I knew he was wrong. I had bought more Aleve just the week before, yet Keith was fussing because we had run out and I needed it after surgery. I pulled myself up out of the chair, went into the bathroom, sat in the floor and began systematically emptying the cabinet under the lavatory, determined to prove him wrong. No Aleve. Four bottles of Advil, but no Aleve.
So later in the evening Keith handed me the pharmacy flyer. On the sixth page I said, “Aha!” and showed him the ad.
He gave me a funny look. “Don’t you dare buy any more Advil,” he said.
I yanked the paper back and looked again. Sure enough, there was an Advil ad where seconds before I was certain I had seen an Aleve ad.
“Well,” he muttered, “now we know how we wound up with so much Advil.”
Please don’t tell me you haven’t done the same thing; it will ruin my illusions.
Yet too many times we do this with the scriptures, and the practice is not new.
If anyone thought they knew God’s Word, it was the scribes, Pharisees, and priests. Yet Jesus told them in John 5:38, 39, You have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him you believe not. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me. Notice: Searching the scriptures is not the same thing as abiding in them. They searched the scriptures, just as we claim to do, and still didn’t see what was right in front of their noses. Here is the problem: You must want to see the Truth before you can see it.
I wanted to see a sale for Aleve. The fact that both products started with a capital A, had five letters, including L and V in each, and each came in a blue or blue-ish carton did not make them the same thing. My pharmacy was not going to give me one for the price of the other, or allow a coupon for one to be used on the other.
Do you think it is easy to give up long held beliefs? I once taught a class where I gave evidence that something they had heard all their lives might not be right. The tenacity with which they held on to that old belief, trying to find excuses to still believe it, was amusing because it was something that did not really matter. Yet these were honest women who had time and time again shown a willingness to accept a newly discovered truth. If that can happen so easily to the honest and sincere, just imagine what might happen if you went into your Bible study having already decided what you wanted to find.
You may wind up with a bottle of Advil instead of Aleve, and it just might make a big difference.
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they might not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which Jehovah of hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets: therefore there came great wrath from Jehovah of hosts, Zech 7:11,12.
Dene Ward
So later in the evening Keith handed me the pharmacy flyer. On the sixth page I said, “Aha!” and showed him the ad.
He gave me a funny look. “Don’t you dare buy any more Advil,” he said.
I yanked the paper back and looked again. Sure enough, there was an Advil ad where seconds before I was certain I had seen an Aleve ad.
“Well,” he muttered, “now we know how we wound up with so much Advil.”
Please don’t tell me you haven’t done the same thing; it will ruin my illusions.
Yet too many times we do this with the scriptures, and the practice is not new.
If anyone thought they knew God’s Word, it was the scribes, Pharisees, and priests. Yet Jesus told them in John 5:38, 39, You have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him you believe not. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me. Notice: Searching the scriptures is not the same thing as abiding in them. They searched the scriptures, just as we claim to do, and still didn’t see what was right in front of their noses. Here is the problem: You must want to see the Truth before you can see it.
I wanted to see a sale for Aleve. The fact that both products started with a capital A, had five letters, including L and V in each, and each came in a blue or blue-ish carton did not make them the same thing. My pharmacy was not going to give me one for the price of the other, or allow a coupon for one to be used on the other.
Do you think it is easy to give up long held beliefs? I once taught a class where I gave evidence that something they had heard all their lives might not be right. The tenacity with which they held on to that old belief, trying to find excuses to still believe it, was amusing because it was something that did not really matter. Yet these were honest women who had time and time again shown a willingness to accept a newly discovered truth. If that can happen so easily to the honest and sincere, just imagine what might happen if you went into your Bible study having already decided what you wanted to find.
You may wind up with a bottle of Advil instead of Aleve, and it just might make a big difference.
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they might not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which Jehovah of hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets: therefore there came great wrath from Jehovah of hosts, Zech 7:11,12.
Dene Ward
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