Let’s eat it up, enjoying, delighting every bite.

“Your words were found and I ate them.

And Your words became for me a joy and

the delight of my heart;

For I have been called by Your name,

O Lord of Hosts.”

(Jeremiah 15:16)

This verse is sandwiched between Jeremiah’s pleading for the LORD to remember him and extract vengeance on his persecutors and complaining to the LORD that He had left Jeremiah alone and had left him with an incurable wound.

But Jeremiah had feasted on the LORD’s words. Those words had become a joy for him. His heart was delighted by them. And why? For he had ‘been called by Your name.’

Like in many of the Psalms when David is hurting spiritually, he purposely remembers the LORD’s word and promises. He delighted in them.

God’s word can be a joy for us too; our heart’s delight. But something precedes this joy and delight. ‘Your words were found and I ate them.’ To find His word implies looking for them. My eating those words implies taking them in, and being nourished by them.

To continue with the nourishment theme here, we can relate His word to a meal that nourishes us, not to the dessert. But there is plenty of nourishing food out there that we might not delight in. If we think of a meal that we love and are thrilled when we get the chance to eat it, then maybe we can see how Jeremiah viewed the LORD’s words.

Let us approach the Word of God like a prime rib meal, or vegetarian fare, as you wish. Let’s eat it up, enjoying, delighting every bite.

Heather Jean Wilson Torosyan