I was reading the book, If You Have a Hat; a Silly Rhyming Picture Book, by Gerald Hawksley, to my four-year-old granddaughter, Logan.  It’s a book very similar to the Dr. Suess Cat in the Hat books that I read years ago. She listened attentively as I read the book.  As I read, I asked her, “Do you see how the words rhyme?”  She didn’t get it at first.  But, then I showed her how mouse rhymed with house and how race rhymed with face and she got it. Now, her brother, Brody, is only two and he just didn’t want to sit and listen. He certainly wasn’t at the point in his life where he’d understand what a rhyme was.

As I had time to reflect on reading the book to her, I realized it must be the same way with us as we read God’s Word and our Heavenly Father teaches us. If you’ve read God’s Word regularly, you know that sometimes you read the same verse on one occasion that you’ve read many times and all of a sudden something jumps out at you; a word or an idea, that you never got when reading that verse before. That’s God teaching you “how the words rhyme.” Rather, He’s showing you something that you didn’t get before in that verse; a new truth or insight that you didn’t understand before. Now, you’re at a point in your life when you can get it. Before, if He showed it to you, you just didn’t get it.

To me, that adds a whole new insight into Jesus’s words, Luke 18:17 “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” When you approach reading God’s Word you must realize that the creator of the universe, the all-knowing God is trying to teach you. In many ways it like a grandfather, with many more years of education and experience trying to teach a four-year-old. We’ve got to really pay attention to what He’s trying to say. He’s showing us how the “words rhyme,” so we can understand what He’s trying to say to us at the place and time we are right now in our lives.

When you approach God Word, the Bible, try listening like a four-year-old. Allow Him to teach you. Be open to hearing and learning and applying His Word to your life.

I’d love to hear what God is teaching you right now. Would you please comment below and let me know?