Store Up God’s Word

When I married into a farming family, my responsibilities included bottling, freezing and pickling some of our abundant harvest. I learned to preserve corn, beans, tomatoes and other garden vegetables and luscious fruits. This was a lot to learn—and a lot of work! But I kept at it. Later, the good food I had stored up provided our winter meals, and we enjoyed pickles and fruit jams all year long.

In the same way, if we store up some of the bounty of God’s word in our hearts, we can draw sustenance from that supply of encouragement and guidance when lean times come. In prosperous seasons, recalling a challenging Bible verse can jolt us out of spiritual complacency, like a tart bite of pickle. At any time, a scriptural reminder of the Lord’s love tastes as sweet as strawberry jam!

Memorising scripture is hard work for me, but I intend to keep at it, to transform my heart into a storehouse of God’s word so that I’ll always have a rich supply of wisdom and love to see me through!

Prayer: O God, help us to memorise your word and bring these verses to our minds in times of trouble. As Jesus taught us, we pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ Amen