"Chewing The Cud"

David speaks in Psa. 119 about meditating on the word (Psa. 119:148). Have you ever thought about the idea of meditate? First, David cries out to God with an honest heart and a willingness to observe His testimonies and statutes. If we are to make any progress, there must be an honest heart before the Lord. Secondly, David could not wait to hear the word of God. He had a zeal to want to hear and loved listening to God through His word. If we are going to move ahead spiritually, there must be a zeal, a desire to listen to God and His word. We cannot be stubborn or take a 'relaxed' attitude toward what God speaks.

Finally, David wants to meditate on God's word. What does it mean to meditate? It is calling to mind and thinking over, dwelling upon and actively applying God to your life situations. How many times do we really meditate on God's word? From the Hebrew word 'meditate' we get our English word "ruminate". It literally means 'to chew the cud'. It's like a cow that chews and re-chews the cud to extract all the nutrients from it. We need to approach God's word at times and chew the cud.

Recently while teaching one of my classes, I told the people instead of going over a section we quickly move through, we are going to slow down and chew the cud. It was helpful and insightful. What we must do is not measure ourselves by our abilities God has given us (but we need to use them for His service) or our knowledge of learned Bible verses we can quote but we need to measure ourselves by what goes on in our heart! Your heart is the seat of all your thinking and actions. It is the workshop of your being. If the heart allows corruption or self-seeking ways to be seated, misuse and corruption of God's teaching will abound. We need to give our hearts completely to the Lord, allowing God to have a complete and final say in our hearts while we sit quietly and chew the cud!