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| Source: USCatholic.org |
There are so many things that I've learned about the Bible over my three decades of being a Christian (okay, that makes me sound really old!).
I've studied various books of the Bible, examined the lives of men and women in the Bible, learned theological concepts like justification and sanctification, retraced the "meta-narrative" of the Bible, memorized scads of verses, and I can rattle off the fruit of the Spirit and Jesus' Beatitudes.
Don't get me wrong--I am not seminary trained, nor do I read Greek and Hebrew original texts like my pastors do! But the average Christian would say that I know a lot about the Bible, and perhaps if you've grown up in the church, you do, too.
And yet, I often struggle at the end of the day to truly understand the Bible.
Now, I'm not talking about interpreting complex passages of Old Testament prophecy or end-times ideology.
No, I'm talking about struggling to understand the seemingly basic, straight-forward sections of the Bible like these:
Love your enemies (see Matt 5:44).
God's power is made perfect through your weaknesses, so boast in them (see 2 Cor 12:9).
Those who humble themselves will be lifted up (see Matt 23:12).
These truths just don't make sense at street-level in my day-to-day life.
At best, I want to avoid or ignore my enemies.
In my core, I loathe my weaknesses.
I want to be well-though of and liked, not humbled before others.
If I'm truly honest, I just don't get it.
It almost seems that the longer I study God's Word, the more I realize that I simply don't understand it. Sure, I know it with my head. The Bible has definitely become more familiar to me, and more beloved to me through the years. But it hasn't become much clearer to me where the rubber meets the road in my life.
This phenomenon--this knowing, yet not knowing--reminds me of a poem I recently heard on the The Daily Poem podcast called "Look Long Enough" by Rhina Espaillat. I'll quote it below:
Look long enough at anything you know
and you will cease to know it. Or not cease,
but struggle to reclaim it, wonder whether
you ever wore that shirt hanging just so
on your absent body, every crease
complex with shadows; or you pull a feather
from your old comforter, and altogether
altered by the flight of phantom geese,
familiar sheets repel you. Or two eyes
you've loved for years close in a daunting peace,
asleep, so that you listen for the flow
of breath, for words to help you recognize
a face you fail to recognize in this disguise,
although you knew it well, one look ago.
So I will continue to gaze into the pages of Scripture each day.
Not so much to know, but to seek to understand as the Holy Spirit illumines the truth in my mind.
One look more can make me realize how much I truly have to go to perceive and be permanently altered.
May we--you and I--seek to understand, at the soul level, God's Word this week.
And may we be forever changed, for His glory.
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