Do You Wonder?

Let me ask you a question: When you read the accounts in the Bible…the old testament stories…the Gospels…Paul’s letters… do you imagine what it looked like?

In your mind’s eye, can you see the landscape, the people, the sounds and smells?

• -Do you imagine what the jails where Paul was looked like?

• -Do you imagine what it looked like when the Red Sea parted?

• -At the last Supper, do you wonder what the room looked like?

• -In the Garden of Gethsemane do you wonder what the olives smelled like?

• -When darkness fell over the land when Jesus died on the cross, can you imagine that kind of darkness?

What I’m getting at is do these accounts become real (and they are) because you can visualize what it was like when the event happened? If you don’t read the Bible with those eyes, let me challenge you to do just that! Find a way to see what it might have looked like.

If you need help, Go get an old Max Lucado book. Like Six Hours one Friday, or God Came Near, or He Chose the Nails or He Still Moves Stones. Max Lucado can paint a picture with words that just makes these stories come to life.

I remember an Easter in probably 1986 or 87. Our church Choir was asked to sing at the early sunrise service for another church. It’s early like 5:30 AM and I remember riding in the car. It’s just getting light and there's fog in all of the low areas. The sky is kind of purple and pink and Sandy Patty’s song “Was It A Morning Like This?” was on the radio:

Did the grass sing?

Did the earth rejoice to feel You again?

Over and over like a trumpet underground, did the earth seem to pound "He is risen!"

Over and over in a never-ending round "He is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!"

That’s how I want us to read God’s Word. With awe and wonder….with senses that bring the Word to life…with a sense of amazement….understanding that it was written for you.

As of this post, we less than a month away from Easter. Consider reading through the Gospels for the next few weeks. From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, read about Jesus’ last week on Earth….Hear the sounds, smell the smells, see the people and scenery and atmosphere. Bring the Word of God to life in your life.