The Mighty River Word

I have to be honest; I never would have become a Christian – that is, embarked on a journey to consciously follow Christ for the rest of my life – if I hadn’t read the bible. A dear aunt of mine gave me one as a gift one year. I remember feeling a sense of anticlimax as I opened the wrapping paper to reveal the simple hard-cover book with a cross on the front, but I was also not surprised; my aunt was extremely religious. What else would she buy me?

We’d always had bibles floating around the house. I would grab one whenever the feeling came over me for something spiritual and read for a few hours. I also had a tiny little Gideon’s bible that I got at school, which had all the gospels, and bible study was a mainstay at Greek school on Saturdays. Religious instruction was also taught at regular school. I wasn’t without a Christian education.

But as I held, for the first time in my life, a copy of my very own bible, all brand-new, with the pages unturned by any other hands, a whopper of a challenge took form in my mind: What if I could read this bible the whole way through? From the very first page to the very last?

I was not a great reader, but I did enjoy reading. I usually read books of 150-300 pages, not having the patience to delve into anything longer. The bible, with its – oh, pages and pages … not to mention its often obscure themes and highly specialised historical perspectives … was the ultimate reading challenge. As far as I was concerned, reading it all the way through was a feat not unlike reading one’s way through the entire World Book Encyclopaedia, from A to Z.

I thanked my aunt for the present and that night I began to read the first chapter of Genesis. The next night, I read the next chapter. Then the next, and so on. I quickly got through Genesis and Exodus, having read most of them in previous years, usually after watching The Ten Commandments or some other religious movie on TV and becoming curious to know if things really happened the way the director presented them on screen.

As I progressed through the Old Testament, the reading got harder. Not because I was having difficulty understanding what was being said, but because of the sheer boredom of ploughing my way through some of the material, namely lists of names and numbers that didn’t mean much to me at the time. At times, it was a bit like reading one’s way through a phone book. (Although I must say, it was a great insomnia cure – not that an overworked uni student needed it).

But I persisted because it was so exciting to see the progress I was making. When I closed the bible at the end of a reading, I loved looking at the edge of the pages: I could see where I had read up to because the corners of the unread pages were smooth. It was so great seeing that smoothness growing shorter with every passing week and wondering when I would reach the last page.

It was about one third of the way through the book when strange things started happening.

I began having some amazing dreams. Sometimes I would dream of flying; other times I saw myself being rescued by a fair, handsome young man who I would feel an inexplicable parental love for, as if he was my son as well as my rescuer. Once, I awoke from a dream where I was flying through space and I heard the most amazing, joyous sound resounding around me … like a voice from heaven. I woke up and realised it was my alarm going off. I had never before felt so happy hearing an alarm clock – usually I wanted to smash the darn thing!

Along with the dreams, there were other strange things that took place. One day, I was coming out of a Chemistry lab with two other students and we were chatting away while we removed our coats. As I stood with them, an extraordinary feeling came over me. Not like an emotion, but an awareness. I felt like we were being watched … loved … by an incredible presence, a fatherly presence, from above. I looked at my two colleagues and thought I was seeing two dear siblings, like we were three little beloved children of the same parent, instead of virtual strangers who had only known each other a few days. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I’d ever had.

It wasn’t long after this experience that my grandmother passed away. That’s when I really began digging into my spiritual reading. I read other books as well as the bible: books about death and the afterlife. I was looking for something that would reassure me but also become a model of spirituality that I could follow. I got into other religious literature, like Buddhism, and I studied the most excellent parts of humanism and political science. I was slowly constructing a faith for myself out of the best parts of what human experience had to offer.

Finally, just when my model was complete and I sat congratulating myself on having found the best system of both spiritual and social thought and behaviour … God entered my life.

One night, lying in bed in a bit of a depression, I felt Jesus standing outside the door of my heart, tapping softly. That’s when I knew that there was a deep problem that social and intellectual learning could not fix. There was a deep need that could not be quenched; like a hungry vampire, it always sought blood to satisfy its uncontrollable hunger. I had spent over 19 years ignoring and trying to hide this need, acting like a ‘good Christian’ – a moral person. But all the time, I knew that the need was there: hungry, howling, selfish, sneaky. It was the voice of a reality bent on destruction, and it didn’t care if that destruction was my own or someone else’s.

Society recognises this voice. It is the voice of self-harm, addiction, eating disorders, domestic violence and corporate greed. It’s a voice that can’t be quieted by politicians or charities. It’s a voice that is in each of us and must be battled individually, one person at a time.

Lying in bed that night, I remember feeling very out of my depth. In asking me to open the door of my heart, Jesus was essentially asking me to place the whole responsibility for fighting that destructive voice entirely in His hands. Asking me to turn my back on it. Asking me to trust someone other than myself to protect my heart. Asking me to give up the one thing I had become so proud of: my perfected model of human spirituality.

So how did I respond, you ask?

I said no.

Well, wouldn’t you, if you’d worked so hard on something?

I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t. But … please come back again, another time.”

Those who have read my previous blog entries will know what happened after that little request so I won’t go off on a tangent in this entry. But know that when you ask God for something and you’re genuine, He responds in kind. =)

But to get back to the topic of the bible, my little practice of reading it every night ultimately led to a situation where the spiritual idol I had set up for myself was irrevocably smashed to pieces in a second. From that moment on, I began a journey so different from the ones I had hitherto taken that I am still drawing lessons from it today. To say it is an eye-opening journey would not do it justice. It is the only journey worthy of being called a journey. It has all the makings of a journey: an unaware beginning living like a peace-loving Hobbit; a sudden awakening to the reality of a whole other world outside one’s comfy home; a split-second decision to follow a most inscrutable, wizard-like character out of this comfort and into dangerous territory; a fierce battle that brings out talents one never thought one possessed; and a brilliant victory at the end. A true journey transforms a person. A true journey makes one aware of the importance of serving something greater than oneself. A true journey shows you who your real friends and enemies are. A true journey frees you and gives you something to live for. A true journey takes you through hell to bring you to heaven.

I recall here the quote – I forgot who said it – that nobody has ever read the bible from cover to cover without becoming a believer. In my case, at least, that is true. If this is the purpose of the greatest best-seller in history – to make a person a believer, to bring them to repentance – then it succeeded. You would think then, that, having achieved its purpose, it would leave you alone. Not so fast.

It begins hounding you, drawing you even more hungrily. Like a personal trainer, it doesn’t let you have days at a time off, but comes calling bright and early, kicks you out of bed and pushes you out the door. It’s in your face, all day, every day. And if you take a holiday from it, it only jumps on you with more energy when you get back.

I was only halfway through the bible when I was born again, but now I found myself re-reading past chapters and reading ahead to future ones. I got through the whole New Testament before I’d finished the Old. I went back and forth, picking out verses that I found relevant, watched the lovely, pristine corners of the unread pages become messy as I used and abused them. I was relentless. The Word of God had become my new addiction. I couldn’t help it; I wanted to read one chapter at a time, go from cover to cover like a methodical robot, but it was impossible. Verses now jumped out and attacked me; sentences seemed highlighted by some majestic heavenly marker, shimmering with truth and life as they never had before. Many times, I leaped about joyfully with sudden realisations; many more times, I was reduced to tears by profound revelations. It was like being in a lolly shop full of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans except, instead of flavours, the beans gave you immortal insights about life and people that nothing in society had prepared you for, because the language needed to understand the insights is not taught by society.

Indeed, reading the bible once one has become a believer is like discovering a new food source that far exceeds any other food source a person has ever sampled, in every way. It’s like this food source has always been there and you’ve always known about it, but never been able to access it or never seen the need. And, on discovering what an awesome food source it is, you begin to eat greedily.

This is where it gets interesting. After you’ve been eating for a while, the food source begins moving on you. It moves a few paces back and you have to take a few steps to be able to reach it. In doing so, you have to move from your comfortable place. It hides on you, and you have to search for a while to find it. Sometimes it hides inside other food sources that are now unpleasant to you, and you have to sample some of them first in order to get to the good stuff. Sometimes, it makes as if to fly away, making you jump as you try to grab it before the wind does. And sometimes, just sometimes, it lodges itself in the dirtiest, grubbiest, most slimy little ditch you could imagine, and just sits there among the worms and slugs, daring you to come in after it.

In battling every day to get your new food, to satisfy your new addiction, you can often feel faint, exhausted, angry, irritable, negative or bored. You can begin to wonder what you are doing. Why did you even become enamoured of this food in the first place? It’s brought nothing but cuts, scrapes, bruises and sores to your body. It’s made you leave the nice places you were familiar with and mingle with people you never would have mingled with. It’s brought you more trouble than you would have tolerated in your previous life. But it’s also brought you strength such as you’ve never known. It’s lifted you above life’s ground cover to the treetops. It’s made life taste more delicious because its aroma lingers in your nostrils after you eat it, colouring every situation you subsequently encounter.

That’s why you keep at it. And then, one day, while forcing yourself to follow the food to a still more precarious, inconvenient or distasteful place, you happen to glance back … and you see how far you have come. Plains, mountains, ditches, hills, streams and fences lie behind you. That’s when you realise that all this time, while being fed, you were also being led.

Your Shepherd stands before you, holding out your food. Each time you accept His offer and partake, He succeeds in leading you on to another place. You want more food, so you keep following, braying away for more food. You never stop to think about where you’re being led and why. Your mind is on the food, and the stones, and the ditches, and the cold, and the heat, and the water, and the mud, and the distance. Sometimes, things become too much, and you steer off to the side, looking for food of your own, refusing to jump yet another boulder. Then you get into trouble. Each time that happens, the Shepherd comes back to rescue you. One taste of the food He offers and you are chastising yourself and resolving to only eat His food from now on … until the next time you stray.

What if you could stop being a sheep for a moment and see inside the mind of your Shepherd? What would you find?

You would find a person bent on leading you to the best pasture there is. =)

But the road to get to that awesome place is, unfortunately, riddled with inconveniences and dangers. It’s easy to distrust the journey when your hooves are bloodied with effort. And I guess, in the end, it comes down to trust. Can you trust your Shepherd? Will He lead you to a good place? Or will He let you down? Will He feed you up only to slaughter you? Or will He destroy anything that tries to harm you?

Does He love you?

The best way to answer that question is to figure out the limits of what your Shepherd would do for you, should the need arise. If He would risk His life to protect you; give His life as a ransom for yours; even sacrifice His only child to save your life … then He loves you. Then, you know you can trust Him.

If you could appreciate this love, see it as part of a bigger picture, what would you be willing to do, in light of it? Would you be willing to continue the journey? Eat the glorious food? Keep moving from place to place like a vagabond? Be seen as the outsider? The weird one? The one who is witch-hunted, despised or shunned?

You can only answer that question once you have hungered for and then eaten the food, yourself.

Like any good food, though, it can take some getting used to at first. After all, any food that you like straight away is bound to be bad for you. But a food that will do you good often tastes quite bland or even bitter at first. If you keep eating it every day, it becomes more palatable. You develop a taste for it. Eventually, you begin craving it. Cravings are good if the food being craved does you good. The evidence of this is an improved state of health.

Spiritual food is the same. When one first begins sampling spiritual food, or the Word of God, it tastes bitter and bland. Most of it is inscrutably mysterious, like a nut with a tough shell you can’t break. It’s easier to leave it alone. But in the same way as definite knowledge of what’s inside the nut can motivate you to crack it open, knowledge of God’s Spirit motivates you to crack open the meaning of His words. The more you eat them, the stronger your spirit becomes, and the more resourceful you get at cracking open even tougher meanings, to reveal even more strengthening food. Like a growing person, you have graduated from drinking milk to eating solid food that needs cooking and preparing to be of benefit. You have become a spiritual adult. You don’t look for simple meanings anymore, but are happy to thresh the grain of truth to separate the wheat from the chaff. Someone insults you, and you are able to take the truth out of their insult, digest it, improve your spiritual health from it, and discard the useless ego chaff that came with it. Or life throws you into a situation where you have absolutely no help from anyone, and you learn to nourish yourself at the everlasting banks of the mighty river Word, which is always in flow, providing crystal clear water for your soul.

So … did I eventually finish reading this 66-book tome known as the bible?

..Tee-hee..

I’ll let you know when I get to the last page. =)

 

This post is dedicated to the memory of my Aunt Gina. Thank you, auntie. ❤