The Bible?

Over the years, I have heard the Bible described in many different ways. However, the description that I hold closest to my heart is what my favorite pastor once said, that the Bible is ‘a love letter from God to you’. I suppose that sounds pretty cheesy, and to be honest it kind of is, but I’ve always liked to think of it that way. I believe that God gave us the Bible in order that we could attempt to understand His vastness and majesty and glory and, above all, His deep, deep love and care for us. I would phrase it almost as a father trying to explain some mature and utterly ungraspable concept to a small child. There will always be parts we don’t understand or misinterpret, but I don’t think that’s the point. As humans, we want something concrete, something tangible, and something ‘real’ that we can engage with. And thus, God wrote us a book, a love letter, if you will, in order to help fill our desire for certainty. In order to attempt to make us understand just how far He’s willing to go for us and how glorious He really is.

My best friend graduated from Messiah last year and I was devastated to have to say goodbye to her. She’s going to grad school in north-western PA and, though we hope to live together after we both graduate in two years, things obviously aren’t what they once were and may never be again. For months I tried to think of a graduation present for her that would represent just how much I love and care for her, and ended up deciding to write her a story. I wrote the story of our friendship. Starting from the moment we met until the day of her graduation, I thought back and captured it all on paper, from my own perspective, every seemingly insignificant moment, every inside joke, and every precious memory. I worked on it for months before eventually giving it to her.

I think that the Bible is rather like that. It’s God’s way of expressing His insurmountable love by telling us the story of Himself and us. He reveals to us the reasoning behind what previously might not have made sense, and allows us to, in a way, see into His thought process. Not unlike the story I gave my best friend, there are low moments, fights, silences, and bitterness. But all of that is overshadowed by a fierce loyalty, affection, and desire to always be with us and never let us go.

I also firmly believe that the Bible is intended to be a source of incredible hope. A chronicle of ‘success stories’, in a way. Proving to our utterly small and narrow human minds that God knows exactly what He’s doing.

Unending love, promises of grace, and evidence of hope.

That is what I believe the Bible to be.