I once read this brain teaser: A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four haystacks in another. How many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in one field? Needless to say, I instantly came up with 9! That’s because of simple math.

But I soon learned that what seemed simple at first, may have tricked my mind because I didn’t think the whole process through. How often that happens to us when we make a quick decision without examining all the facets and variables. That may be because we want quick answers.

How many times have you seen a game on TV where a contestant is asked to use words or pantomime to describe a hidden word, they are shown on a card, to another person so they can guess what the word is? Many times the contestant will see the word and quickly say “Pass,” because nothing immediately comes to mind.

When I first began to study for the ministry, I read many classic books that contained English and Latin words that I was not familiar with. My first instinct was to pass over them and hope that somehow from the context I could discover what the writer was explaining. But I soon learned I was cheating myself out of growing my vocabulary and understanding. So I started writing those words down on a pad, then looking them up in the dictionary and putting down a synonym or short definition. It wasn’t long before I didn’t need to look at my pad any more when I came to those words because they were already part of my vocabulary.

The Psalmist David no doubt had the same idea when it came to God’s Word. In Psalm 1 he says that if a person wants to be significant in this world, let them avoid taking someone else’s advice without first considering the consequences of how it will affect their lives, but to search God’s Word and think about what they’ve read all day long.

Then we have the very smart young man who wrote Psalm 119 describing his life’s story, and how he was often criticized and made fun of because of his unwavering faith. But he says that the one thing that kept him on the right track was that he had studied God’s Word to the point that it became part of his thinking.¹ In other words, he didn’t turn to the Word of God only when he was in trouble, but he made it a daily part of his life.

By the way, if a farmer has five haystacks in one field and four in another and combines them all in one field, he’ll then only have one haystack. By the same token, if we take all the wisdom and knowledge that comes from God’s Word and combine them in our hearts, then we will be of one mind and one accord with the Spirit and with each other. – Dr. Robert R. Seyda