counting all as loss to have (Philippians 3:8).

So, gather a day’s portion is my reminder not to try to do too much in morning devotions, and not to miss the main thing. Our most pressing need is not to master the Bible but to be mastered by God in Christ, through his word, in a day’s portion, for a lifetime.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14711953/keep-the-unity-that-cost-everything

A TV with no remotes. A theater with no exit. A dream with no waking. Such can the imagination seem in the midst of lustful temptation.

Many are familiar with the mumbled no, the shake of the head, the attempt to turn thoughts elsewhere. And perhaps just as many have felt the persistence of dark ideas, the return of images unwanted. We wandered into this theater of the imagination so easily, but now we can’t seem to find the way out.

How do we wake from this dream and break this imaginative spell? Many strategies may prove useful. Rehearse God’s promises, pray earnestly, sing a hymn. Or, less spiritual but still helpful, get outside, do push-ups, call a friend. Francis of Assisi once counseled a brother to throw himself into a freezing river, which he did. No doubt that would work.

Alongside these approaches, however, Scripture offers another. Instead of trying to shut down the imagination, engage it. Take this theater, which lust has so often wielded against you, and wield it now against lust.

Guard Your Mind

Perhaps no book teaches us how to wield the imagination against lust more than Proverbs does. Especially in the father’s words to his son in chapters 5–7, the book fills the theater of the mind with images designed to strip lust of its strength. Consider, for example, the father’s warning against the forbidden woman in Proverbs 7:25–27. He begins with a simple command:

Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;     do not stray into her paths.

Here is well-worn wisdom for resisting lust, wisdom we have likely heard many times before (and probably can’t hear too often). As with so many sins, the battle against lust is often won or lost at the start. Once the heart has turned aside, once the feet have strayed, we bring them back only with great difficulty. The road to the forbidden woman’s house runs downhill in every direction — and every road back is an upward climb. Far easier, then, to turn and flee at the head of her street than over the threshold of her home.

“As with so many sins, the battle against lust is often won or lost at the start.”

So far, so good. But how do we turn away at these crucial moments, as the wisp of a thought begins to form? Again, many strategies may prove useful. But here, the father bids his son to do something counterintuitive, even seemingly dangerous: imagine lust. Don’t simply look away, but look even more intently, beyond the temptation, to see what really lives behind the door of dark desire.

Theater of Faith

After commanding his son not to stray in verse 25, the father fights image with image:

For many a victim has she laid low,     and all her slain are a mighty throng.Her house is the way to Sheol,     going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:26–27)

The word for at the start tells us that what follows gives the reason, the great why, for stopping lust before the first step. And this why is not just a logical argument (though it is that too), but an image, a scene — a different story on imagination’s screen. Before, the son had seen the forbidden woman dressed scantily on the corner, her couch covered with linens, her bed perfumed — lust wearing makeup (Proverbs 7:12, 16–17). Now, he sees her black-robed and holding a sickle, her couch a sinkhole to hell, her bed an open coffin.

What is this father doing? Perhaps he remembers how, in the beginning, our first parents fell not merely by argument but by image: an image of a good tree, a wise self, and a withholding God (Genesis 3:4–6). Perhaps, closer to home, he remembers how the mighty David fell, in a moment, by a sight that remained on the surface, a figure that filled the mind (2 Samuel 11:2–3).

Either way, he knows the power of image, for both good and ill. He knows that, though imagination cannot substitute for faith, yet faith feeds on true images of God, self, and the world. Faithful imaginations remind faith what’s real — and what’s not.

Conceivably, the son in Proverbs 7 could have said no to the forbidden woman even if he failed to see the grave behind her door — just as Eve could have said no to the serpent even under the sway of his false images. The will may say no for the moment, even when the imagination is held captive. But long-term, those who say no on these conditions lose even if they win, for today’s corrupt imagination is tomorrow’s corrupt heart, corrupt will. Self-control cannot live long in a theater filled with lies. For as the imagination goes, so goes the man.

Come then, along with this father and son, and imagine.

Imagine Lust

There you are, sitting at your desk or lying in your bed, when a figure begins to call from the corner of your mind. An image flickers. A thought starts to take shape. But then you imagine: Who is this forbidden woman, this lady lust, this whisper in the dark?

Though her lips drip with honey and oil, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a sword (Proverbs 5:3–4). The very opposite of medicine, she leads with pleasure and ends with pain; she pledges healing and slashes instead. Beyond her, you see her former “lovers”: retching, writhing, bleeding, dying.

She is a hidden snare, an invisible cord (Proverbs 5:22). Carried on by “just this once” and “just a little more,” her victims find their foot caught, their wrists wrapped. They promised themselves one visit to her home. Now they find they cannot leave.

She is a butcher and a hunter (Proverbs 7:22–23), the catcher of simple animals who see the meat and miss the hook. The man who follows her path walks as vulnerable as a stag seen from the other side of a bow. “He does not know that it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7:23).

And then, as our passage puts it, she is death’s reaper, Sheol’s usher, mistress of the grave (Proverbs 7:26–27). With every stolen pleasure, she digs your grave deeper, carves another letter on your headstone, pounds another nail into your coffin.

Wormwood and sword, snare and cord, butcher and hunter, reaper and undertaker — here is the face of this seductive killer, the true face a wise father shows his son. Of course, a man may see lust as such and still fall into her arms. But he will have a harder time imagining himself lying down on a linen-covered couch: to get to her, he will have to climb into his grave.

Imagine Purity

God made the imagination for more than grim warnings, however. In temptation, faithful imaginations will not only look past the apparent beauty of lust; they also will look past the apparent homeliness of obedience. They will imagine purity.

The father sets the two imaginative tasks side by side:

Let your fountain be blessed,     and rejoice in the wife of your youth,     a lovely deer, a graceful doe.Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;     be intoxicated always in her love.Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman     and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? (Proverbs 5:18–20)

“Self-control cannot live long in a theater filled with lies. For as the imagination goes, so goes the man.”

The antidote to sinful intoxication is not mere sobriety, but righteous intoxication. Fight imagination with imagination — and for those who are married, begin with your spouse. Imagine the beauty of your marriage bed. Remember “the wife of your youth,” whose lips drip with honey that never sours, whose hands hide no sword, whose face gets lovelier the longer you look with faithful eyes. And do this “at all times” and “always.” Keep the theater of your mind filled with an intimacy guarded by vows.

That said, not all — and not most — who battle lust are married. And what’s more, Proverbs holds out a more powerful purity even for those who are married.

Imagine Him

Alongside “the wife of your youth,” the father counsels his son, again and again, to imagine another figure — better than a spouse, more pleasurable than married love: wisdom and, beyond her, the God she gives us.

The path of God-fearing wisdom, even the path of celibate God-fearing wisdom, is “more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Proverbs 3:15). She gives a smooth road, a fearless way, sweet sleep (Proverbs 3:23–24). Indeed, “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17). Whatever road of wisdom lies in front of you, however austere it may seem, you will find in the walking of it pleasantness and peace — pleasantness like Eden’s lawful fruit, peace like quiet streams in the land of the living.

Because all of wisdom’s paths lead us to the God who made them — more than that, the God who walked them himself, pure and happy and far better than anything forbidden. He is our glory and joy, our dignity and delight, the face meant to fill the theater of our mind. His fellowship is lust’s worst loss, purity’s greatest prize. He is Jesus.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Imagine that. Imagine him.