A Scripture-Saturated Life
I have a confession - I’m not very good at “letting the word of Christ dwell in [me] richly.” (Colossians 3:16)
Yes, I really said that.
I write devotionals and lead Bible studies and still, I struggle.
I get great joy out of gathering around God’s Word with others, and do my best to faithfully attend Bible classes. I dive enthusiastically into new Scriptural opportunities like journaling, the Holy Hen House magazine each quarter, women’s retreats, and all of that. But habit forming isn’t one of my top talents, and I’ve never quite grasped how some Christians seem to live and breathe Scripture all day long. I know with my logical brain that I should do that, and I want to be that kind of person.
Recently, I think I found her.
A little backstory: I have been privileged to volunteer at Camp BASIC (a religious camp for people with special needs) for 16 years. During my recent week there this summer, I was getting up out of my bunk bed at 5:30 am on the fourth day of camp when I realized I was experiencing a zeal for God’s Word that was really constant. I wasn’t getting up because my kids were awake; they weren’t. And breakfast was hours away yet. I was getting up to read the Bible with my friend John.
For many of my Camp years, I have gotten up well before the wake-up trumpet to read the Bible with John. This is unusual for a couple of reasons - I am not a morning person at all, and my friend John has a developmental disability. But every morning before most of camp is awake, we sit and study God’s Word together. Not the same text - he is a wonderful example to me of a Psalm 1 Christian - “His delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on this Law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water.” He likes to pour over genealogies and lists, and usually spends his mornings reading books like Leviticus or Numbers. It is amazing to watch him diligently study those Scriptures which I usually pass right over looking for something more “interesting.”
Then I started thinking about the entire experience of Camp. How all day long, my fellow volunteers and our camper friends speak God’s Word. Almost every conversation is centered around Jesus and His love for us, and our love for one another as a result. We share memory verses, sing songs of praise and worship, and point each other back to our Savior constantly. Every activity, every meal, every bus ride is filled with God’s Word in as many ways as we can pack it in. We’re very active in applying the Gospel to every situation, inserting it into every conversation, and serving each other in love as a living application of Jesus’ love for us. And we do that all almost unconsciously, because our time is short.
But that is my entire life. Our time is short. Probably not one week out of the whole year short, but short and uncertain. Deuteronomy 11:18-21 suddenly sprang to life: “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” This is what my week of Camp has always been like; we wear memory verses on our t-shirts, we hang them on the walls, we write them onto craft projects, we sing and recite and remind each other all day long. I’ve always felt a very strong push to get as much Gospel into my camper friends as I possibly can in a limited amount of time, and it seems so natural in that setting.
I have the same opportunity every day in my “regular” life. I have a household full of children to raise, a school of children to help teach, and a whole community I can influence. They are just as precious to me as my campers, and time is just as urgent. I only have a handful of years with these same people to pour as much Gospel into our days as possible - in fact, my oldest son has already left home by the time you’re reading this.
It feels easy in the bubble of Camp BASIC to be completely free and open with my love for Christ and for his children, to be constant in my meditations. It’s what everyone else is doing, and my camper friends really encourage me both by need and by example. It has always felt much harder to live a Scripture saturated day in my daily life, because I thought of it as a habit I needed to form or a task I needed to check off a To Do list. But I’m learning that it doesn’t have to be that at all. It can just be a natural overflowing of my heart, what I know to be true as a result of God’s gift of faith, and how important I know it is for others. In Colossians 3:16, God says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” and I’m finding what it is to be that kind of person even outside of Camp. I have so much of God’s Word already inside of me from years of intentional study, so many songs, so many applications and words of comfort and joy, that I can simply allow them to spill out any time.
God taught me to value the Scriptures, all of them, through John. And through singing many rousing choruses of “Arky Arky,” “Camp BASIC is a Special Place,” and “Jesus Loves You Where You Are,” helping my camper friends tell strangers in stores and bowling alleys about Jesus, saying prayers with bunkmates before bedtime, and pointing to Jesus all day long for a week each summer, He has taught me, finally, what it is to meditate on God’s Word day and night (Joshua 1:8) and find my delight in it. The problem wasn’t that I am “not a habits person.” It’s that I was approaching what is a simple as speaking and singing as a task to accomplish rather than a way of life.
(I hope my kids are prepared for the Silly Camp Music Lady to be bopping around home all the time.)