Eternal threads

Do you prefer the beginning or the end of a thing?... Or neither?

I love the prairies in the summer. The smell of sage, the wind in the fields of wheat, the endless prairie. When I was young my family would travel to southern Saskatchewan to visit my grandparent’s farm each year. One of my favourite things to do was to go for walks and look for native artifacts and buffalo trails. I would walk east from my grandparent’s farm up a hill where there was an old Cree campsite. All that was left there were rings of ancient looking lichen covered rocks. And stretching down the hill and into the distance to the east was a buffalo trail worn four to six inches into the ground. It was such a thrill for me to follow it as it led me over and around hills and through coulees. As I got older each year I would discover more and more of the seemingly endless prairie.

Then one summer as a young teen I visited again. I explored further than ever before and as I came over the last hill I remember looking down and seeing something that disappointed me so keenly that I have never forgotten it. A hateful fence stretched across my path as far as I could see to the left and right. The prairie and even the world suddenly seemed smaller at that moment. It would never be the same. The mystique of the eternal prairie hanging by a thread had parted.

This year I made a new year’s resolution to read my Bible cover to cover. Reading in sequence puts many of the figures in a context that explains so much more than mining out a chapter or verse. I am seeing things I have never seen before and I am enjoying it immensely but I am worried what will happen when at the end of the year I stand on the edge of the book of Revelation? Will it feel like I’ve run up against a fence? I don't think so. Even though the language it's written in is finite and limited I believe that the meaning is eternal and even living. For example; in English we use the word “love”. What does that word mean? We say we love our spouse but we also might say we love jube jubes. Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in has three words for love all meaning very different things. I could easily produce several examples that show our native tongue as a clunky, cobbled together tradespeak. Ok, so the English language is limited even in comparison to the other human languages the Bible was written in, I am reading the Bible in English therefore It follows that simply by my reading the Bible once I could never completely "explore" it. Thankfully we have the Holy Spirit to lead us to the parts we need to understand and not an ancient trail made by a herd of Bison.

The beginning of a thing can be intimidating, the end can be disappointing, knowing His Word is eternal fills me with hope.