Woods on the Isle of Arron, Scotland. Photo by our friend Neil May
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. John 1:1-2
Except from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:
The woods spell out words. I need a lens to read them. Every dark woods has words. And every moment is a message from The Word-God who can't stop writing His heart.
...What do all the words written in the world really spell out? I had read it in Job, what makes reading God's message in every moment a form of art, fullest life: God speaks to us not in one language but two: "For God does speak -- now one way, now another" (Job 33:14 NIV) One way, His finger writing words in stars (Psalm 19:1-3), His eternal power written naked in all creation (Romans 1:20); and now another way, the sharp Holy Writ on the page that makes a careful incision into a life, blade words kindly cut the tissue back to where soul and spirit join, tenderly laying bare the intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)...
To read His message in moments, I'll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world. Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, "I know. I know." The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain...
That which seems evil, is it a cloud to bring rain, to bring a greater good to the whole of the world? Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadow fell over a life?
Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps.