The Light. The Word.

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my path.

Psalm 119:105

This little lighthouse is one of my favorites. It’s maybe an hours’ drive from my place.

Not extremely tall, yet stout and efficient, it guides ships past a prominence that juts out into the Sound. It serves as a beacon. Ships need only pay attention to the light to navigate the danger around the corner.

Reading God’s Word, the Bible, though, is such a beacon of light to us. And yet, it is much more! Read just a few more things the Word is:

It has a word of peace for the time of peril, a word of comfort for the time of calamity, a word of light for the hour of darkness.

~ Henry van Dyke

But let’s not stop there. Do you want to know the very best part in delving into your own Bible-reading adventure? I’ll tell you:

In reading the words of God, we get to know God!

That’s a short sentence. With a big meaning. Get to know the Inventor and Creator of all things?

Yes!

Read with me what this beloved Bible teacher had to say:

The books of the Bible–down to the very words written–are God’s thoughts; they are God’s words. In your hands.

He wrote it for one purpose: to introduce you to Himself. The God who spoke light out of the darkness wants to speak truth into your mind and heart. That truth will lead you to His Son, Jesus–whom to know is life eternal (I John 17:3).

J. Vernon McGee, Briefing the Bible

There is no better quest than this business of knowing God. Reaching out to our Creator is at once the most basic, universal drive we humans have, while it is also our noblest, highest calling! It our reason for being.

And yet, we so often settle for catching tiny glimpses of His magnificent light, settling for the briefest flash of lit matchsticks, when we might instead sit and gaze upon the sun rising upon us, enlightening our souls, Light of the world that He is.

One of my favorite authors is Ann Voskamp. Here, in her beautiful new book: Waymaker, she offers this poetic contrast between our experiences when we just dabble in the Word, and when we don’t — when we stay long enough to find God waiting for us to find Him.

It’s splashing in the shallows, in all kinds of hell, to only know God from the page, pulpit, pixelated memes, to merely have informational knowledge, when there’s a way to dive deep, look God in the eye and experience relational knowledge, this knowing reverberation of His assuring word ringing sure through the deepest chambers, the ones where the storehouses of shame and abandonment and grief and loss overflow, and you know that you know that you know that He is here, still right here, and He hovers over your deep, and you’ve known it, the warmth of his wing, the shadow that shields, and underneath everything that’s underneath all the things, you’ve felt His steady arms that cannot ever give way.”

Ann Voskamp, Waymaker, p 79.

Because the Spirit of God is forever loving you, intensely interested in you, and keenly pursuing you, do you think, perhaps, that reading His Word, the Bible, is a good plan? Do you think that He will be there, found, if you seek after Him in this way?

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Jesus, Matthew 7:7-8

Those words from our Lord Jesus invite us onward in this journey toward Him. Why not join in?

From here you’ll find posts where we explore this Word of His, the Bible.

Get some ideas on how to start a reading program, or how to engage in deeper study. Enjoy a post or two where we glory in some glorious verses and passages, from His heart to ours.