I feel like I spend a great deal of time in my life, just trying to figure out what is going on in the world around me. I sometimes feel like I have been left behind, and I have become a fossilized dinosaur in the way I think and see things. I often say to our children about something I have seen on TV, or on the internet; “Can you explain that to me … I just don’t get it!” I think there should be an owner’s manual for 2018 to help we “old people” understand what is happening, and why it is happening. I am saying all this with tongue in cheek (for your younger people, that means I’m being sarcastic … SMILE … I like to poke the young ones once-in-a-while).
Today I read a verse that thrills my soul, because God knows me better than I know myself. God knows that I struggle with trying to understand things on a regular basis. I have heard many people complain that the Bible is too difficult to understand. As I read the Bible, I find it to be one of the easiest books to understand … the problem for me is that I do understand it, and I find myself not matching up to the truths that are taught in it. My understanding is fine, but my compliance to the truths that are in the Bible are my issues.
The psalmist also needed help understanding the Word of God. His request of God is the same as mine: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalm 119:18). Each morning that I sit at my kitchen table, and open the Word of God, I ask God to open my eyes and heart to the truths of this incredible book. I ask Him to help me not just to read words on a page, but to apply these truths to my life. I ask Him to take these truths that are in the Bible, and to recognize that areas of my life that do not match them, and to help me to change to fit into these truths. I understand that God gave us this incredible book, because He knows that the pathway through this life is not an easy pathway to walk without stepping off it into the forest of our own opinions and the quicksand of our own sinful desires. I need this Bible! I am thankful that my parents taught me the chorus … “The B-I-B-L-E … yes that’s the book for me … I stand alone on the Word of God … the B-I-B-L-E!” I began my life standing on that book, not by my choice, but by the choice of my parents. I have continued standing on that book by my own choice, and out of necessity. You see, I don’t understand a great deal of things happening in the world around me. My Bible is the foundation that I am thankful to run back to when things in the world become too confusing. I am thankful for the guidance of the Holy Spirit … bringing understanding through the book!