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Tuesday, Oct 2, 2012. I remember a time, when I did not understand the bible. It just seemed to be a book, which was closed. I could try to read it, I could read the stories and I had even learned some things in school. But it did not touch me, it did not reach me. Its content and message was hidden from my heart and my eyes.

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Open the door …

How can it be, that some can read and understand, and others do not understand, though they read the same words, they understand the stories, but they remain somehow foreign, external, inaccessible? When I look into my own past, I know that this phenomenon is reality. I moved from a time where it was inaccessible to me to a period where it suddenly opened its gates and where it looks like a wide open land to me.

Later, I have learned that this observation describes a quite common phenomenon. The book seems to be closed to many people. They understand this or that story - on a level which seems more like a purely intellectual exercise. I hear reasoning about why this or that is written, arguments which point to the social structure in Palestine AD 30. But is that understanding? No, it is not.

Someone, who has never been in the mountains, cannot fully understand how it is to be there, to go hiking, to climb some mountain top, to walk through the forests, jump over mountain creeks … and enjoy the unique feeling of space and heaven when you are above the clouds. You might try to tell him, and of course your words can be moving and full of impact, when there is something in our heart and mind with which they resonate. But our words need this resonance, they need our experiences. So, when it comes to faith and to God, it is similar. We need to gain some insight by experience. We need faith, we need to trust, we need to get to know the Lord!

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It started with prayer …

For me, a deeper understanding of the bible started with prayer. It was an invitation, my prayer many years ago, an invitation to the Lord to come and enter my life. It is interesting, that I can still remember it. And I remember the events which followed, that these inaccessible biblical books suddenly started to open up!

There is another image of this process, where God opened the meaning of the New and the Old Testament to me. Initially, the pages of the bible seemed to be just as a normal book. But then some sentences seemed to be like in the sunlight. I understood them, they attracted me. It started with the proverbs of Solomon, but then moved into the New Testament. Step by step whole passages of this book seemed to be full of light and fire. They started to live. They started to be full of energy. Fire has always been an image of the presence of the Lord, it is an image for the power of the Holy Spirit. Step by step, the bible was bright and light, like a door into another dimension, like a sun within a jewel. I had this image many times, when I looked through the biblical books.

Prayer can be the right start to get to know the Lord. Prayer will be a continuing source of widsom, of truth, of strength and of love. Prayer means to go to him and talk to him, just as we are, day by day. But you need to start at some point. Start again. Now. One sentence will do as a beginning. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts

jn_en_2012_10_02.txt · Last modified: 2017/06/18 16:48 by 127.0.0.1