More than Stars on a Chart.

In Sunday School, I memorized it for a red, green, blue or gold foil star by my name.


During the course of twelve private school years, it was memorized and memorialized with pencil on paper for a grade.


At the Bible Institute I attended after High School, at seven in the morning 'til thirty minutes after, we were required to read a portion of it selected for us. At any time, our 'journals' could be inspected by leadership to ensure our faithful completion of devotion to it. This, in addition to reports, essays and competitions based on the knowledge of it. It was the point of being there.

It was
The Bible.
The Holy Cannon.
The Word.
The Good News.


I knew it well.
I had to.
It was almost always part of an assignment.



With all of that cerebral learning of it (with many good intentions behind it. I had a wonderful childhood, no complaining here), I also picked up the unspoken decorum regarding it's usage.I knew to use what I memorized to convince myself, and others, that everything will be ok even when it is not. Stop sniveling, don't over think and repeat after me!...Romans eight, verse twenty eight. I shopped for cards that had the perfect verse, perfect for the situation the friend was going through and then I would stamp the proverbial "band aid" in the mail and feel I had done my Christian duty to ease her pain. It was, after all, much less messy (and time-consuming) than sitting by her side and running at the nose with her.


In my twenties, I  attended studies and seminars, with soft-spoken, lifeless-eyed women speaking from a podium in their beige turtlenecks, paging through the scriptures with a tediousness that might be reserved for yesteryear's editors of the encyclopedia. It left me pretending harder that I had a genuine enthusiasm for this Word whose pages I had read for all of my young life and yet, it felt purely...academic and dare I say, downright dull.


I was missing the point.

***

While down deep I still recoil when it is suggested that I must religiously be reading the Word, thus tapping into my past academic experiences, I am now aware of the living power it has the potential to hold. As I walk further away from my youth with it's red foil star stickers, I have come to experience the benefit of writing it's words on my heart...and even in the walls of my home. In it's pages, there is the sometimes crystal clear, other times mysterious reflection of it's Subject. The Subject being the One who created all things, the One who intricately knows all the facets of everything and everyone, including me.

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

~Hebrews chapter four, verse twelve.


While the Book that holds His Story is to be read, it is not to be worshiped. Knowing Him whose Love is life-changing is the point. It is His Holy Spirit making it possible to absorb the written words that makes His Word an important part of getting to the point. Our adventure in coming to know and walk with Him is not one-dimensional...yet each dimension is key. His Word, nature, "guideposts" He sets along the way, be it people or messages within a song or a conversation or a (gasp!) seminar are just a few of the "dimensions" He reveals Himself personally to His child and He certainly is not limited to those few I listed. His creativity know no fence.

In the past few months God has clearly sent two women, different in their ages, personalities (although, they both have wonderful strong ones!), life experiences and lifestyles, into my life. In my interactions with them, I deeply sense far more than simply a fun new friend to join the Mutual Admiration Society with. The elder of these new friends (but in NO way, OLD! I assure you, the first of her children was born after an arranged marriage at the age of 16. Maybe not. But she is very, very young for having so many older children), recently shot me this in a string of emailed conversations between us:

I do not know what age you are but this I know knowing the ages of your children....you are to be home with your children. You are to infuse them with an inordinate amount of snuggle time, you are to know them like no other, you are to make sure the society at large will be blessed by them and not terrorized by them. And all of this while you put your nose in the Word and study. You are to not let anyone tell you there is no time for Studying God's word because they are wrong and it is of importance to you, your husband, your family, your community, your country and the World. Now, I know it is safe to assume that both you and I can kinda be over the top sort of people but everything I have just said I believe to the core of my being and I could not be more emphatic!

After reading this paragraph, I wondered at my lack of resistance at her insistance that I "put my nose in the Word and study". After thinking about it, I realized why and it was for this reason:

In the very few, but meaningful interactions I have had with Lynne, it is crystal clear in her very being - her very vibrant, vivacious, out-of-the-box being - that the divine Words she has inscribed on her heart for years are not represented by an insipid referencing of scriptures at the appropriate point in conversation, or showcased like a chart full of foil stars...rather they infuse her personality, her conversations and her very aura. The Spirit of God, the same that is reflected in the pages of the Bible, are reflected by her. She has long since got 'the point' to submersing herself pursuit of knowing Him and the study of His Words have filtered down past her brain and settled nicely into her heart.

***

Words should not be typed lightly, even if only ever published on a no-name blog. These public journal entries, little read may they be, should not be used as places to rattle off incoherent and misleading musings. It is my hope that I have not done that here, although will probably find bits and pieces that should have been best left out after rereading.

***

To close, I will share of the book I have waiting in my cart at Amazon.com.

It is authored by Eugene Peterson, it's title is Eat This Book. 

I leave you with this excerpt regarding his desire for his Christian community:

I wanted to gather a company of people together who read personally, not impersonally, who learned to read the Bible in order to live their true selves, not just get information that they could use to raise their standard of living. I wanted to counter the consumer attitude that uses the Bible as a way to gather religious data by which we can be our own gods, and then replace it with an attitude primed to listen to and obey God, to take us out of our preoccupations with ourselves into the spacious freedom in which God is working the world's salvation. I wanted to somehow recover that original tone, that prophetic and gospel 'voice' that stabs us awake to a beauty and hope that connects us with our real lives" (Page 176).