Story Lines

A memory: I watch my 3-year-old son as he sits on my husband’s lap.  He looks up with a solemn expression, lifts his arm and begins to carefully trace the creases and lines in his dad’s face with his finger.  His innocent and honest child’s voice asks, “Daddy, why are there so many lines on your face?”  His dad looks into the gray-green eyes of our son and replies, “They tell the story of my life.”  Our son receives this wisdom with a nod, a smile and a simple, “Oh.”

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 NIV

The Bible reminds us that the Word is alive and active – but do we believe it?

Before I was saved in 2011, I scoffed at the mere thought – ridiculed the idea that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and  that God speaks directly to people through the Bible.  I agreed that I, or anyone, could “get a message” from any book, but I had to wonder if I found the “message” I expected to find, or the specific “answer” I was looking for by inference.  In that time and place in my life, I considered such a message a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fast forward eight years.  I look down at the beloved Bible in my lap, touch its pebbled leather surface.  The Bible does not just tell me what to think (like a textbook), nor how to think (like a motivational book) – it speaks to me on a personal level.  When I hold the Word in my hand, I literally pick up Jesus.  I can feel the weight and faithfulness of His love.  Opening it is like crawling into the Father’s lap.  The crinkle of a turned page is His breath in my ear; the cadence of the words His heartbeat.  As I trace verses with my finger, I feel every line of His face. It tells the story of God’s life.