Color in a Colorless World: Why I Love Scripture

The world is interesting.  It is full of the fearsome, the beautiful, the fantastic, the astounding, the heart-warming, the mind blowing, and the awe inspiring.  I recall every campfire I have ever sat by looking into the endless sky admiring and philosophizing.  That's what is common about campfires.  Everyone ponders and wonders about the infinite.  But those given to finitude struggle with understanding and embracing eternity and, in the brokenness of the world with limited vision, we see a world that is also full of the sad, the conflicted, the sufferers, the unjust, the marred, the ugliness and underside of the worst part of humanity.  But none of this happens in a vacuum. There is rhyme and reason for such a conflicting world.  There is an objective source for such understanding.  There must be because without it we're left to pontificating and subjective and helpless drowning in a pool of our own foolishness.

So, I love Scripture.  It provides a unique but extraordinarily wonderful view into the nature of man under the umbrella of the nature of God.  The Scriptures are like a lake.  Shallow enough that most anyone can wade around the edges and enjoy it's refreshment.  But one can also swim out to the middle and never touch bottom.  It's an amazing book.  It provides perspective, reality and hope in the midst of predictable chaos.  It helps remove the confusion and provides a filter to run our experience through.  It points in the direction of infinitude and shows the most interesting fingerprints ever left on scene in the history of man.  Some see these fingerprints and see nothing, so they look away. Others see them and explore further.  Still others recognize that these fingerprints not only exist, but they belong to Someone.  

I love Scripture.  I never read it because it answers all of my questions.  I read it because it is ethereal and yet, very tangible.  I read it because it moves my attention from me and my surroundings and points it upward and outward.  It gets me outside of the most miserable place to dwell....my own selfish world, where most of my problems as a sinner originate.  I read it because it's relevant and life changing.  I read it because it's eternal and true.  I read it because it points me to the only true and living God where my suffering is addressed.  I read it because it's coherent, cohesive and rings with extraordinary veracity.

Scripture speaks.  It points to the living Word, Jesus.  The Word is God (John 1:1).  It's not platitudes.  It is truth beyond what I can grasp, but it's clear enough that I can apply it and embrace it.  Before I became a follower of Christ I might read small portions of Scripture, but would never understand it.  It was like picking up a book in German and trying to make sense of it.  I don't speak German so I never stick with books written in German.  But when I surrendered my life to Christ and His Spirit began to dwell in me the word of God got lift. And the more I have ensconced myself in Scripture, the more I internalize it in my life, and the more I grow to love it.

This is all why I am a Biblical Counselor.  Not because I am a fundamentalistic "my way or the highway" type, but because it only makes sense that the Creator of man would be the best to understand him.  We are made in His image.  It makes sense that the wisdom of Scripture, the eternal word of God, the flawless nature of God's speech, would be the best way to understand our struggle and our remarkable need.  Some might label biblical counseling as simplistic, but it is far from that.  True, it is simple, but no, it is not simplistic.  The older I get the more incredible I see the Scripture and how utterly reliable it is in approaching those who suffer and those who sin.  Does this mean that I am opposed to all but biblical counseling.  No.  I am not.  I believe in being clinically informed, but gospel centered.  Everything that is helpful must ultimately point to Christ.  The source of all wisdom.  The source of all life.  The Living Water.  The Redeemer.  

I love Scripture.  I love the hope it provides and the perspective it brings.  The healing it provides.  The light it shines.  The love it shows.  The justice it promises.  The mercy and forgiveness it carries.  The Person it points to.  The relationship it promises.  

Scripture adds color to a colorless world.  The world is interesting.  The Scriptures provide texture to it.