Finding Satisfaction in God's Word

On my Illumine blog Instagram page, I mentioned that I wanted to share my personal journey to finding satisfaction in the Word of God. This post is the result, and I hope it will encourage those who hunger and thirst for God but haven't yet been filled. . . .

There were a few things that happened leading up to the point where I could actually say, “I am satisfied in God’s Word.”

And before going forward with the story, I’ll need to backtrack.

I was 12 or 13 when I read a book by Elizabeth George that helped me realize God didn’t just want to save me—that He wanted a relationship with me. For the next six or so years, I read my Bible consistently. I was disciplined but directionless. I gleaned little things; sometimes I enjoyed reading my Bible or found comfort in it; but mostly, I was floundering and frustrated.

By the time I was 17, I knew a lot of facts about the Bible, and I knew very little about applying them. I knew how to look like a good Christian. I could quote dozens of verses perfectly. And I felt so, so lost.

God felt unattainable to me.

He said He was so close, but He felt so far away. I didn’t know how to get to Him. And the things I was actually going through, the raw, messy pieces of my life—I had no idea how to take the Bible and apply it to those things.

I didn’t know how to know what major I was supposed to choose in college—let alone how to know which college He wanted me at. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know how to wrestle with my sin struggles--for example, people pleasing and fear of failure. I didn’t know how to be happy with just Him when something I loved was taken away.

But God met me there in my grating confusion.

When I was 17, I went to a servant leadership camp. The passage we dug into those two weeks was 2 Peter 1. Through that, I learned that there’s a difference between knowing about Jesus and actually knowing Him. 2 Peter 1 tells believers to be building on our faith by growing in our knowledge of who Jesus is, and without virtue (wanting—the desire—to be like Jesus, 2 Pt. 1:5) this isn’t possible. It’s very possible for us as believers to be stagnant in spiritual growth, and Peter says this fruitlessness (v. 8) happens if we have forgotten we’ve been cleansed from our old sins (v. 9). He says that’s basically equivalent to becoming so nearsighted that we are blind (v. 9).

The two-week camp gave me hope that God would change me with time and consistency in the Word. It gave me hope that there was so much more to be unearthed from Scripture—more than I could imagine. But I still didn’t have a clear direction.

Fast-forward to college.

In college, my friend introduced me to a book called Women of the Word. (If you’re a guy and the title doesn’t faze you, I’d still recommend the book to you. But if you want something more gender-neutral, I’d suggest two that I’ve heard are good but haven’t read myself: The Inductive Study Method or How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth.)

Women of the Word was basically like looking into a mirror. Jen Wilkin shone an exposing light on all the different ways I had tried to read my Bible—and told me, to my utter surprise, that they were all wrong. Something clicked.

I had been reading the Bible as though it were a book about me, when really the Bible is all about who God is. First we find God—who He is. We let that be our focus. And somehow, incredibly, that ends up telling us who we are—and ultimately, changing us.

But don’t take my word for it.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

So when we view His glory in the Bible (think of His glory as Him revealing His character, His excellence, His nature), the Spirit changes us into that same image, little by little. We look at who God is, and He in turn changes us. Sometimes we don’t even realize it’s happening, sort of like we don’t notice a shadow moving across the pavement until it’s gone a long way, even though it’s been shifting the whole time.

To recap all that the simplest way I can:

The Bible is like a mirror of God’s face—but more than His face, it’s a mirror of His glory, His character, and who He is entirely.

For some of you, this might make a whole ton of sense. For some of you, it might just be a mass of crumbling confusion piled onto confusion. Either way, I recommend reading Women of the Word. Jen Wilkin basically spends the whole book showing you very practically how to read the Bible—what questions to ask, what to look for, where to look. And she probably explains it worlds more clearly than I can.

For me, I would’ve told you beforehand, “Yes, of course I know the Bible is a book about God.” I just didn’t read it like it was. I read it like it was a book about me.

As I started applying things I learned from Jen Wilkin’s book, and as I (more importantly) started looking for God instead of me in the Bible, things started to make a little more sense.

But my heart was still slowing down my growth.

See, my heart still worshipped wrong things. There were things I loved, adored, and longed for that I held onto. Maybe not on purpose, but I still wanted certain things at least to the same degree that I wanted God. They were obstructing growth.

Yet in His faithfulness, God was slowly changing me.

Going into my senior year of college, I experienced a major turning point. I prayed a prayer that I am convinced changed me:

I told God that I wanted to want Him instead of just needing Him.

And oh, how He answered that. I don’t think God denies the prayer for more of Him. In fact, I think that’s what He wants for us, too.

During that year, I started getting up early in the morning to spend time in my Bible rather than attempting to cram it into an impromptu, open crevice of my day. I made it the first thing of the day: clamber as quietly as possible down from my top bunk, make a cup of coffee in the bathroom, and plunk down at the desk with a blanket thrown over my knees.

I started at the beginning of Romans, and it took me almost a year to study through the whole thing. What a journey it was, and how worth it. Romans is the book where I first found real satisfaction in God’s Word.

What changed? How did this happen?

• I read that book differently than I had read others: I would sit down and I would pray that God would reveal Himself to me in His Word that day and teach me what He wanted me to understand.

• I looked up every key word that I could. (I used Blue Letter Bible app’s interlinear dictionary to do that.) That’s why it took so long to get through the book. Sometimes I only got through one verse and had to go to class. I found that the words often meant something very different than what I initially thought. Which only makes sense, because the Bible wasn’t written first in English or with our modern culture in mind.

• I was seeking for understanding, so I stayed in a verse or chapter until I truly felt I had a grasp of what the author was trying to communicate. At the same time, I had to learn to be okay with not understanding everything, and leaving what I could not make sense of to God.

• I started cross referencing, or looking up related verses. This is really easy to do with Blue Letter Bible app or a study Bible. In other words, I let scripture interpret scripture. It’s a win-win.

• I stopped viewing my Bible as pages and realized I was sitting there with Someone each morning. With my God. Reading the Bible—this is how God speaks to us. Prayer—this is how we speak to God. When I started studying my Bible like Jesus was right there with me, because He is, it changed my mindset and kept me focused on the real goal of seeing Jesus.

I could say so much more. And I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have, or to point you somewhere where you can get good answers.

Your struggle to find satisfaction in God’s Word will probably look a lot different than mine. But from one believer who wants to be satisfied in God to another, let me just encourage you: don’t give up. Keep seeking.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.”

A few chapters forward in Jeremiah 33:3, God says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

And in Revelation 3:20, God says not to the unsaved, but to believers, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

He wants fellowship with us. No wonder He said Mary had chosen the best thing when she sat at His feet while Martha served, those many years ago.

And if you’re wondering if it gets old—if studying the Bible loses its appeal after a while, if it gets dull, my honest answer is no, it absolutely hasn’t for me. I just keep learning how little I know. And I just keep getting filled up by the beauty of who Jesus is. The more I see of Him, the more I want Him.

And while yes, there are dry spells where you’re reading and studying but you feel like you’re in a famine-struck wilderness and it’s not making a whole ton of sense, let me encourage you: those times won’t last forever. You will get through them, and Scripture will just be sweeter because of the wildernesses we trudge through. I keep coming back because I have tasted and seen God so clearly (Psalm 34:8). I want to keep knowing more of Him. I love being with Him.

Once you’ve tasted and seen God, I think it just makes you want to keep coming back.

And you want everybody else to taste how satisfying He is, too.

“He is there, and He is not silent.” - Francis Schaeffer