No, the Bible is Not Pixie Dust
There was crying. A lot of crying. Fights over toys, and a toddler climbing on top of everything. After an extended time of instruction for one child, I came out to the living room to discover the lovely surprise of dog throw up on the carpet. My emotions rose as the weight of all I was unable to do weighed heavily on my heart.
“But I read my Bible this morning,” I could hear in my head. “I mean, I started the day with it. Shouldn’t I have been able to handle all of this better?”
And with that fleeting thought I realized how much further I have to grow. The sad truth is, we often can turn our relationship with God into some kind of charm. We look to our devotional time and expect it to grant us some superpower to combat what comes at us this day. When we start to believe that, we miss the whole point. It’s as if we are coming to God asking for the pixie dust so we can go ahead already and fly on our own- when in reality what we need is to collapse into a lifeline helicopter.
No, his word does not work like pixie dust, or like a gas station which fills us up to be on our way. We don’t pick up the Bible so he can top off our “nice cup,” we pick up the Bible to remind ourselves of the great scope of his faithfulness towards us no matter the circumstances of that day. We pick up the Bible to see for ourselves the vast mercy of our God that speaks truth to our guilty hearts when we do blow it. We pick it up to see again and again how the Holy Spirit living inside his children will carry his good work “on to completion” (Philippians 1:6) in our hearts even when it doesn’t seem visible.
It’s as if we are coming to God asking for the pixie dust so we can go ahead already and fly on our own- when in reality what we need is to collapse into a lifeline helicopter.
We open it and see that all of our good deeds we do on our own are “like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). We see that because of Christ, we are “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) and it is through the Spirit alone that we will be patient, kind, joyful, and bear any fruit (Galatians 5:22-23 & John 15). We pick up the Bible to see that the only way we can ever love the frustrating people we will meet today is because, “he loved us first” (1 John 4:19).
We would probably never define our relationship with God like using pixie dust, but how often do our actions or our thoughts lean this way? This way of thinking will always disappoint. God calls us to see the truth- our total need of him. It’s him who is carrying us – not just during devotions, after which he sends us into the world because “now we’re prepared.” No- it’s every moment. Every minute. Every second. When I feel like I’m on top of things and when I am overwhelmed and crushed by inadequacy and the unknown.
Our time in God’s Word is vital, but we cannot leave it in any other place than our Savior’s arms. Pride or assurance in our strength with a side of God have no place in his kingdom. Instead we leave our devotions grasping to the arms that hold us. Arms with wounds and piercings that remind us of our inadequacies, while proclaiming his complete sufficiency.
