Cough Syrup and Honey

Photo by: Danika Perkinson

When I was much younger, I was told, “Just read the bible, it’s good for you! Just believe! It’ll have a huge effect on your life!”. But I wasn’t too sure how it would be any good. I often thought, “Meh, I’m getting enough from Sunday school and sermons. I get the big picture, so why bother? It’s too much work for irrelevant stuff anyways!”.

But I still gave it a chance, starting from Genesis and reading a bit, but stopped once I reached the middle of Exodus when it talked all about buildings and measurements. I’d skip ahead and read into Samuel and Kings, and think, “Oh this is the King Saul and King David part! I know this from Sunday school — the David and Goliath story! And then King David does a big no-no later, right?”

Every single time I tried, it felt like I was trying to chug 10 bottles of cough syrup — “It’s good for you!”, they say. But each time, it tasted horrible.

Now, it’s been three years since I started my first-ever readthrough of the entire bible, doing roughly one chapter a day (and I’ll be finishing by the end of August).

Initially, I started this as more of a test of endurance, and figured, “Why not just get to know the entirety of God’s word anyways? I’ve ignored a lot of the Old Testament and the book of Revelation for way too long!”

But as time went on, I began to enjoy reading through the bible! Now of course, not every chapter and verse was extremely engaging — I didn’t get too hyped up after reading through 2 pages worth of genealogy, even though it’s extremely important for the message of the Bible. But, I can now confidently say, God’s word has changed from being like cough syrup to honey.

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

The ironic part is, I think I enjoyed reading through the Old Testament more than the New Testament (kinda wild, not gonna lie).

There are many wonderful things I learned during this time: the character of God, design patterns, a variety of themes such as priests and kings, among many others!

My suggestion to you is to just sit down, learn to read the Bible as a huge narrative and pick out the things that reveal God’s nature. Ask yourself, “How is God moving/in control? How does this fit in with the rest of the story of the Bible? What are some themes/words/phrases being repeated across multiple chapters and even books?” While these are a bit complex to think through with just a simple readthrough, it doesn’t stop us from spending more time pondering the things of God. I’m no bible scholar, but thankfully, we have a lot of external resources such as commentaries, videos, and podcasts that explain and point out things like common themes (and I highly recommend just looking around for resources to help you better understand the bible).

I hope you too will be able to taste and see that the Lord is good by munching on some honey everyday 🍯.

Reference: Psalm 119, Psalm 34