When I wanted to look up scripture of a particular topic of something I was struggling with in my life - let's say unforgiveness (pick a sin, we all got 'em!), I'd look in my concordance and find all the verses that say "unforgiveness" or 'forgiveness" and variations thereof and dwelt on the ones I liked.
This is not a bad thing if you keep in mind the context of what you are reading and you allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you in that. But yesterday I was talking with a friend about this and something occurred to me:
Rather than taking the microscopic approach, maybe we should see the forest a bit instead of just the trees within. I suggested the reading of the Gospels to reflect on the the whole story of Jesus and how he lived in regards to whatever area you feel you need to meditate on (that we just pray and say, "Jesus, show where you expressed forgiveness in our life so I can learn it in mine.")
What rich stories we can come across that never even have the word forgiveness but reveal it anyway. What a great way to look holistically at the life of Jesus. What a heart opening way to allow the Holy Spirit to speak in our lives that maybe we couldn't hear before.
Maybe this is old news to you - but it's new to me and I'm excited about it. :-)
1 comment:
yes good thoughts bro, it's too easy sometime to get het up about one tree and miss the whole grat glorious forest ;)
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