Pastoral Thought--July 7

As I began my day at the church, I picked up my black Bible; the one that always sits on the corner of my desk. It is also the Bible that I use to begin sermon preparation. And I read. . . Today I made it through about three verse before I felt my eyes begin to skip words and phrases, before the familiarity of the story gave me permission to skip to the end because I knew what was happening on the page. I tried to re-read the passage and correct the behavior forcing myself to bear down. However, the more I read the passage, the more I tried to dwell with it, the more easily my eyes wanted to “get to the good stuff.” This happened so much that I became frustrated. . . Why can’t I read this! Romans, the book that I am in, is a familiar read with easy phrases to grab onto and think about. Why was I failing to be present in God’s word? I felt like less of a Christian for a moment.

Maybe you have been there too recently. Maybe your devotional time has suffered because you know what the Word says and so you skip or skim through it trying to find something meaningful or new. The familiarity of what you are reading makes you fast-forward in a vain attempt to learn something new from God. But is that truly how God’s word makes it way deep down into your soul? 

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, The Preaching Life, says this about the Bible:

“The Bible is my birth certificate and my family tree, but it is more: it is the living vein that connects me to my maker, pumping me the stories I need to know about who we have been to one another from the beginning of time, and who we are now, and who we shall be when time is no more.” 

For me, those are strong words that speak to me about my unwillingness to dwell with God’s word—the thing that gives me life, purpose, and breath. But Taylor then tells her reader how we might consider reading and studying God’s words if we feel this first quotation is true. She writes:

“I am willing to work. . .: by living with the text day in and day out, by listening to it and talking back to it, by making sure I know what lies behind the words it speaks to me and being certain I have heard it properly, by refusing to distance myself from the parts of it I do not understand, by letting my love for it show up in my every day acts of life. The Bible is not an object for me; it is a partner, whose presence bless me, challenges me, and affects everything I do."

God’s word is not something that we read because we are ’supposed to’ as Christians. It is not something that should be seen as a chore—even when we feel that it is. Instead, I wonder if God’s word invites us to interact with it? Interact with the parts we know and the parts that challenge us. The parts that speak and the parts that are still a mystery to our ears. I wonder what spending time with God’s word, in this way, might lead you to today?

Blessings

Rev. Derek