I have been reading a book called "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkein, now this book is very heavy going to read and has almost 2000 pages because it has all three parts in it.  Not only is it heavy going its heavy to hold onto for any length of time.

I got to thinking about God as a book.  How hard to read would he be, do we treat him like a reference book and "dip" in at times of need or is he like a good story that we cannot put down as we want to know what happens next and are becoming involved in it.

If you just "dip" into The Lord of the Rings at random it wouldnt make any sense and it would hard to understand what was happening.  In many ways perseverance is sometimes needed when a book is long, because it goes to great lengths to provide the reader with the whole picture of what is happening.

A reference book on the other hand is useful when we need a meaning for something, for example, a dictionary.  We would not read a dictionary cover to cover because we don't need to its there when we need it, if we don't understand the meaning of a word we can quickly find it because the book is logically organised.

God is both like a reference book and a good story he is there when we need meaning for something, which in prayer we come to him and look to him for comfort aid and guidance in times of need.  In many ways we are 'dipping in or skim reading' to find what we need, much as we do with a text book or dictionary.

But God is much more than that, when reading The Lord of the Rings or any other story for that matter we get involved and become a part of it, we have a desire to read more, to know what comes next.  We get drawn into the book.  How wonderful that we can do that with our Father we can get into his presence and have a personal relationship with him.  We can stay as long a time or as short a time as we want or need and enjoy him, feed from him and recieve from him, we get far more from God in this way, we delight in him and he in us.

Spending time with our Father extends our knowledge of him and enriches our lives, but it does much more than that, it gives us strength power assurance of love and peace all the things that we would otherwise strive for to find in an imperfect world.