eat the scroll

WHY CAN’T I GET ANYTHING OUT OF MY TIME IN THE WORD?!?!?

God told Ezekiel to eat the scroll, the whole scroll, and nothing but the scroll. John the revelator was told to do the same. Yeah, there are some bitter moments in those sacred texts, but, oh, land sakes, the sweet times you find when you chow down then lie down on the feathery-down passages of hope and mercy. Unhurried time in the Word is like a good nap after a really great meal.

Yes, indeedy, there are those head-scratching, confusing, deeply mysterious parts, but these are offset by truths so simple and beautiful a child could use them as jump-rope songs.

Was it to Hosea God said “My people are starving on stale bread crumbs when they could be feasting on fatted calf” or something to that effect? We almost prefer spoonfuls of sugar to mega meaty bites that require us to chew, chew, chew.

Consider Jen Wilkins’ sobering observations in her blog post, “The Instagram Bible”:

I saw in my vision by night, and behold, I dreamed of a world in which every copy of the Bible was gone, except those portions we had preserved on Instagram. Consider this Bible, my daughters, if you will:

 

Its perfect squares are friend to the proverb, the promise, and the partial quote, leaving laws, lists, land-allotments, and long-stretching lessons to languish off-screen.

 

It comforts but rarely convicts.

 

It emotes but rarely exhorts.

 

It warms but rarely warns.

 

It promises but rarely prompts.

 

It moves but does not mortify.

 

It builds self-assurance but balks at self-examination.

 

It assembles an iconography whose artists, by spatial necessity, are constrained to choose

 

brevity over breadth,

 

inspiration over intellect,

 

devotion over doctrine.

 

Beware its conscribed canvas, where calligraphy conquers context.

 

Beware.

 

If the Prosperity Gospel offered us all the things,

 

the Instagram Gospel offers us all the feels.

 

It preaches good news in part, but we need the whole. It may move us in the moment, but it cannot sustain us through the storm.

How can we minister God’s Word to someone who just found out their spouse has been cheating on them when all we can call up is Jeremiah 29:11 because we just saw it all flowerdy and gussied up on social media?

Is John 3:16 enough for someone whose teenager is questioning their gender?

Where does one turn for scriptural strategy when the effects of pornography are poisoning the well and destroying them from the inside out?

Is a lyric from a worship song sufficient? I ask you.

Hear me. I’m not in any way minimizing the stand-alone power of any one scripture to do its supernatural work in a myriad of unexplained ways, but our lazy approach to the whole counsel of God (even the uninstagrammable parts) is producing an entire generation of biblical illiterates. Social media, with all its bluff and bluster, multiplies the problem with its ‘way-out-there’ spin-jobs from armchair exegetes.

Not to mention this nibbling approach to scripture is embargoing ourselves from some really, REALLY cool texts that are food for the long haul. In our “insta” world we just want our breakfast on the go or ‘something to tide us over.’ 

To spend real time with Jesus means you’re gonna find yourself on some unfamiliar routes and inconvenient detours. The trend is more toward hopping on the quick-app interstate with its predictable views because we prize the ‘getting there’ more than the ‘going there.’ And doing it over a hurried cup of coffee. Too bad, because (metaphorically speaking) there’s a really amazing hole-in-the-wall restaurant three towns over off County Road 77. Best barbecue for miles around, I’m told. Worth the trip.

Sandy and I recently moved from our sweet little house on Christopher Court with its cozy, fenced-in, lush backyard and its many colorful varieties of songbirds. Boy, I sure do miss my backyard.

A few years ago I was convalescing from sickness that nearly took my life and found I needed something to do to get me outside in the fresh air and sunshine; something, anything. I thought to myself: Self, I’m going to just sit in my backyard and watch birds with the sun on my face.

So…

I bought me a camera and set up a bird-feeder and waited. And waited. Several days went by until my first cardinal showed up. And suddenly the trees got lively. Over time there were grosbeaks and goldfinches, wrens and nuthatches, woodpeckers and titmice, and then along came the hummingbirds. And, because it got so populated, gigantic Cooper’s hawks joined the party.  

I remember one time, after a great long while of waiting and watching, I counted fifteen varieties of birds around the feeder in an hour’s time. It became a common occurrence but not without great patience, a lot of expensive birdseed, and a determination to go out there every day, rain or shine, cold or blistering heat, and sit with the birds.

And it changed my life.

May I go ahead and assume you know what I’m getting at, dear reader? 

Perhaps F. B. Meyer would be kind enough to expand on my metaphor and shed some more light:

 “Christian[s] will attend conventions, plunge into all kinds of Christian work, read many good books about the Bible and Christian living; but they give the Bible itself the most cursory and superficial heed. And it is for this reason that the Bible does not speak to them. (Emphases throughout mine)

 

“If you would know all the wondrous beauty of a forest glade, you must not be satisfied with passing through it with hasty foot and in company with a troop of merry children whose ringing laughter carries panic into the hearts of thousands of shy living things that, with trembling hearts, keep still in hole and brake and nest.

 

“No, you must go alone and sit quietly down on the log of some felled tree and wait. Then the mystery of beauty will begin to unfold itself: the fairy bowers, the mossy glens, the interlacing boughs. Presently a note will sound from yonder bough, as the signal for the outburst of many sweet-voiced choristers, and the woodland will ring with the music of the birds while the squirrel runs up some neighboring tree, and the rabbits come out to feed, and the young foxes play about their holes.

 

“All this is hidden from those who cannot wait. So there are mysteries of glory and beauty in Scripture hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes. There is no book that will so repay time spent over its pages as the Word of God.

 

“If the people who are now perpetually running about to meetings for crumbs of help and comfort, would only stay at home and search their Bibles, there would be more happiness in the Church and more blessing on the world.”

 

– F. B. Meyer, Elijah

Selah, beloved….as you make Jesus your daily meal!