Desert Island Challenge

(part one of this story was published on July 31, 2012)

I went to Back To School night last night.
I had to drive under the same overpass…where I had seen the words before.
The words that stopped me…saddened me…caused me to pray.

July 18, 2012
God died

I had not thought about the words as I drove to the high school.
It was already 6:55 and everything was to start at 7:00.
There was still the allusive parking space to find.

As I drove home, I purposed in my heart to look…to search for those lost words.
It was dark as I approached the overpass.
I was annoyed at myself for not checking when it was still daylight.
My headlights would have to be enough.

No cars were around me…so I could go slow as I drove underneath.
I put on my high beams.
All I saw was clean, fresh paint.
No writing!
Gone!

I was troubled.
On the one hand, I was glad that the writing was gone, since it seemed out of place there.
On the other hand, I was saddened because…gone does not mean forgotten.
Gone does not mean resolved.
Gone does not mean that God is suddenly very alive and very real to the concrete writer.

I thought about the concrete writer because of what I saw on the wall of the high school.

As I was waiting to go to one of my daughter’s classrooms, I happened to be in the hallway where the photography classes are held.
There was a gallery of photographs on the wall.
I walked down the hallway looking at each one.
Faces and places…all unknown to me…but important to the one behind the camera.

Then I saw it.
A photograph of another concrete writer in some undisclosed place.
The black and white photograph was stark…dismal.

Another overpass.
The words made me pause.

Stop taking my book so literally-
God

I got some paper out of my purse.
I wrote down the words.
I didn’t know what to do with them.
It was just a photograph…

No…It was more than that!
It was a mindset…that seems to be permeating our culture…even the church.

I remember listening to a Bible teacher challenging me to take the desert island challenge.
The challenge was: If you were on a desert island…and ALL you had was your Bible…how would you live your life?

Imagine not having cultural influences…not having voices calling to you.
Not having shelves of books, from so-called experts, telling you how to live your life.

You had just your Bible!

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17)

Sixty-six books, written over a period of 1,500 years,.
Written by different men, under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
The author of the Bible is God!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:1-5)

The Word was with God and the Word was God.
God spoke and all creation came to be…ex nihilo…out of nothing.
God’s Word, written down…written by ordinary men…by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Word of Scripture is all God has to say to us.

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, being given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
(taken from Westminster Catechism)

We need to pay attention to this infallible rule of faith and practice!

Many people dissect God’s word.
They dismiss the parts that make them feel uncomfortable.
They question the authority of the Word…and whittle it down to mere stories.

So is My Word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Painting over the words, under the overpass, does not erase them.
Those few strokes of a paintbrush may sanitize…temporarily.
It is just a surface cleaning.
The pain is waiting, under the surface, ready to seep through.

The concrete writer, thinking he can speak for God, doesn’t realize that without the Truth of God’s Word, we have nothing.
Without absolute Truth, we have relativism.
What you believe is fine for you…and what I believe is fine for me.

Except, it isn’t fine!
Relativism is trying to stand on shifting sand…impossible!
It is painting over what makes us uncomfortable…hoping to make it respectable!
It is having the audacity to think that we can speak for the Sovereign Lord of the universe.
Foolish!

Are you ready to take the Desert Island Challenge?
Only your Bible…to determine how to live.
The inerrant…infallible…Word of God.