Fill. Eat. Savor. Drink.
Repeat.
Come, O Heart, feed on He who is Living Waters and Daily Bread.
“So I went to the angel, telling him to
give me the little book.
And he said to me,
"Take it and eat it;
it will make your stomach bitter,
but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey."
(Revelation 10:8-10)
Take it and eat it. Like a bee hovering over open bloom, drinking as much nectar as she can hold, imbibe deeply of this Word. Drink slowly, deliberately.
Those who read fast,
reap no more advantage than
a bee would by only skimming over the surface of the flower,
instead of waiting to penetrate into it,
and extract its sweets.
~Madam Guyon
Penetrate. Meditate. Contemplate. Extract the sweet.
"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth."Psalm 119:103
Then, with care and sensitivity, pick a bouquet for the day.
"One who has been walking in a beautiful garden departs not willingly without gathering a few flowers to smell during the remainder of the day;
thus ought we,
thus ought we,
when our soul has been entertaining itself, by meditating on some mystery,
to select one or two or three points in which we have found most relish,
and which are most proper for our advancement.
Think frequently on them and
smell them as it were spiritually
during the course of the day...." ~Francis de Sales
Carry your blooms with you, O Heart. Pause often in the day’s moments to drink of their sweetness. Inhale and fill yourself with the fragrance of Christ. Again, and again, slowly extract the sweet, filling your mouth with honey.
Then swallow the truth of that sweet little book.
O Heart, do not cringe away from the bitterness that may grip your innards. Truth does that. Your stomach may shrink back in bitterness. Yet too much sweet isn’t best. Like medicine that goes down sweet, and burns bitter deep within, so these Words of Life may seem, at first, sour, for what they expose and lay bare, but they will heal.
Truth may be bitter, but it will transform you, grow you, mature you. It’s bitterness is only for a short time.
Then you, O Heart, will bloom in beauty.
Fill. Eat. Savor. Drink.
Repeat.
(photo: mayumi)
