Key Bible Verse: Meditate on [this Book of the Law] day and night so you May be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed (Joshua 1:8). Bonus Reading:Psalm 77:11–12; 104:34; 119:48, 97

When a milk cow saunters out in the morning, she eats grass like a mowing machine for a couple of hours. She walks all over the pasture, chewing and swallowing the grass into her first stomach compartment. Then, when it starts to get hot, she walks over to a shade tree and lies down.

She then brings up one of the little balls of grass that she had swallowed. She begins to re-chew this small ball of grass called a cud. She chews and chews on it. She will chew the cud until she knows she has gotten every bit of taste out of it; then she swallows all of it into a second stomach compartment. There it is digested and processed into her bloodstream. The work of chewing makes the digestion easy. This nourishes her and helps her produce milk.

Meditation works like that. For us, it is the same kind of spiritual thought digestion. Thinking about the things of God simply allows His words to fill our minds. Meditation is taking those thoughts and words in our minds and chewing on them until they become thoughts that can nourish us, thoughts on which we can grow. It takes effort.

My Response: To extract help for my conduct from God's Word, I need to …

Thought to Apply: What we think about when we are free is what we are or soon will become.