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Charles Spurgeon warned, “Most read their Bibles like cows that stand in the thick grass and trample under their feet the finest flowers and herbs” (Treasury of David).
Howard Hendricks said, “If I could give students of Scripture only one instruction, it would be the same: ‘Look! Look! Look!’ The truth of God is in the Bible, but most people miss it primarily because they don’t look for it. They never put forth the time and effort required to answer the fundamental question of observation, What do I see?”
Louis Agassiz, (AG-a-see) founder of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, understood this principle. He would assign new students the job of looking at a fish.
“His initial interview at an end, Agassiz would ask the student when he would like to begin. If the answer was now, the student was immediately presented with a dead fish--usually a very long dead, pickled, evil-smelling specimen--personally selected by ‘the master’ from one of the wide-mouthed jars that lined his shelves. The fish was placed before the student in a tin pan. He was to LOOK AT THE FISH, the student was told, whereupon Agassiz would leave, not to return until later in the day, if at all. Samuel Scudder, one of the many from the school who would go on to do important work of their own (his in entomology), described the experience as one of life’s turning points. ‘In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish. ... Half an hour passed--an hour--another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face--ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at three-quarters view--just as ghastly. I was in despair. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me--I would draw the fish, and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature.’ When Agassiz returned later and listened to Scudder recount what he had observed, his only comment was that the young man must look again. ‘I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another.’ ... The afternoon passed quickly; and when, toward its close, the professor inquired: ‘Do you see it yet?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before.’ The day following, having thought of the fish through most of the night, Scudder had a brainstorm. The fish, he announced to Agassiz, had symmetrical sides with paired organs. ‘Of course, of course!’ Agassiz said, obviously pleased. Scudder asked what he might do next, and Agassiz replied, ‘Oh, look at your fish!’ In Scudder’s case the lesson lasted a full three days. ‘Look, look, look,’ was the repeated injunction and the best lesson he ever had, Scudder recalled, ‘a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part’” (David McCullough, Brave Companions: Portraits in History, pp. 25-26).
Careful attention is profitable in all areas of life, but the Bible is infinitely more important than a fish!
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