“Put your oxygen mask on first.”
If you have flown on an airline, you have heard that said. Airlines understand that you can die while trying to help someone else live. With your own oxygen mask in place, you can better assist everyone within reach. Similarly, in the spiritual realm, we must nourish our own souls in God’s Word before helping others. God’s Word is not just a resource for helping others, a theological textbook, or an idea book for preaching sermons or teaching lessons. It is soul food—food for our journey day by day as we head Home.
Scripture repeatedly compares itself to food:
“I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12, NKJV).
“More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10, KJV).
“How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Psalm 119:103, KJV)
“Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16, NKJV).
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, KJV).
“As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2, NKJV).
Personal intake of God’s Word as food has buoyed and strengthened many believers over the years.
John Newton writes of his wife, Mary, whose body slowly gave way to a painful cancer: “I have her Bible in which almost every principal text, from the beginning to the end, is marked in the margin with a pencil, by her own dear hand. The good Word of God was her medicine and her food, while she was able to read it.”
George Mueller writes of how he learned to seek soul nourishment first on a daily basis: “The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.”
George Whitefield writes after his conversion, “My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul.”
These believers all took in God’s Word as food for their journey. You and I must do the same. We never know when we may need something that God feeds us from His Word. I could cite multiple examples of passages that God has “fed” to me over the years that have met timely needs in my life and in the lives of my family. Three simple tips have helped me along the way.
First, make time in God’s Word the first thing you do every day. Like so many, I now struggle with looking at my phone first. It is my alarm clock, so it is the first thing I touch in the morning. For this very reason, I sometimes leave it across the room. I do not want it to be so accessible. It is too easy to wander from turning off the alarm to seeing what notifications have come overnight. All of that is a terrible distraction to my soul’s first need. My first need is God, and nothing must distract from that. “My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up” (Psalm 5:3).
Second, have a Bible or a journal where you can write down your thoughts. Some people use a journal. My wife uses notebooks very effectively. I like writing and marking in my Bible as I read. My recommendation is to purchase a cheaper, hardback Bible with margins. I find that if I buy an expensive leather Bible, I am hesitant to write in it. What if I mess up? What if I change my mind about what I jotted down? What if I want the space for a better thought later? Buy a cheap Bible that you can write in without hesitation. You need to feel free to make circles, draw lines, write down comments, and whatever else your reading suggests! To me, this is one of the single best ways of receiving personal nourishment from God’s Words.
I have seen pages from one of Mary Slessor’s Bibles, pioneer missionary in Nigeria, in which almost every line on the page contains her personal comments. She writes in all directions, including upside down, and even between the lines of printed text. The Bible was her food in a spiritually dry and weary land!
Third, turn what you read into fellowship with God, intercession for others, and personal application for yourself. This is the one time that you are allowed to talk back to God. He has just spoken to you; now talk over with Him what He has just shared with you. Praise Him for it. Ask Him for clarification. Seek His guidance to make application. Then, turn it into the basis of your prayers for others that day. Your soul food becomes food for your prayers for them; after all, their souls hunger too!
God, as He gives to us His Word day by day, through our personal devotional reading, family worship, sermon listening, and every other means, is giving us the food we need that day and every day as we journey home. It is the provision of a thoughtful Father who knows better than you do the path that lies ahead and is, therefore, giving you a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path (see Psalm 119:105).