Articles I Can Skip

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Do you read every word of every magazine you pick up? I didn’t think so. Unless you are my sister, Carol, you skip most of the ad copy, articles with limp titles, and articles with too many words and too little white space.I used to let my magazines pile up in Tower of Pisa stacks because I thought I had to have a big block of time in which to do justice to the process of fully reading the entire issue.

No more. I can whip through a magazine in mere minutes, extruding from its richness the choicest morsels of information, encouragement, and entertainment. I skated through most high school history classes reading only the captions under the pictures, so this new form of magazine reading comes naturally.

I can tell in an instant which articles are not necessary for me to linger over. As I flipped through a recent issue of a women’s magazine tonight, I noted a pattern to my skimming, scanning, and skipping.

I no longer need to read articles titled, “Five Things Every Mother of Teenagers Should Know.” All three of my kids claim to be adults.

I can skip the article touting how difficult it is to find clothes to fit a size two frame. Yeah. My heart bleeds.

I don’t need the article on quick house-cleaning tips. I could have written that one.

“Remodel Your Kitchen for $20,000”? I might read the pull-quotes on that one if it said, “Remodel Your Kitchen for Twenty DOLLARS and Change.”

“Thinner Thighs by the End of July”? No need. I plan to successfully slip through another summer without opening the drawer in which I keep my swimsuit.

“The Slippery Slope of Sarcasm”? Well, I suppose I have time to read that one.

Do I do that with God’s Word, too? Do I skip the parts I think don’t apply to me? The subjects I think I’ve conquered? The stories about people whose faith faltered?

Do I scan the parchment pages if it’s a passage so familiar I think I’ve milked all I possibly can from it? That might work if The Word of God was stagnant and I was perfect. Neither is true. It is living. And I am a work in progress.

PRAYER: Lord, create in me a heart that is always hungry for every morsel of Your Word, every word and every space between the words, a heart that devours rather than skimming this Ultimate Life-Guide.

“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105 KJV).

Today’s devotional is by Cynthia Ruchti, writer/producer of THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME radio ministry and president of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). Cynthia’s debut novel—They Almost Always Come Home—is available from Abingdon Press wherever books are sold.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZb0by984g. Cynthia writes stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark (www.cynthiaruchti.com).