Metabolizing God's Word

Hi, I’m Joshua Cushman, creator of metabolizinggodsword.com. I am a by-vocational pastor in western Montana. For the last fifteen years I have been learning what it means to meditate on God’s Word day and night. Sometimes that has taken the form of listening to the Bible while I built a house. Or else I may just try to hold a story or passage of scripture in my mind while thinking of ways it relates to the rest of scripture and life. At other times I read a wide variety of authors voraciously and compare what I am reading back to the Bible.

As a father of four and husband of one, I am familiar with being busy and distracted. I created metabolizinggodsword.com to share what I have learned about meditating on the Bible, day and night, as well as to share resources to help others on their journey. These resources are intended to help digest scriptures more fully, allowing the truth revealed in the Bible to nourish and energize all of life.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

A few authors and teachers that have influenced me are: Bob Goff, J Daniel Hays, C. S. Lewis, Tim Macie, John Ortberg, Lois Tverberg, Eugene Peterson, Dallas Willard, N. T. Wright,

Lots of people watch cooking shows without ever putting what they are watching into practice. We sit watching, our mouths thick with saliva, while a master chef grills a filet mignon. He pairs it with just the right wine to complement the flavors and follows the dish with a flaming souffle for dessert. We get up from our couch, hungrily walk into our kitchen, and fix ourselves a grilled cheese sandwich.

This is a good example of how many of us Christians read our Bibles. We read the Bible, we see God working through people bringing about his plans and purposes. We see God shaping individuals into His own image. We see the ingredients he uses, The Beatitudes, The Ten Commandments, The Fruit of the Spirit. We hunger to walk into the life that has been prepared for us. We get up from our reading, we walk into the kitchen and fix ourselves a grilled cheese sandwich. We fall back into what is comfortable. God’s re-creation life never makes it from the page to the table.

When we eat food it becomes part of us. Good nutritious food gives us energy, its vitamins help keep us healthy, it helps our minds to function more clearly, it helps our bodies to grow and develop into maturity. Many of us are stunting our own growth by choosing to live on a spiritual diet of top ramen and potato chips. We are only interested in what is easy to chew and cheap to prepare. We don’t realize that our walk with Jesus is not about feeling full, it is about growing and maturing, being made into the image of the One we are following. We will not grow into our full potential by eating only what is easy to chew. 

The purpose of this blog is to give us some tools to metabolize scripture more fully. To allow the energy and vitality that God has placed before us in the Bible to course through our veins. As we consume scripture, we will see it influencing every area of our lives. Work, family, friends and Church will all be brought under the authority of the One who made us and has loved us from before the foundations of the earth.