BALLOONING

I don’t consider myself particularly nosey or by any means a closet eavesdropper but I must confess that from time to time I zoom in on a conversation I haven’t been invited to share. Recently, I overheard one individual say to another, “So, have you been ballooning lately?” For some reason (could it be my own girth?), I took offense in behalf of my anonymous friend and silently implored him to retort, “Why no, Ms. Skinny… have you been deflating?” You’ve probably have guessed by now that as I listened further into the conversation I discovered that one friend was curious about another’s high flying hobby of hot air ballooning. As I laughed at my misunderstanding and measured my record breaking jumping to a conclusion, I seriously thought about the challenge this brought to my faith.

You see, the greatest eavesdropping that we ever engage in is reading the New Testament letters. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Paul, Peter, James, John and whoever wrote Hebrews were engaged in obtuse dialogue or insider conversations that were so personalized that others would be unable to know fully what they were talking about. The letters are certainly full of purposed instruction fully intended to teach the body of Christ as a whole, as well as theological discussion designed to clarify, instruct and elucidate the Christian faith. However, there are times it would be nice to know what exactly was the context of the discussion and the motivation to publically air the issue. Do I think scholarship has done well in their educated guesses about enigmatic texts… yes, but with this qualification: We must always confess that we’re eavesdropping and so we have to be careful to what height we take our balloon.

Now, with that said, it seems to me that studying to show ourselves approved requires first for us to get on our knees and ask for wisdom from above and spiritual discernment void of misunderstanding. That implies to me that Bible study is not a pool party (you know where we all pool our ignorance and spout our opinions) but rather a challenge to be patient to hear all the conversation we can, keeping in mind who is saying what and where they saying it and to whom they are saying it to and then prayerfully measuring the meaning of it the light of eternity. David Wilcox, one of my favorite musicians has a song entitled, “Hold it Up to the Light.” It’s a song about trusting decisions by holding it up to the light of God, truth and faith. So it is with God’s Word… we “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this (2 Timothy 2:7).” So… hold it up to the Light and happy ballooning! -DAN