Episode #381 He’s the Main Character – Practicing Conversations With God

Hey friend, it's Jen. I'm so glad you're here. As with every Good God Talks episode, we're taking these few minutes today to build our habits of having uncommon conversations with God, in everyday life moments.

And I've been thinking today about one of my pet peeves with modern Bibles, and it's the headings that we put into each chapter. Now, I get it. They're helpful. When you're reading through scripture and you see the heading that's "Mary and Martha," or "Manna in the Desert," or "David and Goliath," these headings help us identify chunks of Scripture and key passages. They're useful. But I found that they can be problematic because they focus our attention on the people that are talked about in the passage, when all of Scripture is about God Himself. He is the main character in the story. And I get it. For brevity, these headings work. But if we kept the headings, I wish we made them a little bit more accurate. God is on display all throughout Scripture.

And we're talking about this today because Scripture is relational, not just informational. It's also relational even in its transformation. Where I used to approach Scripture first looking for what I was supposed to apply, I've now learned to approach Scripture looking first for how God is on display. Because the things we learn and the ways that God is transforming us come in light of who He is. So we first get to respond to who God is and how we're getting to know Him in Scripture. And then we ask Him for revelation and transformation that He would have for us in each day.

I was thinking about this in the context of Jesus meeting with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and we see this story recorded in Luke 24. The disciples are discouraged. Jesus has risen from the dead, but the word hasn't gone out yet. And so Jesus appears to these two disciples on their journey home, and they're saddened. And He walks with them along the way, and He opens the Scriptures to them, telling them about Himself. And then He acts like He's about to go on, but they invite Him into their home to have a meal. And it's in the breaking of bread that their eyes are opened to see that it's Jesus. Then He vanishes from their sight.

But the part I wanna focus on today is verse 32 in Luke 24. This is the disciples talking after Jesus disappears from their sight. And they say, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?"

Jesus was able to open all of the recorded Scriptures for them, which at that point was only Old Testament, to show them how these passages were all about Him. And their hearts responded to Jesus even before their brains connected the dots, before their eyes were opened. And the same can happen with us. God can open our eyes to see in a fresh way how He is on display in the Scripture that we read. How we can notice His character, His unchanging nature, His pursuit of our redemption, His presence in the passages that we read.

And so today, that's where we're taking this conversation with Him. To ask Him to show us in a fresh way how He is relational. To ask Him to show us in a new way from the passage of Scripture that you're reading or even from the one I just read for you, how He's on display in the Word.

 And so here's our question:

God, what can I notice about you in Scripture today?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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