"for the Word of God is living and active. sharper than double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."
hebrews 4:12-13
another danger of long-time (or even lifetime) Christians is familiarity. many of us grew up in the church and year after year in sunday school and bible school and even at our Christian schools, we learned and relearned stories from the Bible. if you are as lucky as i was, you even learned them and "acted" them out on felt-boards. by high school, we start to grumble and complain because we have heard about, say, noah and the ark a hundred times already. or maybe there are passages in the Bible that have become so familiar we could recite them. i think it is safe to even say that there are songs sung in church and chapels that we have sung so many times, we do not even think about what the words say. that is the danger - when something becomes so familiar that it loses meaning. we lose our ability to learn from it.
this past sunday we sang a song at restore called 'God You Reign'. mind you this is not an old hymn that we have been singing since we were four years old, but a song that has become familiar to us. i appreciated when ben spoelstra introduced the song by asking each person to read and think about the words, to not let it be something so familiar that it no longer has meaning.
in our small group at youth group this past sunday night, we were talking about what makes us able to trust God. a student mentioned how they often read devotionals which help them understand and therefore trust God. they also admitted that when they finish a particular devotional book, there is often a gap in time before they pick up another one. i spoke up and pointed out that even if we don't have a devotional we can go straight to the Word of God and see countless examples of people who experienced the faithfulness of God. we can look at their lives - some with very difficult lives - that see how God was still with them, encouragment for us to see and build our ability to trust him with our own lives. another student quickly mentioned the example of job. several of them chimed in with details of jobs difficult life. i sat back quietly and listened to them because to be quite honest, i could not remember a lot of the details of job's life, though i know at one time was something very familiar to me.
you cannot walk with God and not know God's word. God reveals himself in nature as a means of general revelation. but it is special revelation that we need to seek. (general and special revelations are topics discussed in my religion classes at calvin college that i mentioned a few days ago) if we walk with God without knowing the Word, how do we even know Him? instead we create a God that we want to walk with, a God that is convenient for us.
i am working on unfamiliarizing myself with Bible stories and verses and songs so that i can relearn who He is in order to know who i am following.
Lord, you give us the Scriptures as a way to know you more deeply. help me to read your Word as if it were the first time so that i can develop a greater understanding. give me the discipline to hear, read, study, memorize and meditate on the Word with the help of the Holy Spirit.
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