Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

I think personalization is an important part of turning ideas into convictions. Not sure how else to say that. I just know lots of people who have a "second-hand" faith or "hand-me-down" faith that is interpersonal. In other words, they believe what someone told them to believe. But they don't really know why they believe what they believe. What's lacking in most people is that internal conviction that comes when truth is personalized. For too many people, the Scriptures are just external truth instead of internalized truth. Meditation is one way we internalize and personalize truth. I have a saying I came up with years ago: reading without meditating is like eating without digesting. I have certain Scriptures that have been internalized and personalized. One of them is Jeremiah 1:5. The Lord woke me up in the the middle of the night in September of 1989 and directed me right to that passage. I feel like I have a Jeremiah calling. That is more more than external truth. It is an internal conviction. There is an old aphorism: the longest distance is the twelve inches from the head to the heart. I think it's true. Internalizing and personalizing truth is the way we bridge that twelve inch divide.