The most beautiful thing about the delicate pages that hold the power of the Universe within them is this: they speak loudly on some days and in whispers on others, but they always have something important to say.

Whether I weep or laugh (wait, have I ever really laughed when I’ve read the Bible?) I don’t think I’ve ever laughed, have you? But that’s probably on me. Still, I have been so overwhelmed with emotion and overflowing with awe at times, that it seems to cover the full spectrum of thoughts and emotions that dig so deeply into me it moves…wait once more…

“Todd? What’s on the other side of the world from us?”

“I don’t know. And we don’t have a globe.”

“Well, google it.”

“…Some point of the southern Indian Ocean.”

What a crazy world…anyway, the Words of the Word run deep and move me to my core.

“Oh, and by the way,” he says, “794 is going to be closed because of the RNC so if you’re going to see Georgine, you’ll have to take a different route.”

“Honey, I’m trying to read the Bible. Don’t talk. Unless I talk to you,” I say. We laugh. And that’s a good thing.

“Look, you can just do this,” he says holding up his hand. “What Joanie does.”

I know what my sister does but I look. He’s holding up his hand. “Talk to the hand.” I’m not listening.

Right, because right now I’m trying to listen to God’s Words.

I like it stock-still, but this morning even the birds are yammering outside the front door. And even though Todd is being respectful, I can hear the low mutterings of the Tour de France coming from the kitchen. Even the cat is here, sashaying around, doing her cat talk, rubbing up against one of the cedar beams that holds up our ceiling. Like God holds up me.

Do you think God can speak in the midst of all that? Of course, the problem is, if whether I can hear Him. At the moment, I don’t. But I know He is in the process of speaking to my heart because yesterday I wrote a new post, but today I have the sense I’m writing a different one instead…

This is the way of the Spirit, working behind the scenes, changing lives—repairing, restoring, transforming—changing me (and my words!)

What I felt the need to say this morning, instead of what I’d planned, is this: the most beautiful thing about these delicate pages that lie open here, is that I’ve been through them many times before. It’s well- marked territory. So when I pick up the Book using both hands—because it’s big and while my heart may have grown stronger, my wrists have grown weaker—and as I open it, there is this wonderful sense of anticipation in me.

It often falls naturally open to Lamentations, or Song of Songs or Psalm 73, so I don’t know why today it opened up to Amos. I’ve never opened the Bible to find Amos. But here’s the beautiful thing. I’ve been here before. And underlined in the Introduction under “Author” is the second sentence: “He (Amos) was not a man of the court like Isaiah or a priest like Jeremiah, he earned his living from the flock and the sycamore fig grove.” It’s been said he was an ordinary man with an extraordinary message. This gives me hope that maybe God can even use the likes of me.

Whether Amos owned the flocks or was a worker, isn’t known. But, “His skill with words and the strikingly broad range of his general knowledge of history and the world preclude his being an ignorant peasant.”* How is that possible? The Spirit of God was working through him. He was like a scribe for the Holy Spirit. He listened. He wrote. He prophesied.

At the time, things had been going well for Israel. Jonah had prophesied before Amos about her restoration to a glory not known since the days of Solomon.* The nation felt sure that she was in God’s good graces.

But?

What happened was her unfaithfulness and moral corruption. Amos condemned those who tore others down and made themselves powerful at others’ expense. How subtly our hearts can shift.

All that and I only opened the Book—the Bible. The Holy Word. The Talking Book. God’s Love Letter to us. Even before I had prayed and asked for the Spirit’s guidance to reveal what He had for me today!

Honesty, people have told me a lot of things about how to read the Bible, like my father who taught me well. But the most important thing I’ve learned is to just open it up with childlike expectation. To let my heart be open to receive. And to learn to be still.

So, on the left-hand page, opposite Amos is Joel. And underlined right there on page 1345 it says, “the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine. The Lord will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the Lord will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold…a fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley…”* That’s what I had underlined on July 18, 2016.

And all I did so far this morning was open the Book. See what I mean…?

“It’s an island day, sweetheart,” Todd says. He’s moved to the front porch.

It’s early, the sky is overcast, it’s raining a soft gentle rain, the air is moist, my hair is curly. My hair was never curly. I can hear the rain on the leaves. If not for the leaves, it would be silent. Like the delicate pages of the book, the rain whispers tenderly and I know God’s love is over this house, over us, over us all, and it runs so deep it reaches some point of the Southern Indian Ocean. Or wherever you are. If you’re there it’s reaching here. It surely reaches the heavens and runs so far east that it becomes west. And that’s the most beautiful thing.

Now I’ll settle in, study a little. And as our 4th and 5th grade boys and girls used to say about dance class, I want to say, “You should try it. It will change your life.” When it comes to God’s Word, I’m not a theologian, just an ordinary person who wants to love more, trust more, let go more, to gain more of Jesus, the “invincible Commander of heaven’s hosts! Yes, he is the King of Glory!”*

And it’s probably not a coincidence that when I opened my little Devotional called God Calling at the end of my quiet time, it asked the question, “Can you get the expectant attitude of faith? Stop waiting for the next bad thing to happen but waiting with a child’s joyful trust for the next good in store?” (Some ad libbing.) It ended with this little prayer:

“God restore in me (us) that childlike trust in You, that awe and wonder at all You have done, and will continue to do in my (our) life (lives).

See what I mean?

I want to thank my writer friends David, who writes at David’s Daily Dose and Alan, at Devotional Treasure for their beautiful words and for inspiring this post! ❤️

*Amos Introduction, 1:1, 7:24-15; 2 Kings 4:25; Joel 3: 14b, 18c; Psalm 24; (from The Psalms —Poetry on Fire, the Passion Translation).

“Oh no! I missed my classical stretch class with Miranda!”

“Time to take a break,” Todd says.

And that’s the way it goes…not according to plan! ❤️