direct correlation

It's not some difficult formula or hard chemistry inverse equation to understand. I've noticed that the more time I spend in the Word, there is greater joy in my life, I feel closer to God and have a better sense that I'm living (or not living) as He would have me live, and that problems or difficulties that come up in life are handled in a less anxious manner and with a better perspective. Not that I am holy myself per say, but that I am closer to holiness, which I guess makes me more holy by nature of my close proximity to it, if that makes sense? Here is an off-shoot mathematical representation for you, because I'm a dork:

Joy = Scripture(t), where t = time spent

more time spent in Scripture, greater the joy, more holy living; less time spent in Scripture, less joy, less holy the living

It makes total sense. When we get a new cell phone or new electronic device, we take it straight out of the box, and we skip over the instruction manual. In doing so, we miss learning about fundamental operational features of the device, or we might skip over learning how to use extra features/added gizmos of the phone. Try it. Start navigating through various menus of your phone. You'll get to some feature you never knew was there.

We do that all too often in our lives too with God's Word. It's the best guide we have going for us. Better than any book by any pastor or any book that might come off of Oprah's book club list. The Bible is true. It's complete. It's full, and it's very rich. I hope you, dear reader, have already realized this a long time ago.