I have been enthralled, as of late, with a book about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Brad bought the book for all the elders at our church, but I, kind-of, confiscated Brad's copy...I am now to page 335 and he is way back at 119...not that this is a competition...what? ME, competitive? :). He has a wedding and a funeral to plan for this week, so the book has been fair game.
There is an amazingly honest and beautifully articulated section that I have a strong desire to type out...I have read it a few times and I have a deep appreciation for the way Bonhoeffer communicates his increasing desire or hunger for the Word of God, but also his confession that he has not always viewed God's Word in this manner.
This was written to his brother-in-law, Rudiger Schleicher, in 1936:
"First of all I will confess quite simply...I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible..."
"If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament...
And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way - and this has not been for so very long - it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I can hear (almost taste) his passion, can't you? Thank you for indulging me that lengthy quotation....Why did I want to type that out? Well, I want to crave the Bible as did this man. I want my obsessive nature to be fixed on God's Word and His Will for me. I want to learn to rejoice in the Bible...lingering on His words and asking Him to reveal to me the intricate meanings for my heart as I seek Him...as I "enquire" of Him. Proverbs 10:3 says, "The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked." He will satisfy the hunger of the righteous by quenching their craving...for Himself. Dine with me.
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