If you’re not a great cook, there two 20th century inventions have probably positively impacted your life.

The first is the microwave. In 1945, percy Spencer was working for a company called Raytheon, and he noticed that as he was working on a radar set a candy bar melted in his pocket. The idea occurred to him that microwaves from the radar was responsible. To test his theory, he tried to cook popcorn and then eventually exploded an egg. With some modification, Raytheon filed a patent for the cooking process later that year.

The second invention that has helped all of us who can’t cook from scratch is the slow cooker. Irving Naxon developed the “Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker” after his Jewish grandmother told him how her mother would cook a stew for several hours in an oven. The invention gained popularity in 1970 when it was re-introduced under the name Crock-Pot when, after many women began to work outside the home, it allowed them to start cooking dinner in the morning before they left for work.

It’s easy to cook in both of them. For the microwave, you read the package, set the timer, and then walk away. In the Crock-Pot, you put in the meat and vegetables, add some liquid, set it and forget it. The only difference between the two is time.

Well, time and taste. Because what you’ll find is that you can cook a steak in the microwave, but it won’t taste great. Neither will it be tender. But if you put the same piece of meat in a Crock-Pot, it’s going to come out with a ton of flavor and much easier to chew. Simmering, it seems, changes the composition. It just takes a little longer.

Now let’s talk about the Bible. Most every Christian would acknowledge that reading the Bible is important. Vital even. But most of us treat the Bible like a microwave. That is, we want an immediate answer to some issue in our lives or in the world. Or we want to have an immediate boost of good vibes. Or we think that reading the Bible is like a rabbit’s foot, that by looking at a few verses we are motivating God to give us what we want.

Just like in all of life, we want what we want now. Immediately. Microwaved.

But the Bible doesn’t work like that. It’s less like a microwave and more like a Crock-Pot:

How I love your instruction!
It is my meditation all day long (Psalm 119:97).

As Christians, we aren’t meant to only turn to the Bible when we need some kind of quick spiritual fix. Instead, we are meant to simmer in the Word. To have our lives marinated by the truth we find there. To have the composition of our hearts and minds reformed according to the Bible. And that takes time. It’s a slow-cooking process. It’s not just getting in a quick 10 minutes here and there, but instead reading. Reading again. Thinking. Praying.

Slowly.

Take your time, Christian. Simmer in God’s Word. Don’t rush through the truth. Memorize it and bring it to mind over and over again. Make sure, as you can, that your heart and soul have time to cook.