Hello everyone!
After almost
nine months of learning how to study the Bible, we are coming to the close of
our school this weekend. As I look back
and reflect on what this year has been I have been amazed at how much I have
learned, but I have been even more astounded by how much I have yet to
learn. It’s really easy for us as humans
to think we have everything figured out, I guess because we keep our
perspective so narrow that we don’t leave room for things to simply be bigger
than we are, but closing our eyes to the hugeness of God doesn’t make Him go
away. Through this school my perspective
has changed; I’ve grown in my understanding of how big God is, I’ve seen how
insufficient my own ability is in light of my weakness, and I’ve seen how God’s
patience cloaks this world in all of its frailty. I’ve processed a lot of information about
history, cultures, scholarly opinion, and literature, and my natural human
response is to think that I know something other people don’t know, or I’ve somehow
found the “key” to the Bible that hundreds of years of study have not unveiled
to anyone else. This is so deceptive
because God has laid His truth bare and naked before humanity from the moment
He said “Let there be light!” He made it
accessible to everyone, regardless of how much they know or what their
experience may be. This is so humbling
because it means that no matter how much I study there will always be more
things I don’t know, but at the same time I could not study at all and have all
the knowledge I need for a full and complete existence by simply saying yes to
Jesus. That’s the beauty of the gospel;
Jesus makes fullness accessible in a moment by accepting His sacrifice, but the
process of learning to live out that fullness takes an eternity.
There is so much
I could say about what I’ve learned from the books in the New Testament, like
how my identity was rocked by Ephesians, Hebrews showed me why I can have faith
in God, John showed me the sweet tangibility of Jesus’ humanness and
understanding for my weakness, and Revelation blew my mind with how incredibly
in control God is and how good His plan is for His people; however, that would
take much too long to elaborate on here so if you want to hear more about it I
will be home in a week and you can message me and we can meet up. Overall I think I am simply in awe of how
available God makes Himself to us, and the Bible is proof of His care because He
wanted to make sure that we knew who He was and how much He loves His precious
creation. I’m so thankful for this
opportunity I’ve had to go through the whole Bible this year, and I’m extremely
thankful for all of the support of my family and friends; thank you so much for
walking through this journey with meJ
Can’t wait to be
home again!
Love, Aubrey
