The earliest memory I have of digging into the Word of God was when I was in 6th grade back in the Netherlands. It was this time of year and we were preparing for Christmas. The verses came from John 1. I don’t remember the exact verses, but they were along the lines of John1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” We had to explain in our own words what this meant. It was a struggle for someone who had never studied the Bible.

A few months back I had a dream. In the dream I was at my mom’s house. She had many different varieties of bread in two baskets on the table. There was a nice rye bread, some raisin bread, and a loaf from Target.

Assuming that mom stands for Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit has a variety of breads to suit everyone’s taste. In fact, the bread is right on target depending on the person’s need. If the word of God is the bread that we need (Deuteronomy 8:3), there is something for everyone and Holy Spirit makes sure that there is bread on target for everyone.

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry. (John 6:35) Ultimately, the bread is not a written word, but it is a person, Jesus.

This morning I had another dream. I had asked the Lord to give me sweet dreams before I went to sleep. He surprised me with this dream: In the dream I was swimming around in a cave. After swimming there for a while, I thought to myself, “I would really like to go to the Dominican Republic.” This is where we used to live in real life about 25-20 years ago. I swam a little bit, the water was blue, crystal clear, just like you see in all the travel magazines. I ended up at a little corner store where they sold bread. They were actually sweet breads and it was called “Ananas Bread.” (“Ananas” is the word for pineapple in a number of languages. What I didn’t know is that it comes from the comes from the Tupi word “nanas,” meaning “excellent fruit.”)

So it was pineapple bread, something I had never had before, but it sounded delicious. I had trouble figuring out the conversion rate of Dominican pesos to dollars, because American dollars is all that I had on me. I thought it was going to be one dollar but instead it ended up being $3.50. “A little much,” I thought, “in a country where people don’t make a lot of money.”

The Bible says, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

Sometimes it costs us a little to dig into the word and enjoy the sweetness that God has us for us, but it is well worth it. May the sweetness of His Word, His Presence, be like a feast to you this season.