My 8 year old daughter, Kaiah, loves reading stories. So yesterday, she sat down on my bed and proceeded to read a new story from her English textbook. From the looks of it, Kaiah read through the tale effortlessly. Then, after she finished the last sentence of the story, she looked up at me with a very pleased grin on her face.
"Great job!" I praised her for reading so well. "So, tell me, what was the story about?" I folded my hands in my lap and tilted my head to the side, waiting for her to recount the story. But she didn't do that. Instead, Kaiah's countenance changed. Her grin left and was replaced with a glazed over, blank stare.
Immediately, I knew Kaiah didn't have a clue about the storyline.
Although she had read through the story perfectly, she didn't comprehend, interpret, or understand what she read. And if I don't know anything else, I know that reading without comprehension is worthless. It's not good enough to know what the words on the page say, without perceiving what they really mean.
Sometimes we need to go deeper. Otherwise, we'll live life on a surface level and never derive any real meaning from the things we witness and experience. But God desires more for us than that.
Getting an understanding is crucial.
"Read it again," I told Kaiah. "This time, Mommy wants you to take your time and focus on the meaning of what it is you're reading." So, I went through the story with her the second time around, helping her to identify the important parts, as well as the themes and lessons contained in the story.
Then, Kaiah understood.
Once she could extract the appropriate meaning from the story, she enjoyed it a great deal more.
Whether it's a passage of scripture, a story, a person's behavior, or some other situation we're attempting to analyze, it's never good to read without understanding. When we do, we end up completely overlooking the vital message we need to receive at that time.
Once again, understanding is the key.
The Bible puts it this way: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding" (Proverbs 4:7). In our walk with the Lord, we need to pray for revelation, discernment and insight; that way, we'll be able to get a better grasp on what God is saying and doing. You see, He desires to speak to us through His word; through others; through our daily time in prayer and even through simple day-to-day occurrences. But we must perceive before we can receive what the Father is saying.
Only God can help us comprehend what we experience. Without the Holy Spirit at work in our lives, however, we'll either misconstrue, or altogether miss what He's saying and showing us.
If, by chance, you're going through a period in your life where you feel like you're lacking revelation, it might be time to ask God to show you how to revisit a pivotal point in your life and read it again. You may just find a lesson you had overlooked the first time.
As always, thanks for reading, and until next time... may you be empowered to prosper!
Dianna Hobbs
