Dear friend,

 

It was a particularly overwhelming week and I was feeling drained. The burden of needs felt heavy – heavier than usual. But rather than see this burden as an impetus to seek the Lord, I ran the other way. 

 

I stayed up too late.

I woke up too late.

I felt rushed.

I scrolled too much.

I made time for distractions.

I ignored the important.

 

By the end of the week I'd been in the Word only once. I felt anxious and tired, confused and angry at all the hard things those seven days held.

When I reflected on what went wrong, I saw a pattern: when my circumstances became strained, I ran to immediate comforts. Studying the Bible wasn't on that list! I chose what was easy to consume, but what was easy to consume was usually untruthful. Not bad, evil, or wrong; just a partial truth. And in the midst of heavy circumstances, I need the whole truth. I need all of Christ for all my lack.

The Bible does not innately fix our struggles. It is not magic. It is not immediate. And without the Spirit of God, it does not come alive (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Secular people read the Bible all the time without believing; some even know it better than Christians do, but it does not transform them. We need the Bible on our hardest days, but never just the Bible.

 

Conversely, those of us accustomed to rigorous, required Bible reading, might resist coming to the Bible out of fear of a swing back to legalism. We know the Word of God is used by the Spirit of God, but our fear of legalism keeps us from faithfulness. 

 

Whether we avoid the Bible because we think it fixes nothing, because we don't want to be “religious”, or because we are just plain overwhelmed, we are missing the power of what it does. In my avoidance of truth that week taught me an important truth: When I have no words for what I'm feeling, when I'm drawing in the difficulty, Scripture speaks on my behalf. Or rather, the Spirit of God speaks through Scripture.

 

I finally drummed up the courage to sit down and make the time. I did something I never do: I flipped my Bible open to a random page. It fell to Psalm 112, a psalm my college chapel professor used as a parallel to Proverbs 31. “The Psalm 112 Man”, he called it. But man or woman, the truths applied directly to my situation:

 

 

I sat back, astonished, but not ashamed. I could have absorbed shame for not showing up to the Word for so long, but instead God comforted me with these words. He knew. He knew my struggles, and Scripture spoke directly to them. How much more I would have benefited if I had come to the Word in the midst of the pain! And even though I didn't, God still spoke. Scripture speaks. The Spirit speaks. But often… we have to actually show up to experience such fullness. 

 

 

Authenticity, PDM

Anyone remember last year, when I read War and Peace for five months and basically nothing else? The same thing is happening with Anna Karenina, but I have no regrets… except that I could be reading more if I weren't neck deep in Tolstoy! Here is what I am [slowly] working through:

Books I'm reviewing for endorsement or sharing online: 

On top of my personal book list, I keep track of the books we are reading for school. Each year we complete between 150-200 read alouds of varying sizes. Here's what we are reading now!