Becoming
When I think about my Bible, I think, “We grew up together”, but of course, that sounds weird. I am the only one who grew up, and in many respects, I am still growing up. I am still becoming. In 1985, my parents gave me the copy of the Word that rests to my left even now- my NIV Study Bible. I was 15 and now I’m in my 41st year with this Bible. I didn’t have any idea what it would come to mean to me and I certainly didn’t have a clue how the Triune God of these pages had already been and would be the Witness to my ongoing story and my Keeper through it all.
I don’t want anyone weirding out over this. Bear with me as I work this out.
My Bible is a tangible object that I get to treat rather normally as I grab it, drop it, lay it out, stash it in my backpack or suitcase…. but Hebrews 4:12 puts this book in its very own category by saying it “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”. This kind of thing is said of no other book and cannot be said of any other book. Ever.
EVER.
Then if you add its ability to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow and to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart, well…. if there were ever “thin places”, those would be it.
So there’s that.
It’s Something. Something weightier that just doesn’t fit in the category of “book”.
It’s that mysterious idea – true but mysterious-- that Jesus IS the Word. {See John Chapter 1 for starters.} Because He is the Word and the One Who embodies the Word by becoming human and living and walking on the earth-- this book is Something that has no comparison on earth-- unique unto itself with nothing at all “adjacent”. Not one thing.
So, when I talk about my Bible I find it hard to separate my relationship with the Lord from this written, printed Word we get to hold in our hands and lay across our laps. I kind of think that’s the point. Knowing, treasuring and obeying His Word is one way we "become" -- growing in intimacy with the Lord and for a lot of my young life, He showed me what this looked like in the lives of women.
Women like Denise, Jill, Mrs. Summey, Mrs. Byerly and others… they cast a vision for my life that I did not have. They loved the Lord and they gave much time to His Word. With some, I got to watch them live life—in their kitchens, in their churches, in their workplaces, in their parenting, in their singleness, in their marriages. I feel like I was given a front row seat in some cases and if it was their belief and trust in the Word and the God who had given it to them that shaped who they were as women and showed them the way of wisdom, I wanted all of it.
So I read His Word.
I did what they did.
As they did what the Word invited them to.
Because I received this Bible when I was 15, it, of course, contains history for me. It holds a lot of my story because I write in my Bible so these pages hold decades of notes--- 15 year old Krista notes all the way to 56 year old Krista notes.
In the past, I have felt a tad embarrassed by some of them – very 15-ish, some so sweet and some so very misguided, and some so helpful. There are good notes from youth camps, conferences, formative conversations at the Pournelle’s home, revival meetings, Sunday school teachers, preachers I heard on my bedroom radio, former pastors of my churches like Andy Cook, Stewart Simms, and Jimmy Barry—and my present and favorite pastor, Jeff. The words in the margins reveal my heart through the years as a hard-working “see how great I am” legalist…. graduating to a mid-level legalist intrigued by the notion of grace wondering if it was really for me….. then to a recovering legalist who knows her every breath is grace from God- with ugly, arrogant lapses from time to time. This last version rests a little easier, repents a LITTLE faster, has more compassion on herself and others and is so aware of her great big moment to moment need of the gospel.
My heart explodes with gratitude for my Bible-- and in a different way for the people who challenged and inspired me to take it seriously—to value it, to hunger for it, to study it, to obey it, to allow it to form me, to grow in my affection for it and allow it to be alive and active in my life. Without Him and His Words to me, without His people, where would I be?
More importantly, WHO would I be?
I am still growing up into my “who”… and His Word is right here with me as it always has been. The Witness and the Keeper of my story swept up in His. Praise God.
I hope to always be “becoming” as these never-changing words change me.
Nothing says it better:
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. Colossians 2:6-7
Amen.
