Blog, Reflections | 27 Jan 2026 | by GEM Spiritual Life

Mutual Commitment

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. (Deuteronomy 11:18)

I’ve never considered myself to be very good at memorizing Scripture. I also struggle to think of exact Bible verses if I have a Scripture I want to reference. When passages come to mind they tend to be a rough paraphrase, and if I’m hunting for a specific passage there’s a good chance I’ll at least be able to find the book of the Bible that it’s in.

Thankfully even though my wielding of Scripture is a bit haphazard at times, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m committed to truths of God’s Word. More importantly, I’m not only committed to God’s truth, I’m committed to Him.

He is the One who beckoned me to follow Him. When I follow Him in a sense I’m behind Him, but in another sense I’m right next to Him. How many times have I walked with a friend or my parent who knows the way to where we’re going? I don’t walk behind them even though they know the way. I walk next to them. I’m still following them, but there’s a close bond to those who walk side-by-side. As I commit to walk with them and go where they go, they continue to lead me. They don’t race ahead, they don’t make me carry a heavy load. We walk together, we share the load, and we get to our destination in perfect time and with perfect intentions.

This walking side-by-side, this mutual commitment, can take a lot of forms, but one of them is literally reading my Bible on a daily basis. Reading on a daily basis is a big commitment. I miss days, and sometimes several in a row, but I find that reading Scripture during personal time is part of my commitment to God.The thing that amazes me most about reading the Bible on my own is that I’ve never had a time that was fruitless. Sure, I’ve read and hardly retained it, but still God somehow used it to shape my mind and my heart, even just a little bit, from that action of my reading Scripture. I hope I don’t take that lightly. I hope I remember that on my side I take a small step, but God takes a bigger step. Oh how unending the heights of God’s love!