As Honey on the Tongue

Lynn was my mother's best friend growing up. I heard stories about her, pored over pages of the Athens High Yearbook and imagined what kind of life she and my mother lived as beauty queens, cheerleaders and editors of the book I looked upon. They were snappy dressers and their beehive hairdos were teased to perfection. Those were two very classy ladies.

When I went to college, and found myself romping around on my mother's old Athens stomping grounds, I serendipitously found myself involved in a Bible Study, led by... none other than...you guessed it, Lynn herself.

When the two of us realized who each other was, I believe there was some immediate special connection between us. But, for the next two years, that initial spark had time to fan into a truly beautiful friendship. It was a relationship that shaped my faith, that challenged me out of my insecurity, that changed me, through and through.

Each week, I had the chance to sit in Lynn's study, gathered with other female Young Life leaders. As we circled around each other and opened Scripture together, I literally trembled with the presence of the Lord. I know it sounds strange to say, but I did. I physically felt His nearness in that place.

Lynn had a ravenous appetite for the Word. She shared it with us, sifting over verses with careful consideration and reverence. She truly saw (she truly sees) the Bible as sustenance, as daily bread to be consumed and satiated with. She inspired my own prayers for that kind of hunger.

In Velvet Elvis, author Rob Bell talks about the Rabbi training that young students would undergo as they began their education:

The first level of education was called Bet Sefer (which means 'House of the Book.') Sometimes, the rabbi would take honey and place it on the students' fingers and then have them taste the honey, reminding them that God's words taste like honey on the tongue. The rabbi wanted the students to associate the word of God with the most delicious, exquisite thing they could possibly imagine."

Yesssss.

Along a similar vein, I'm currently reading Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book (so far, SO good). In it, he mentions Clive Staples Lewis as writing:

[Reading in which we receive the author's purposes rather than for our own] is like being taken for a bicycle ride by a man who may know the roads we have never yet explored. The other [reading] is like adding one of those motor attachments to our own bicycle and then going for one of our familiar rides.

And, so, I turn my prayers towards that end... I want to read His Book with eyes and attention towards the mysterious adventure that is knowing Him. I want to savour its sweetness and let my hair flap in the wind of the ride. I pray that like God granted Daniel, he would give me too a "knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning" (Daniel 1:12).

I want proverbial cavities from all the sweet honey I consume.