Journey of the Word

To the Christian who has been completely doused in Scripture from date of birth:

I know the feeling. How it just kinda happened. And really, you wouldn’t have it any other way . . .

You took your first breath, and you entered Holy Bible land.

When you see the world, Bible pops into your head. Perhaps because you own a dozen copies of it. Or perhaps because you’ve memorized more of it than of any other literature.

Yes, the Bible is 100% normal to you. You’ve read the whole thing front to back more than once or twice, and it functions quite beautifully as your second language. You live in its world, have dressed up as its characters, and have sung even the strangest of passages to the tune of “Mary, Had a Little Lamb.”

It’s hanging on your walls. It lines the pages of your journals. Even your name, first and middle, is found there, as are the names of all your siblings.

All the symptoms are there. You were Bible-birthed.

And the craziest thing of all is that you can read the Bible and have NO IDEA what it says.

You can literally pick it up and think, “I’ve never read this in my life!”

Even the most familiar passages can’t be explained. Because you’ve never tried to explain them. Not only that, you’ve never given them any thought.

They’ve gone in one ear and out the other. You can quote them and reference them and sing them and claim them, but you have no idea what they mean.

They are so familiar, yet completely unfamiliar.

Yep. All the symptoms are there. You were Bible-birthed.

But in all the wonderfulness that Bible-birthing gave you, it didn’t actually burn the Scriptures into your brain or brand them on your soul. And it didn’t produce Bible-living in you. Because that requires thinking. Studying. Transformation.

It requires a persistent desire. And it requires an act of the Spirit of God.

Oh may we never settle for the normalcy Bible-birthing has brought us, but rather pray and strive and grow to know the Word and its Lord more deeply and more fully and more completely each and every day he gives us breath.

 [image credit: unsplash.com]