Do you have trouble hearing the Bible in a personal way?
We hear a lot of discussion about whether we ahould interpret the Bible literally. I want to tell you about an experience that makes me wonder if I ought to take it a bit more personally.
The other night I was feeling really down. I’d received disappointing news about the progress of my healing, and I was pretty much inconsolable.
A friend who’s also a pastor stopped by. Dick isn’t a quick-fix, easy-answer guy. He’s not the sort of preacher who whips out a handy-dandy scripture to put a band-aid on a gaping wound.
He sensed that mostly he just needed to listen, so that’s what he did. After I dumped my frustrations for a while, he did two extremely wise and helpful things.
First, he told me he didn’t understand why all of this was happening or what God was trying to tell me. He shared his own inability to discern what God’s saying to him in difficult times.
That might sound awfully simple, but this is one of the most prayerful, thoughtful men of God I’ve ever known. It meant a great deal to me to hear about his own uncertainty and lack of clarity.
Then he pulled out a Bible and asked permission to read something. With most folks this might have shut me down, but I said okay because it was him.
So Dick read a few selected, familiar verses from Romans 8:31-39, but with a twist—he replaced every personal pronoun with “Rich.” So, for example, the opening line came out as:
If God is for Rich, who can be against Rich?
Today, I invite you to give this a try. Read the following sentences, aloud if possible. Whenever you come to a “_______” insert your first name.
If God is for _______, who can be against _______?
He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for _______—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give _______ all things?
Who will bring any charge against _______ whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns?
No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for _______. Who shall separate _______ from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate _______ from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I don’t know about you, but those words brought a lot of comfort and peace to me. They made it feel personal.
I think that’s the point.
What did this exercise feel like to you?
You can leave a comment here.
Note: I’m honored to be a guest writer today at Jon Swanson’s 300wordsaday. I invote you to drop over there and take a look.
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