Parched

Last night, I made sure I had an idea for what I was going to blog about this morning. I even still remember what the idea was. I just don't remember now why I thought it was a good idea. Luckily, I found this on Facebook instead.

This statement made me wonder, though: Why haven't we died yet? If reading the scriptures is as vital as drinking water, there are thousands of people who should have died of "thirst" a long time ago. Now, I understand that this saying means that the scriptures are as important to our spirits as water is to our bodies. We don't physically die from not reading the scriptures, but rather, we die spiritually. Still, I don't think that the thousands, no, millions, of people who don't read the scriptures are spiritually dead.

Maybe I'm overthinking this. The point of the message is that it's important, perhaps vital, to read the scriptures daily, and I agree. I'd also like to point out that humans need a certain amount of water per day. I'm not sure how much water that is. 8 glasses is the recommendation, but you can survive on 7 glasses, or even 6. I don't know what the minimum limit is, and honestly, I don't want to test it. My point is that you can't just sip some water occasionally and expect to be fully hydrated. (This topic is making my thirsty.)

In a similar manner, merely glancing at or skimming through the scriptures every so often, even daily, may not be enough to keep our spirits properly "hydrated." I'm not saying that we need to read at least so many verses every day, but we do need to spend some time really studying the scriptures. It's not the amount of reading, or even the amount of time you spend reading, but the quality of your study. How much did you learn? How deeply were your heart and mind affected by what you read? Will you remember it? Will you apply it? Will this session of scripture study help you become more like God? If you can answer "yes" to those last three questions, I'd say your scripture study was successful, no matter how little you read or how little time it took you to read it.

Still, it usually takes time to reach the state where we can read something in the scriptures and think about it long enough to have it actually affect us, which is why we're advised to make our daily scripture study a matter of an amount of time, rather than a number of verses or chapters. I should probably read my scriptures longer each night than I currently do, and maybe write down what I learn, so I can better retain it, or at least look back and remember after I forget. I should put a pad of paper near my scriptures near my bed. Better yet, I used to keep a journal in a three ring binder. I should find that binder and use that. I haven't actually written in a journal since I started blogging. Maybe I need to start doing both.