EVERY MORNING
“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth,
but you shall meditate on it day and night,
so that you may be careful to do according to all this is written in it;
for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.”
Joshua 1:8
NASB
“Blessed is the man…
his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and in His law he meditates day and night.
And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither;
and in whatever he does, he prospers.”
Psalm 1:2,3
NASB
Every morning for 32 years I’ve watched my husband read his Bible.
Every morning. When he’s sick, when he’s on vacation, when he’s late, and when he stayed up too late.
Do the math, girls. That’s 11,392 mornings! And actually, if you want to get picky, we’ve been married for thirty-two years and 7 months... so you’ve got to throw in at least another 210 mornings…
His routine rarely varies. He gets up, does the whole yawning, stretching, mussing up his hair thing, and pads on down barefoot to the kitchen, where he brews a pot of coffee. Over the years he’s gone from Yuban to Costco’s, to Starbucks, to Peet’s coffee beans. He’s perked, dripped, boiled, and French-pressed.
While he waits, he glances at the paper. A real paper, the kind that leaves ink on your fingers and gets delivered every day.
Once the dog’s been let out and coffee poured, he shuffles back upstairs straight to his chair. This is most definitely His Chair. Leather worn and molded to the man he is. A big chair for a big man.
He turns the desk clock his way just to keep an eye on the time. Sometimes he has an extra moment or two to sink a little deeper. Most mornings, though, he’s right to business.
The same Bible he’s read for every one of those 32 years falls open where he marked his place the day before. A chart drops out, all marked up, crossed out, and checked off. Two chapters of the Old Testament, one of the New, a chapter of Proverbs, a Psalm or two.
Every morning.
Is it any wonder that every one of our four now-grown kids loves and knows and relishes the Word of God? Or that they follow the same routine (minus the paper or the dog) as their dad? Or that the oldest is in seminary and the youngest in Bible College because they just can’t get enough to know all they want to know? Or that both our daughters married men who do the same thing?
Phil is the wisest man I know. He’s our go-to guy when any of us has a question about where that verse is or what story was that…a sort of walking concordance. Not only that, but he’s unwaveringly clear about how to live and what’s okay and what we just don’t do because we’re Comers.
People who live in and under the God who wrote the Book we read every single day of every single year for all of our lives.
That’s the man I married.
From my heart,
Diane