It's like...
It's Like...
My oldest son, who is eight, always begins his retelling of a bible story or his reaction to a devotional with the words, "it's like". It may seem like a simple thing that has little meaning to you but to me it is everything. He takes these profound verses and devotionals and puts them into his own words. Images take shape in his mind which are transformed into spoken word and he dares to speak of God. His retelling may reference, aliens, Minecraft, zombies or a friend at school but it always points back to the scripture or topic we are discussing.
This is how we end every day in my home. Gathered in the room that my daughters share, we read scripture together, pray and sing to God. Without being overly critical of the church in the west, it seems that this is what is lacking in our gatherings. The gospel is only a concept unless it collides with our lives, our understandings, or our favorite video games. The collisions can be moments of hope where we see that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ has been made to shine out of a dark place. The collision may be a prophetic vision calling us to repent. Sometimes "it's like" we are the woman at the well in the noonday sun and sometimes we are the people she is trying to avoid by drawing her water in the heat of the day. Sometimes we are the well that is cracked and leaking or too deep for the thirsty to draw from or maybe we are the bucket that will help bring water from the deep well to cracked lips.
If we gathered together, to read and share in this way, I believe we would find we are drawn into scripture in real and exciting ways. Perhaps more importantly, we would find that in hearing each others stories, the moments where we say "it's like" this moment in my life or my day, we are drawn to each other.
and that.
The biggest challenge in this type of sharing, listening and reading, is the plurality of voices. In our study we have put the work of reading and interpretation into the hands of a few paid professionals. These pastors, elders and teachers have sifted through the text, the lexicon, the commentaries, and the truth has supposedly risen to the top. This one thing that the text is saying is shared and people take notes next to that scripture in their bibles. The next time they study on their own they don't hear the voice of the Spirit, they hear the voice of their paid professional. When you hear from everyone, the paid professionals and the first time visitor, you are forced to say "yes it is this but maybe it is also that". That, is a challenge. Everything inside of me is grasping for some sort of concrete certainty but I'm finding the list of things that are concretely certain is growing shorter and shorter.
I hope this blog helps some of you begin that work in your congregations or maybe just in your home. Dropping, if even for a moment, the way that you have understood or are understanding God and His word to be able to truly hear someone "other" than you. I'll bring to this blog, some of the things that I am seeing and hearing in text and life around me and look for signs of God in the middle of it. Let's do this work together.
Grace and Peace!