“The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

This Christmas gift feels like it is rattling my brains. 

It is certainly a be careful what you wish for moment is all I can think.

The electric toothbrush has been on my wish list for a couple of years as I am a bit fanatical about dental hygiene. We will just say I am taken aback with the little, unassuming sucker that looks so innocent perched on the side of my sink. The two minutes of timed buzzing and vibrating has me seriously questioning my request for it—including flashbacks to reclining in the dental chair with that inevitable sound echoing in my skull while trying not to make eye contact with the adjustable lamp that watches every move.

The gift also quickly revealed that I cannot multitask while using it. It requires focus lest the buzzing change to a deeper vibrating as it inadvertently careen off the tooth onto my gums. It taught me quickly that it requires focus and intentional use.

Regardless of the twice-a-day dreaded anticipation of my interaction with it, I think I like it. It is doing the deep cleaning I was seeking. It is a necessary, effective tool that ultimately helps me have healthy teeth and gums. And those affect so many other parts of our health, or so I’m told.

My healthy fear of the dentist’s chair, I’m sure, comes from a childhood of lots of ways to try to fit big teeth in a small mouth. Teeth pulling and rearranging takes a toll. As do fillings, crowns and the like. Regardless of the origins, I have come to take seriously the effort. 

Pondering other effective tools that improve my health, there are many more that are not easy but still effective and worthwhile—the treadmill waves at me from across the living room.

But these earthy items can only aid in propping up my aging, physical being for so long. 

These tools for prolonging life are feeble at best and ultimately only temporal, temporary.

In a world that likes to ignore the obvious truth, death is only addressed in ways to avoid it at all costs. But it is coming and the eternal tools we all need are frequently, primarily ignored or overlooked.

When spiritual health is on the line, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God offers the cure all. As a lover of words, it lifts my heart when I think of this massive love letter sent by the King of kings. He wrote it to us, for us. 

But make no mistake, when you are ready to have your brains rattled, there is no better tool.

Many times I have to mull over and again my reading or come back to it in a new frame of mind to fully digest the meaty meal.

Eugene Peterson issued a warning about the living word that will not be tamed. It isn’t on a timer and can’t be put away without having some effect. 

In his book entitled “Eat This Book” Peterson repeatedly calls the reader to beware:

“God is sovereign. The word of God is not my possession. The words printed on the pages of my Bible give witness to the living and active revelation of the God of creation and salvation, the God of love who became the Word made flesh in Jesus, and I had better not forget it.”

Focus and intentional use also required.

Fully taking it in will fully change us from the inside out. 

Consuming these words means eternal health—while at the same time shaking loose the outer self. It will not leave us alone.

Rearranging our thoughts, taming our emotions, bringing into submission our very beings is miraculous. The only One God who is able sent his incarnate son and He is referred to as the Word of God. (See John 1 and Revelation 19).

The Word can change us from the inside out, if we are only willing.

Definitely a be careful what you ask for moment.

Once you let the Word in, He promises to finish the work He begins. 

In Ephesians 2 Paul reminds the church that we were dead in our sin, following the prince of the power of the air. That is tough to hear, especially how we were children of wrath, focused only on our earthly passions. Then Paul gets to “But God” and what comes after is rich and glorious and full of relief for rattled people.

…”because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead [yes, dead and unreachable by any earthly tool of preservation or protection] in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” 

The Word reminds us of what we were in our depths and reminds of who we are becoming and even better, where we are going because of it.

I’d never digested the latter part of that scripture and found myself reveling in the fact that it tells us in the coming ages he will show us the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us. In other words, it will take living in eternity, beyond this temporal world, for Him to fully express how gracious and kind He is toward us. 

While I fully expect our eternal activities to focus on worshipping Him, expressing our gratitude—this verse says He will be continuing to reveal the beauty of what happened to us, for us through the living Word of God. 

That is a tool we cannot afford to neglect.