How’s your life? Do you feel like you’re doing well in life, like you know where you’re going? Do you feel like you have good instructions for how to live? These days we rush around a lot, not leaving much time for planning, for contemplating, frankly, for God. Dallas Willard writes a parable about our time:

"Recently a pilot was practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent—and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.

This is a parable of human existence in our time—not exactly that everyone is crashing, though there is enough of that—but most of us as individuals, and world society as a whole, live at high-speed, and often with no clue to whether we are flying upside down or right-side up. Indeed, we are haunted by a strong suspicion that there may be no difference—or at least that it is unknown or irrelevant.” ¹

For us to fly right-side up so we do not crash, it is imperative that we have the right data to navigate.

To get the right data, we need to make a habit of growing closer to God. I came to faith through reading and hearing the written Word; however, my spiritual formation was handicapped because my navigational instructions were incomplete. My church was a socially warm fellowship where I heard a gospel of salvation, but received no instruction about my new relationship with Jesus.

From 1967 through 1971, with the Vietnam War in the background as I served in the Navy, I was introduced to different groups who had hearts to encourage the spiritual development of others. I learned that coming to faith was only the beginning, the spiritual birth so to speak, of our spiritual journey. For us to mature, we need to be fed and nurtured. A human baby’s diet begins with milk coming from someone much more mature who knows how to nourish an infant. As spiritual infants we need to be fed by mature spiritual adults who have learned how to nourish infants in the Word.

It is imperative to find a group of mature and growing believers to encourage your own growth. A pivotal point in my spiritual development came when I was challenged to prove I was a Christian, since I had stated that I was. This challenge set me thinking about how to prove such a thing. I had an epiphany when one of the guys in our Bible study group read I John 5:11-12, “This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.^2” Based on the authority of God’s Word, when I came to faith in Jesus, I was born spiritually because eternal life is in Jesus; therefore, if Jesus lives in my heart, I have eternal life. God speaks through His Word, and we need to make a daily time to be in His Word. In His Word, we find the proof our hearts long for. How long would I have searched for this very important truth had I not been in a group Bible study?

After understanding that God speaks through the Bible, I had incentive to begin a systematic Scripture memory program. I find Scripture memory a hard discipline, but one which is profitable, because the Holy Spirit can then bring verses to my mind in crucial moments. It is another avenue of listening to God as I meditate on His Word. It is also a valuable defense in spiritual warfare, because Satan is at war for our minds.

Memorized Scripture bathes our minds by the “washing with water through the Word.”³ There is an old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out!” What we feed into our minds becomes our thoughts, which will come out in how we live our lives. It is therefore important we put good and pure things into our minds; our eyes and ears are entry portals. Our minds are like the hard drive of a computer: what we put into them is what we are going to get out. If a program has poorly written instructions (garbage) then the program will run poorly. Likewise, if you have a habit of putting garbage in your head, then your life will run poorly. It is important to spend time reading the Bible regularly, because it is God’s voice to us. It can be a continual flow of good, life-giving instructions for the hard drive of our minds.

I encourage you to make time to read, memorize, meditate on, and study the Bible. These disciplines give us the right coordinates and good instructions so that we minimize crashes in our spiritual journey. The Apostle John gives us a vivid glimpse of how God reveals Himself to man: “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him [Jesus] all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.”⁴ Jesus was God made visible—the Living Word. The spiritual life is a mystery. God reveals Himself to us in any number of ways, but one of the primary ways He does so, is through His Word.

May God’s peace be with you!

¹ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy—Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1966), pp. 1-2
² The New Century Version.
³ NIV Scofield Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), Ephesians 5:26b.

⁴ NIV Scofield Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), John 1:1-4 [Bracketed mine]., John 1:1-4 [Bracketed mine].