Developing a Taste for God’s Word

posted by Navigators on August 14th, 2024 in The Word

By Lindsey Swartzentruber, Canberra Labouring Community

I have been trying to think of an analogy to explain the newest development with our students and I realised that, really, the closest thing is liver and brussels sprouts. Let me explain…

Bible study is like … liver and brussels sprouts?

Seven or eight years ago, my research led me to decided that I was going to start feeding my family liver because it was nutritionally unparalleled. The only problem is that I really did not like it. Smell, texture, taste, you name it, I would rather not—and Levi and one of our sons weren’t super keen either. Yet, believing that you can train yourself (or your family…) to adapt and change, I began what would be a years-long venture of training and experimentation and a lot of work! We had meals where I had to hide it in every way to get it to be eaten, stern talks to the toddler about keeping bites in the mouth, endless recitals of the nutritional benefits we would receive and multiple conversations about how not everything we eat need be our favourite and how much better it tastes warm at dinner than cold for breakfast.

Now let me segue for a minute because, for our students, we want to train them to do what is best for their spiritual nourishment, and for the past few years it has seemed that Bible study is the “liver”! We have struggled to get our students to see its benefit. They have hardly even been willing to taste it, giving a passage only a superficial skimming claiming that they “have read it before”. To study the Bible well does take work to be nourished by it. And we can know intellectually that it is good for us but googling a commentary on the passage rather than working to be fed from it ourselves is like reading up on nutritional information but never eating anything and then wondering why we do not feel satisfied.

We have been longing and praying for our students to come hungrily to meet God in His Word through Bible study, feasting on what He gives them in return and being nourished by His work in them through His word as He reveals more of Himself. Yet, we have struggled even to get them to agree to a semester-long study—until last month. Five of them signed up for our small group Bible study and on Wednesday night we had our first study! We have told them of the work involved and promised to help them and they all seem keen to grow.

It is a glimmer of promise that I pray will have the same kind of results that my liver venture has: recently, Levi treated us all to a “date” meal of my choosing. “What’s for dinner tonight?” asked the children. “It’s fried liver and brussels sprouts,” I said—and all three children cheered!

Now, smug as I am about this mothering “win”, training taste buds is one thing but training hearts is entirely God’s domain. Would you please pray with us that He would work in the students’ hearts a genuine love of meeting Him through His word this semester through our Bible study? Ask that with the Psalmist they would find His words sweeter than honey (Ps 119:103) and that they would rejoice at them as one who finds great spoil (v 162).

Lindsey Swartzentruber and her husband, Levi, serve at the Australian National University with our Canberra Labouring Community. To find out more about their ministry, check out their profile page: navigators.org.au/staff/swartzentruberll/

_{Featured image: Studying the Bible. Photo by Simon Ray on Unsplash.}