Abba,

As I sit, reading and studying your word to preach and teach, I am struck so deeply with a love for, delight in, and satisfaction in the beauty and splendor of it!  The deep satisfaction and delight I feel from reading, meditation, and abiding in it is too deep and intricate for words to explain.  

How I yearn for your church, every follower of Jesus, to feel the same!  How I yearn for all who profess your name to so cherish and delight in the power, might, and magnificence of your word; to cling to it in every moment of every day!  How I yearn to see lives that are transformed, renewed, and directed by the life giving words!  How I yearn to see great shows of faith, great acts of obedience, great joy in suffering, great embracing of suffering all stemming from a sincere love of the word that moves men to actions that the flesh would otherwise deny. How I long to see such things even in myself!

Abba, awaken in us, Your Church, a deep devotion and longing for the truth of your word!  May it be dear to us so that every thought, every desire, every choice is dictated and directed by it with a conviction and resolve that can never be shaken by the flesh, the world, or our adversary.

Spirit, impress upon us, as children of God, an insatiable hunger and ravenous desire for the living word of God!  May it be more than a moment contained to “devotions.”  May it be more than a disciplined expectation of Christians or an obligatory practice done in drudgery.  May our reading, study, memorization, and meditation of your word flow from the same hunger pains our stomach experiences when lacking nourishment.  May it be the same dry, desperate longing for water that our mouths experience when we have been deprived of sustenance on a hot day.  May it be the same obsession of our minds and thoughts that are often consumed with lesser things of this life and the temporal flesh.  So fill us, Abba, with the desire for your word that it is the most cherished, prized, and protected part of our days and moments.

May this deep hunger for and satisfaction in the word of life sustain and carry us till the moment we stand forevermore in the presence of the Word become flesh for us.