I realize yesterday’s post may have seemed like I was somehow caught up in the wrong season,  but I wanted to assure everyone that this is not at all the case. If anything I was inspired to catch up on the last bit of unfinished business so that I could be more able to focus more on this season with my full attention and presence…

I have indeed hung my lights,  put up my tree, hosted one and attended a couple dinner parties with a few more dinners planned to come, attended 3 School Christmas recitals, and even managed to fit in just a bit of Christmas shopping…all while navigating the seemingly inevitable colds popping up here and there personally and among my children, not always knowing how yet somehow always managing.

This Sunday, I received a Christmas card with a note from someone I had the privilege of ‘teaching’ (part of an ‘experimental’ guinea pig group willing to volunteer their time to attend classes and attempt assigned homework) these past few months of 2015, and my heart was unexpectedly touched by it:

“I know that the time you spent teaching us about the power of the Word and understanding how to get more out of it has forever changed me.  I’ve come to realize,  and see,  that the Word is alive and intended as a guide for us to excel,  grow and thrive.  I feel like this epiphany is truly one of the keys to living. “

As this year draws to a close, and one of the two holidays I hold as most significant in my life is just around the corner as part of each year’s end, I am reflecting more upon the deep desires of my heart and how that very first Christmas began the process that would make once and for all the fulfillment of those desires possible for not only me but all mankind….

And so the thought came to me today that if I could know each year that I have helped at least one (hopefully more, of course) person grow in some significant way in their understanding of, desire/curiosity for knowing, and/or empowerment to enjoy and grow in reading and living out Scripture — the Word which testifies to the Word of God which became Flesh in Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14), and the Word which Scripture teaches us is (a) Truth that will set us FREE if we HOLD to it (John 8:31-32), (b) living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), and (c) able to make us wise for salvation through faith and thoroughly equip us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17) — then I shall be happy to know that I have been faithful at least in part to God’s calling on my life to share with others what I believe to be quite possibly most precious about all which He has given to me!

Of course, this desire/hope has to do with much more than just teaching in a classroom or passing on “book knowledge,” however important this Book is to know…

I’m also pretty sure I will not be satisfied if all I could end up coming up with is a good within-the-walls-of-the-Church type of class or course or training program…

There is something about the value of the Bible, of the testimonies and teachings and Truth within its pages, that I wish to somehow figure out at least in part how to communicate to the larger society, to all the world… that people both inside and outside the Christian Church could begin to catch a glimpse of a Creator God whose wisdom and power are so above man’s, that this “difference/chasm” is surpassed only by the “difference/chasm” between how deep and long and wide is His love for us in comparison to the capacity for love of humanity at its best…that nothing in this world or beyond (except our own individual free wills) can separate us from His love for us…

Even more than finding and recognizing the “Heaven-sent manual for life and wisdom” we have in the Bible, ultimately, I hope that Jesus, who came to earth that first Christmas, will be seen and understood from the Bible more clearly for who He was, how He lived, what He came to accomplish for us on the Cross, and what He asks, then, of us in our response with our hearts and our lives…

My wish is that all people would have the opportunity to hear, know and wrestle with a clear representation of His offer to find our lives and salvation through His Supernatural Grace, as laid out for us in the Bible, versus having no choice besides continuing to strive for whatever definitions of life and salvation we’ve come up with in our own understanding to strive after and seek to accomplish by our own human efforts.

How to get there, or what small role I may play amongst the many who have been and are already out there teaching and sharing, writing and articulating, I don’t quite know or understand yet.

But I’m happy at least to be recognizing, and beginning to articulate, this desire within my own heart, more clearly and more boldly…

And perhaps from this articulation, you may consider this a reaching out to you of sorts for any help you’d like to offer up in this endeavor —

Any questions or concerns or doubts that get in your way of approaching the Bible more boldly or confidently?  Any reservations about the history or reliability of the Bible and how to understand and approach reading the different types of writing in it?

And if you have already fallen in love with the Bible and its “Author of life,” any pivotal moments you can recall in what helped make that happen for you, and what contributed to making it possible?

And if you are in the business of helping others fall in love with the Jesus and the Bible as well, what have you found helps people understand and know…and grow? Or what do you see or sense people need more of?