We've all done it. "God I really need to hear from you." So we crack open the Bible flipping through, hoping that the place where we end up is magically going to be a "word from the Lord."
My experience tells me that God in His freedom won't be manipulated by such tasks. Rather I think that He prefers that I get to know what is actually in the Bible and drawing from a wealth of knowledge that I've stored away through years of hard study, the Holy Spirit can then take something and bring it to remembrance in difficult times or good times.
I am old fashioned enough to believe that this works. Last night was one of those wrestles nights for me. Thus I woke up early and paged through my Bible and was impressed upon by lengthy Psalm 131.
The second verse seems especially alive to me.
1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvellous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.*
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and for evermore.
grace for now
2 comments:
This was really good for me to read.
Because I'm more spiritual, AND Authentic, than most people I know, I'm trying to get back to reading the Bible more, but without the pretension that I may actually find something glorious every time I crack it open. I'm having to constantly remind myself the lesson I never seem to learn, which is that studying "the Word," is just like studying anything else, in that it takes work, something it's hard for me to do these days if I'm not getting paid for it.
Anyway, thanks.
Brueggemann and Mays would be proud. The mystery of the unknown presents the promise and hope of the yet unseen.
-Tom
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