Today is Sunday and I am frustrated. I suppose it shouldn’t be like that, on the Lord’s day, but I can’t help it, I am frustrated, really frustrated.
Before you get all worried (or excited), I am not going to have a rant about this morning’s worship service. While training to become a Salvation Army officer our principal, the later General John Larsson, told us how the favourite Sunday lunch for some Salvationist was ‘Roasted Corps Officer’, but I am not going down that route. My frustration has nothing to do with this morning’s service – especially as Lisbeth and I was leading it!
It does have something to do with John Larsson, though. When we came home from the service I decided I wanted to look something up in his book ‘Spiritual Breakthrough’. I went up to my little den to pick it up from the bookshelf – and the unthinkable happened: I couldn't find it! Or rather, I couldn’t locate it. You have to understand that I have a few books, and they are not just placed in any random order. There is a system. The books are organised either by theme – Leadership, Evangelism, Discipleship, Holiness etc. – or maybe according to the author, if I have several (i.e. more than just 3) books by the same author. In this case it gave me a couple of options where to find it, but I couldn’t, and here the frustration begins – somehow the system was not functioning.
Realising, or maybe I should say hoping that the system could actually be working, but the book just placed wrongly I did the normal thing, began to look through all the books, shelf by shelf, book by book, sensing my frustration, now mixed with a slight touch of desperation, growing by the Billy (IKEA shoppers will understand). Finally, after even have looked through the section on Bibliographies, Psychology (Lisbeth’s books) and Legal Thrillers, I had to accept the unacceptable; I did not know the whereabouts of one of my books. So now I sit here, deeply frustrated, because as you will understand (or maybe not) not being able to find a book, or much worse, the thought of having lost a book, is really deeply frustrating in and of itself, and even more so when you need to look something up in it.
I know I am not supposed to multi-task, being a man and all, but my mind apparently doesn’t know that. At least, as I was scanning through the books, a thought popped into my mind and began to develop into a question: What if it was the Bible I needed to look something up in? What if I needed guidance in a specific matter, and then couldn’t find it?
I know that nowadays I could just turn to my phone and open a Bible app, but this was not the issue. The Bible is not primarily a reference book, nor a book you seek out when you need guidance (bear with me, don’t cry heretic just yet). You see, in reality, in many situations where we need guidance from the Bible, we do not have time to look for it. As our Corps Officer said a few weeks ago (in another context) what good is it if we raise our hand and sing ‘Great is the Lord’ if we on the way home shake the middle finger of that same hand towards a person driving like an idiot on the cyclist path? If you had time, you could look in the Bible for advice as to how to react, and maybe you would read we should love our enemies, or that we should let ‘everybody know how gentle and gracious are’ (Phil. 4:5) – but by then you finger will have been waving at the guy for an awful long time.
I guess the Psalmist understood this, not driving like an idiot on a bicycle, of course, but that there often is not time to consult the Bible before decisions has to be taken, or reflexes just happen. ‘ I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you’ he writes in Psalm 119. I suppose you can paraphrase that and say that the Bible does not belong on a shelf, or in an app on our phone, it needs to be internalized, to become part of us so, in the words of Timothy Keller, "We so immersed in God's written Word & truth that we are trained to choose rightly in cases which the Bible doesn't speak directly".
Still looking for the book, my mind kept working, or maybe it was the Holy Spirit that was working in my mind? At least I realised this was about much more than not sinning or choosing right. I was reminded of an instance many years ago. We were a group of pastors from Randers (look I up if you don’t know where it is) going to a conference together. As we stopped to pick up Ove, he was not ready to leave. He had a valid excuse though. During the weekend he had torn his Achilles tendon while playing badminton, and now had his leg in plaster from sole to thigh. It had taken him so long to get up and dressed that there had been no time for breakfast, nor his morning devotion, he told us. It took quite a while to manoeuvre him into the passenger’s seat of the Ford Fiesta, but as he settled in and we got off, we were included in his morning devotion. He sat there, with a cup of coffee in one hand, a piece of toast in the other, and quietly, but joyfully, quoted one long Bible passage after the other. He was not reading; he was taking out of his heart what he had invested in getting into his heart.
I have never forgotten that incident, and today I was reminded not only of that, but challenged as to where the Bible sit in my life. With all the technological help we have now a day, one can easily find a bible verse, even if one has no idea of where to look for. It will, however, probably make little difference in our lives. The Bible, the word of God, need to be internalised, to become part of us. In that way, it can be not only a ‘light on our path’ (Psalm 119:105), but be used by the Holy Spirit to form us into what he wants us to be.
I think it was C.H. Spurgeon that told, that if you wanted to make a preacher humble, you should ask to his prayer life. Same could probably be said of many of us when it comes to internalising the Bible. As I was reminded of this, there was, however, no hint of condemnation or judgement. Rather, a reminder of the promise that when we do meditate on the word of God we will be like ‘a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither’ (Psalm 1:3). The word of God is the seed, which the Holy Spirit can take and grow in our lives, and the more seed the more potential for growth.
It is not (just) about not sinning or choosing right, it is much more about knowing Jesus, about doing our part, so his Spirit can form us into being what he wants us to be and equip us to do what he wants us to do. So, let us get the written Word of God of the shelf, out of the app, and into our hearts. Let, as Paul encourages the Christians in Colossae, “the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives” (Col. 3:16 The Message) and experience that when we plant the seed, also here, God will give the growth.
PS!
I any of you have borrowed ‘Spiritual Breakthrough’ by John Larsson of me, could I please have it back?