I find it hard to slow down. I really do. It’s a hectic world we live in, and I love to stay busy, but it really is important that we slow down at times.

It’s important that we take time for rest and time to meditate, and one of the ways we can do that is with God’s word. Sometimes we even try to rush through that. You know, you try to get through your Bible reading for the day to move on to the next thing.

That’s why I’m grateful that Pastor Jon went through a really helpful exercise recently where we took a passage of scripture and we read it once, and then we left some moment for silence and we read it again and left some more moments for silence, and then we read it for a third time and were silent again.

And in those moments of silence, we really tried to think about what is it that I need to hear from the Lord. We read from Isaiah 9:6: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

It was so interesting as we read that three different times and had those moments of silence in between each time that each of us focused on various aspects of this passage. That morning, for me, I was getting ready to go into some situations where I needed to advise some people and give them some counsel.

And so to hear that Jesus is our Wonderful Counselor really spoke to my heart. It reminded me that Jesus is the counselor of all counselors, that I have one who can give me the wisdom that I need.

What’s interesting is later that evening, I brought this exercise home to our family, who did it after we had dinner. And after our dinner, we read through it three times and took silence.

And again, everybody had something different. But what was surprising to me was that I had something different, too, just several hours after doing it that morning.

So I found that this is a really good way to spend time with God’s word. Sit and read it and leave some silence and meditate, and pray and think about what God is God telling you from this short passage.

As you do that repetitively, it helps you to be able to dig into that one bit of scripture. I encourage you to try this in your individual times of devotion. And with your families or friends or small groups, too. It’s a great way to learn from each other.

So this Christmas season, as you get busy and are harried, take some time to think about who Jesus is, who he has come to be for you and what he wants to say to you.

He will do it. Because he wants you to know him.