Into the Story

One of my best experiences of Bible Study has been my participation in a Disciple class.  I loved the in depth study of scripture and the commitment to read and work together to learn the message in the words.  Great experience.

One of the "take aways" from that class has been that we learned several tools to use to explore the depth of the Word.  One of them was to ask the question, "Which character in the story are you?"  In other words, can you place yourself in the story?

I thought of that this morning as I read from Hamilton's Not a Silent Night.  The chapter I'm reading is based on the story of Jesus in the Temple.  His parents leave town, and he isn't with them. Hamilton tells of a time that he and his wife accidentally left their 6 year old in a Disney Store at Disney World as they headed into the park.  The story ended well (thank goodness), but it gives him a special affinity to the story of Mary and Joseph rushing back to find Jesus.

How can you allow your experiences to pull you deeper into the story?  I wrote a day or two ago about the biases we bring to scripture.  It's true, so let's use them to move closer to God, all the time aware of what we are doing.