As we approach scripture, sometimes we need to slow down. Here's Nancy DeMas Walgamuth.

You can never know the heart of God if you don't know the word of God. And you won't know the

word of God if you just skim hastily through its contents and don't learn to read the word thought

by. This is the Reviver Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Walgge.

Author of The Quiet Place.

For January 3rd, 2024, I'm Dana Gresh.

In this era of technology and social media at your fingertips, you probably take in volumes

of information and very quickly. It might tempt you to do everything quickly. But there are times

when you need to stop and savor what you're reading.

Nancy's here to explain.

As we were growing up, I'm the oldest of seven children.

There are certain skills that my dad wanted us to learn and encouraged us to make a part of our life.

And one of those skills was speed reading.

He felt it would be a blessing in life to be able to read quickly, and I am so thankful for that ability and the training. But as he encouraged us to learn to speed read,

he reminded us that there were two things that you should never speed read. One is love letters,

and the other is the scripture, the word of God. And if you've ever received love letters, you know that,

especially in those pre-marriage days when you didn't have email and couldn't talk on the phone

as inexpensive as you can a day. And some of you can remember doing your courting through

correspondence. And when you would get that letter,

there was no way you were going to just rip it open and hastily skimped through it and toss it aside.

Instead, you were going to pour over its contents, word for word, read it, reread it, look for every single nuance of meaning that you could drain out of that letter. You probably read some things into it that weren't even intended there,

but you were just wanting to know, what does he mean, what is he thinking, what is he saying?

...