I hesitate to make this statement, because it could be twisted in an unhealthy, merit-based way; however, usually I've found that most of my "dry times" relative to Scripture derive from inattentiveness to "keeping the heart" in my personal life.
When you paddle along in a river of callousness, carnality, or indifference, you can't really just "jump stream" and get in the current of Scripture just by opening the book. I don't mean that to sound pietistic or mystical. Just that illumination by the Spirit and understanding the written word obviously take place in the context of a regenerate life. And when you avoid the duties of sanctification, you often lose the hunger and thirst for Scripture.
But you can't take that too far; you always have to realize that God can place you in dry times whenever He chooses, for whatever reason He chooses, and it might have nothing to do with anything in your spiritual life; and in those cases, all you can do is bow the head and continue on with your spiritual duties.
I was thinking about this for myself the other day, and came across this in William Whitaker's
Disputations on Holy Scripture:
Quote:
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I answer, in the first place, by confessing that all things are not immediately understood upon the reading even by the learned, especially in the prophets and the Psalms. For to enable us to understand the scriptures, there is need not only of reading, but of study, meditation, and prayer. But if, for this reason, the people ought not to read the scriptures in their own tongue, then even the learned ought not to be permitted to read them. However there are many things which can be understood, though not all: and assuredly, all things which are necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in scripture, so as that they can be easily understood by any one if he will. And men would know more than they do, if they would read and hear the Scriptures with that attention which they ought to bestow. For the reason why most men understand so little, and gain such slender advantage from the reading of the scriptures, is to be found in their own negligence, because they neither give a religious attention to the perusal of them, nor approach it with the proper disposition. |