The Shema

"Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. 

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down, and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:4-8

This is the Shema, the central prayer of every Jew's prayer book, and the first prayer that each Jewish child learns. It is so important that Orthodox Jews pronounce each syllable very carefully when reciting this once in the morning, and then again in the evening. It is traditionally the last words a Jew recites on earth. 

They put the first two parts of the Shema inside a mezuzah and hang it beside their door in obedience to Dt. 6:8. But more than hanging a mezuzah outside our door, or hanging from our wrists, God wants His words in our hearts. Impressed, penetrated, engraved, inscribed, imprinted, carved. 

How do we do this? I guess we look at how the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon beginning 5-6 million years ago, slowly but surely. Just as a hard mountain can be eroded by water, our hearts can be imprinted with God's Word if we open the Bible every day and read it, even a little at a time! And just as God sees the majestic Canyon and His heart swells with its beauty, God will be pleased with a heart branded with His Word. "It is very good!" He will  declare.