“This Book of the Law must not depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in all you do.”(Joshua 1:8)

Many sincere believers are confused about the will of God. They’ve heard stories of God speaking to others to tell them what to do, and they’ve read accounts of God giving someone a chain of circumstances providing an unmistakable path through one of life’s quagmires. Voices and signs, these confused believers assume, should be the norm in knowing God’s will.

God can use any methods He chooses to lead His children, but certainly, His Word is the surest, yet most neglected compass. The Scripture is referred to as a “lamp to my feet and a light to my path” by the psalmist in PSALM 119:105. They are the source of wisdom to sort out black, white, and gray in our lives and they expose the heart of God. They sometimes painfully expose our own hearts so that we can admit we are headed in the wrong direction and repent.

If the Bible is such a wonderful source of insight, encouragement, and direction why do we spend so little time in its pages and expect God to lead us in some other way? Because studying the Bible takes work, It contains vast riches, but only a few of them are on the surface. The bigger veins of gold require effort to dig out. But for those of us who mine these treasures and follow their leading, God promises wisdom and success in relationships with Him and others. We cultivate the habit of internalizing God’s truth so that we meditate in it day and night PSALM 1:2. That a lot more productive than many other ways we spend our time.