Introducing My Friend, Word

S

(2 Timothy 3:16,17) All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work (NRSV).

O

Paul, taking his final "steps" towards his execution, wrote this to his beloved and often timid Timothy. Here, he revealed the reliable, tested truths that had helped him succeed despite ever worsening persecutions, an encyclopedia of sufferings, great evils, and great deceptions. Paul's never-failing help was letting the whole of God's Word inform his relationship with salvation through Christ Jesus. God's Word taught him how to do all things well.

A (Personal)

I want to hide God's Word in my heart (mind, will, desires) so I keep my behaviors purely good and my goals (both short- and long-term) ever before me (and on the right path). By giving opportunity for God's Words to echo in my heart as I go through each day's business, I can avoid offending God and harming people ... and avoid missing the good that God has arranged for me (Psalm 119:9-24).

A (Psychological)

One concept of Narrative Therapy is to externalize problems, giving problems an anthropomorphic identity. Thus, depression becomes something outside of and distinct from one's true self, and it's referred to as though it were a separate person or object (e.g., "Depression snuck into my bedroom and chided me before I fell asleep"). Similarly, Kristin Wright (Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. Oct 2003, 29(4), pp. 439-454) wrote of six relationships people have with death. These concepts help us understand how the relationship people have with God's written Word--the Holy Bible--greatly affects its impact (or lack of impact) on their lives. Paul's assertion, I believe, is that more than storing a wealth of accumulated wisdom, it is the medium through which God's Spirit speaks to us, not as a human anthropomorphic construction but as an actual divine interpolation into our neurological paths. These "overtones" may just have a real, external source...God!

P

Lord, I love Your voice! The more I'm in Your Word--and the more I'm open to actually hearing Your thoughts as I read--the more You heal and direct and teach and comfort me. How I love You!