When I was in my teens, I remember searching the Bible for an answer. What I found was not the answer that I wanted. I tried really hard to make it say something else. I wanted it to say what I wanted it to say. Then, I could do what I wanted to do.
Have you ever done that?
There’s a lot of difference between wanting to know what God’s Word says to confirm that what you want to do is the right thing and desiring to know what it says to conform your life to it.
It’s the difference between purchasing milk and drinking it. Owning a jug of milk doesn’t do your body any good unless you drink it.
When you desire the sincere milk of the Word, you desperately want to take it all in and apply it. You know that it can only do you good.
One day when I was in my 30s, I desperately needed another answer. I had become stressed over a situation that had suddenly presented itself, and patience has not always been one of my virtues. … I still struggle with it today.
Fortunately, I had grown a lot in 20 years. This time I was prepared to go with whatever I found. I would surrender my will, limited wisdom, and limited vision for God’s perfect will, wisdom, and vision. Doing this required that I commit to standing firmly on the Word of God and trust in Him with all my heart every step of the way. It was hard, but I did it.
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
1 Peter 2:1-3
I had to lay aside a lot of self in order to hear God clearly that day. I had to exercise patience to seek God and the answer in God’s Word. I had to accept the fact that I had to deal squarely but fairly with something that I really did not want to have to deal with at all.
As much as I wish that the whole situation had not ever come up, I grew spiritually by standing on the Word of God. My relationship with the Lord was made stronger because of it. My relationship with the other person also grew.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
“All things” also refers to the hard things in life. Our goal is found in the next verse.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:29
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to really, really desire the sincere milk of the Word. Read a little each day and apply it to your life. When you find yourself confronted with a situation, take it to God. Open the Bible and find the answer. Then drink the sincere milk down by committing to surrender your will for God’s will.