What is CHEW? A 30-Second Practice That Grows Into a Day Woven With God’s Love

One 30-second question. Start there. Grow it through your day. Because it is already true.

You know the verses. You have taught them, quoted them, forwarded them. And by 3:17 p.m. on a Tuesday — after the email that landed wrong, the meeting that spiraled, the conversation with your spouse you are still replaying — the love of God feels like a doctrine, not a place you actually live.

That is the gap:

• Between what you believe Sunday and what runs Monday.
• Between the God you name in prayer and the tone your kids hear at 6:14 a.m.
• Between the verse you quote and the sentence you actually send.

C.H.E.W. is a practice for closing that gap in real time. Not a course. Not a program. One honest question, held in front of what Scripture already says is true about God’s love for you — at first once a day, and eventually woven through your whole day.

What CHEW Actually Is

CHEW is a rhythm of receiving what Scripture has already said about God’s love — and responding to it in the actual moment you are in.

To get used to CHEWing, you start with the 30-second version, called the Core CHEW. One question, held honestly, in the middle of a real moment:

“Because God loves me as much as He loves Jesus, what changes right now?”

That question is not a nice sentiment. It comes from what Jesus prays in John 17:23 — that the Father has loved His people with the same love He has for His Son. Not a lesser love. Not a probationary version. The same love.

“Because” is doing real work in that question:

• Not feel God’s love.
• Not summon belief in a pressure moment.
• Reckon with what is already true — and notice what shifts.

When you have more time and something bigger to work through, the full CHEW walks through four steps:

• C — Clarity. Father, what is actually going on in me — and what are You saying about it?
• H — Hear. What has Scripture said about His love in this exact place?
• E — Exchange. Let His love move from your head to your heart — what shifts right now?
• W — Walk. One small step. Grounded in the verse. Done today.

The Core CHEW is the on-ramp. It teaches you the muscle. But the goal is not one Core CHEW a day and then back to autopilot. The goal is to live in the question — to have it running quietly under your day, so that when the email lands wrong, or the meeting spirals, or the tension shows up on the drive home, Scripture is already reaching the moment.

Psalm 1 says the blessed man meditates on the law of God day and night — not in one long sit-down, but woven through the ordinary. And David is not meditating on statutes as data; he is meditating on the character of the God who gave them, and the heart of that character is love. “Chewing” is the old word for that kind of meditation: returning, again and again, to what God has said, until Scripture reshapes what you do.

The Core CHEW gets you started. The rest of your life is what makes it stick.

What Actually Changes When You Do This

Not a warm feeling. Not a spiritual high. Something quieter — and more useful:

• The defensive email — you don’t send it.
• The apology buried in explanation — you just make.
• The correction you would have sharpened — you make clearly.
• The 11:47 p.m. replay — you notice, you name it, you sleep.

None of this is why we do this. We do this because the first commandment is to love the Lord our God with all we are — and most of us are trying to love Him from a head that agrees and a heart that has not caught up.

The softer marriage. The sharper leadership. The fewer 3 a.m. replays. Those are fruit. Not the point. But real — and they land faster than you would think, when Scripture starts reaching the actual moments where you live.

Why 30 Seconds (Not 30 Minutes)

The gap between what you believe and what you actually do is not a gap of information. You are not one more sermon or book away. You already know more than you are living.

The gap is in the moment where your head has to reach your reactions. That moment does not happen in a quiet time. It happens here:

• 3:17 p.m. between the meeting and the next thing.
• 6:41 a.m. in the mirror.
• In the driveway before you walk into your own house.

The 90-minute morning practice, the reading plan, the small group — those are not the enemy of this. Word, prayer, worship, and community are the ordinary means of grace and the deep ground under everything CHEW does. CHEW does not replace them.

But 30 seconds is what fits in the crack. And the crack is where the gap actually is. When Scripture starts reaching enough of those cracks, throughout the day, the gap begins to close.

How to Start

Pick one moment tomorrow you already do every day. Something automatic:

• The first sip of coffee.
• The drive home.
• The pause before you close the laptop.
• The moment you park in your own driveway.

At that moment, ask the Core CHEW question. Answer honestly in 30 seconds. Out loud, in your head, or in a note. That is a Core CHEW.

Do that for seven days. Then start noticing the second and third moments where the question wants to show up on its own. Let it. That is CHEW beginning to live throughout your day.

If you want a guided version of the first seven days, that is what the 7-Day Core CHEW Challenge is for. And when you are ready for the full four-step CHEW on any moment, read How to Build Your Own CHEW.

A Word About What This Isn’t

CHEW is not:

• A productivity practice. It will not give you back your inbox.
• A way to feel God’s love. The Spirit works love into a heart — not a technique.
• A substitute for the Bible, prayer, the sacraments, or the local church. Those are the ordinary means of grace.
• A shortcut around sin, struggle, or the slow work of sanctification. Those still take time.

What CHEW offers is a posture: standing honestly in what Scripture already says is true — and letting the Spirit bring that truth into the actual moments where sanctification is happening.

One Question. Throughout Your Day. Because It’s True.

Back to that Tuesday at 3:17 p.m. The email is still there. The meeting still went the way it went. Nothing about the day has changed. But you have thirty seconds, and there is a question in front of you:

“Because God loves me as much as He loves Jesus, what changes right now?”

You answer it honestly. And then you do the next thing. And the next time the question shows up on its own — in the pause before a hard reply, in the driveway before you walk in, in the mirror at 6:41 a.m. — you answer it then, too. That is how one Core CHEW becomes a day quietly meditating on His love.

That is CHEW.

Ready for the full four-step CHEW on any moment? Read How to Build Your Own CHEW →

Want the doctrine underneath this? Read When God’s Love Finally Becomes Real →

Coaching, counseling, or working with Ryan? See How I Work →

With you on the journey,

Ryan

This content was developed with the assistance of AI tools. All materials are prayerfully guided, reviewed, and refined to reflect our biblical convictions, voice, and commitment to Christ-centered truth. AI supports clarity and efficiency — not authority or spiritual guidance.