The Truest Truth

BY Raechel Myers

Text: Hebrews 11:1-40, Psalm 107:1-9

My family fell apart after school on a Wednesday afternoon. That Sunday, in a new town, I woke up in a sleeping bag on a stranger’s floor. My mom, sister, and I went to a new church. And even though I hadn’t exactly met Jesus yet, this was the day I met my Boaz. My lowercase-r redeemer in more than a lot of ways.

I can’t bring to memory much about that Sunday morning. I remember the 1st grade Sunday school room with tables pushed together and metal folding chairs around them in the musty basement of an old, new-to-me, church. I remember our very tall teacher and his small, kind wife and the salt-and-pepper hair on both of their heads. They tried their best to keep a room full of enthusiastic seven-year-olds quiet. Most of all, I remember the wild blue eyes and curly blonde hair of the most unruly little boy I’d ever seen. He was the ringleader of the noisy bunch, and he fascinated me.

That image of Blue Eyes standing on his chair and waving his arms in excitement over who-knows-what will forever be burned in my memory as the moment I met my future husband. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time. I probably thought I was meeting my nemesis. Everything I loved about order was the opposite of him. He was loud, and I felt quiet. Everyone was looking at him, and I’m not sure anyone even noticed me. I didn’t know it that seven-year-old Sunday morning, but Blue Eyes would never stop being a part of my life from that moment on.

There is truth (our present circumstance), and there is truer truth (the history of God’s unwavering, faithful, covenant relationship with His people). Call it the “grand scheme of things” if you like, but I believe we make a big mistake when we trust God only based on what He’s done for us today, or even in our own lifetime.

If a telescope zooms our gaze in on one particular thing, God’s Word is like a wide angle lens that shouts, “Remember! God is THIS BIG! He is a God of the big-picture!” When we’re busy dialing in on legitimately important things like jobs and health and deadlines, it can do us a lot of good to remember what God did at creation, and what He promised Abraham. Remember how He kept His hand on Joseph, bringing Israel into Egypt and eventual slavery, then delivering them from slavery at the hand of Moses. All the while He promised on every page that an even bigger plan was unfolding!

This is what the Bible does. This is why we read Truth.

It’s okay to study God’s hand in our present circumstances. It’s good and appropriate to move that telescope around to see what other people are dealing with too. But opening God’s Word and studying His character is like lifting our eyes from the viewfinder long enough to remember that the God who calls us His people has been hanging the stars in the heavens since time began.

Just as He was faithful then, He will be faithful now.

The above is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book She Reads Truth: Holding Tight to Permanent in a World That’s Passing Away, written by Raechel Myers and Amanda Bible Williams. Find She Reads Truth, the book, on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.

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