When you feel invisible. Or worse. (And a little baseball.)
You might think you treat God’s Word as infallible.
But I’m willing to wager you don’t. And that you don’t even realize it.
We may not all agree upon (or even understand!) all aspects of the Bible. After all, we interpret it with limited human thinking. When I have difficulty squaring seemingly-contradictory passages of scripture, I end up praising God that He’s bigger than my pea-brain and am grateful that He and His Word are trustworthy.
“Except in this one area.”
“He can’t be right about that.”
“He can’t be right about me.”
“No, He got that one wrong.”
We have a tendency to take all our cultural inputs (paychecks, possessions, mass media, social norms, etc.) and roll them up like a baseball bat to swat away the words God speaks about us. We do it with every (real or imagined) eye roll. With every mental comparison to friends, coworkers and photographs. We’ve unconsciously elevated what the world says about us as being more trustworthy than what God says. And that, my friends, is worse than discrediting God’s Word. It’s idolatry. Ouch.
My son is a daily object lesson for me in this area. I watch his struggles–the ones that emanate from his earliest days in a Russian orphanage–and ache that he questions his value and worth. We sat together this morning and read from Zephaniah 3. We focused on just one verse:
I wish you could have seen the corners of his mouth turn upward and the light that surged into his eyes. Instead of swinging hard to knock that truth out of the park, he stood at the plate and let those words hit him in the heart. He believed what the Bible said: that God delights in my son and rejoices over him with singing.
After kissing him goodbye on his way out the door to school, I ruminated on how differently I respond to that verse. I dismiss it, or at least diminish it. I bat it away with my own worldly conceptions of beauty, value, success and significance. I thought I was teaching my son how to recognize his worth by seeing it in God’s Word. In the end, however, it was his response that taught me. His ability to simply accept it and let it utterly reshape his feelings (even if it’s not permanent) were a tremendous example to me. Today, I’m trying hear, receive and internalize the Truth, by taking God at His Word, without discrediting it with cultural thinking or avoiding it altogether.
Will you join me?
Share a verse in the comments that speaks to your value in God’s sight. Then, perhaps, as we read through them, we’ll all be washed over with the truth of how very precious we are to Him.
I’m cheating. Grabbed a book full of verses. this will force others to open the WORD for truth. Genesis 1:26-27
Psalm 8:4-6
Psalm 139:13-14
Psalm 139:15-18
Jeremiah 1:5
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Galatians 4:7
Romans 12:3
Matthew 10:29-31
Acts 17:26,28
Ephesians 3:16-19
Ephesians 2:10
I’m cheating. Grabbed a book full of verses. this will force others to open the WORD for truth. Genesis 1:26-27
Psalm 8:4-6
Psalm 139:13-14
Psalm 139:15-18
Jeremiah 1:5
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Galatians 4:7
Romans 12:3
Matthew 10:29-31
Acts 17:26,28
Ephesians 3:16-19
Ephesians 2:10
I’m cheating. Grabbed a book full of verses. this will force others to open the WORD for truth. Genesis 1:26-27
Psalm 8:4-6
Psalm 139:13-14
Psalm 139:15-18
Jeremiah 1:5
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Galatians 4:7
Romans 12:3
Matthew 10:29-31
Acts 17:26,28
Ephesians 3:16-19
Ephesians 2:10
Jesus loves me this I know.
This is perhaps the least functional truth/reality in my life.
Jesus loves me this I know.
This is perhaps the least functional truth/reality in my life.
Jesus loves me this I know.
This is perhaps the least functional truth/reality in my life.
Getting checked with this again today!
Getting checked with this again today!
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