The Other Way Around

The Other Way Around

It's like spinning a globe with your eyes closed and finger pointed out. You hope, as a kid, you land on some fantastical place like Paris or England. But you usually end up in the Gobi Desert or floating around the Pacific. I flip around almost blindly hoping to find some incredible, unique passage in the Old Testament that will add color to my otherwise bland life.

A darkness began to cover my heart. On my worst days, when I felt like nothing I spent time doing really mattered, I found myself unable to find balance. I kept praying for God to please show me what I needed to do to feel hopeful again.

"Look here, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town...' How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone" (James 4).

I'm not saying we should all have a read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan. But the problem with approaching God's word with such flippancy is the attitude it represents. It turns God into a kind of accessory.

I know my life is like a vapor. But I don't read my Bible like that. I read it as a moral code whose guidelines, when followed, will lead to a better life...which is true. But when I felt like I couldn't see God working around me and couldn't find direction as to how to change that--I lost hope.

Because the Bible is so much more than a moral code; more than rules and regulations. It tells of lives spanning thousands of years to remind us that God was bringing his plans to life before we were born. And to remind us that he'll continue to do so long after we die.

Maybe I'm the only one who needs to hear this. Maybe most Christians don't struggle with using the Bible wrongly like I do. I guess I just now realized that God's word, if read with care, will lead me to see my story as it fits into God's--not the other way around.

Author Unkown