The little orphan boy, in Charles Dicken’s classic, Oliver Twist, dared to pose the outrageous request for a second helping before the orphanage manager, Mr. Bumble: “Please sir, I want some more.”
I couldn’t help but remember that line as over these past several days I have had the pleasure of simply sitting and listening to hour after hour of readings from the scriptures. During the Proclamation event (the ten day event in which the whole of the Bible is read aloud) I have found my heart blessed tenfold in listening to men and women read aloud from the scriptures. Some of the days, I have been able to listen for as much as eight out of the fourteen hours of reading, yet at the end, there was no sense of exhaustion, only exultation, because of the richness of the Word. And I wanted more.
Others who have been participants have said much the same. The sweet stream of truth and light and grace that flows from God’s Word has not only a wondrous refreshing quality, but also a stimulating one in which my appetite for the story of God’s saving work and redeeming power simply grows and grows. The Word sparks a deeper thirst even as it satisfies, so that each hour of reading made me long to hear more of it proclaimed afresh. There is something altogether powerful in the Word read aloud—after all it is first of all an
oral text meant for hearing long before it is one meant for merely reading. How ear deprived we are of the Word, and how deprived for big, meaty, solid banquets of the Word when often we try surviving on mere nibbles. Oh, how we need more.
What stops us? Certainly not the Lord. Seconds and thirds and endless helpings of his truth and grace await us every time we begin to read the scriptures. Oh, that God would make us insatiable in wanting the more that He longs to provide.
0 Comments