I’ve met God most powerfully through his Word—black ink on a white page. The church teaches that it presents the clearest and most explicit way to know God and to understand his will for us as his children. I’ve found that to be true.
But I have a confession: Recently, I haven’t had the mental wherewithal to digest his Word like I once did. Perhaps it’s distraction. Maybe it’s busyness. It could be that I have five kids ages 7-16. I tend to think it has something to do with a hormonal brain fog common to women around my age. Perhaps it’s all or none of those reasons.
However, this is one thing I know: When our bodies aren’t operating as they normally do due to typical human experiences like illness, pregnancy, aging, and even trauma, the mental and therefore spiritual digestion of scriptural truths can feel elusive. God can feel distant. Our physicality is an important part of how we relate to him in the most basic ways. For instance, have you ever noticed how hard it can be to pay attention to a sermon when your stomach is growling?
At the same time, our bodies factor into how we relate to God in the most complex ways. 1 Corinthians 15:42 says, “ Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever” (NLT). Someday, God will reunite the resurrected bodies of his children with their resurrected souls. Strange as it may sound, the fact that we have hands, feet, elbows, and toes has a lot to do with the way we interact with our Father in heaven. For Christians who love the Word of God, a phase like this can feel frustrating at best; at worst, it can produce a false and heavy sense of guilt.
When we read the same verse five times and it’s still not sinking in, how do we commune with God? What do illiterate people do when they want to bathe in his presence and believe his promises, but words on a page are undecipherable to them? What do blind people do when they can’t write in their journals or answer their Bible study questions? How do people who don’t own a copy of the Bible take it in? Why did Jesus say the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like little children, and yet, many little children are not yet able to read words on a page?
Psalms 103:13-14 says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (NIV). Thanks be to God, he knows all about us. He knows about our physical and mental limitations. He knows about our hormones and our tiredness and our pain. He knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
As a backwards gift, those very limitations offer us a fresh path to the feet of Jesus. My pastor, Matt Howell put it well in a personal conversation recently when he said,
“Take this opportunity to bring your neediness before Jesus and be reminded of his love, his affirmation, his delight in you. Don’t beat yourself up but bring your mess to the one who was beaten up for you. Quiet your heart until you are reminded of, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ Resist running to plant your feet in the mud of shame, but rather, run into the loving embrace of Jesus.”
Even after decades of walking with Jesus, I’m learning to tiptoe around the mud of shame and take my spiritual dryness to the One who loves me in seasons where my body isn’t firing on all cylinders. I’m finding that instead of offering only one way of grace through which to know him, he graciously makes himself known in a variety of ways. Because he’s good, he offers places that are shot through with beauty and color and life, and we have a standing invitation to meet him anytime in any one of those unique spots.
- Nature: Lapping waves, morning sun on my face, birdsong at first light, watermelon on a hot day, a shooting star in the night sky—nature reveals God to us in a way that ignites our five senses. Psalm 19:1-3 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard” (ESV). Nature is by no means the same as God. But because it was made by him, nature testifies continuously to his existence, both in its serenity and in its wildness. It’s the very breath of God that animates the world around us (Psalm 33:6). As a matter of fact, it’s his breath that gives us breath (Genesis 2:7). When words on a page seem flat and dry, outside is the best place to be. I love talking to God about everything I see and hear and feel in the Great Outdoors, and looking for how he reveals himself through his good creation. Romans 1:20 says, “For [God’s] invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made” (CSB). When we can’t seem to understand scripture, nature is a worthy next stop.
- Music: Forrest Frank, an electronic pop musician who uses a synthesizer (!) to compose his tunes, has recently written a song called “Good Day.” In other seasons of life, old hymns from the 1800’s with rich theological lyrics would have fed my soul. But in a phase like this one, I belt out an equally rich lyric with a backbeat that’s a vibe: “The God who made the universe knows me by my name, so it’s a good day!” Singing along to that song and so many others like it (I recommend artists like Ellie Holcomb, Caroline Cobb, Andrew Peterson, and Benjamin William Hastings to name a few) awakens my soul to God’s love for me in ways that invite me dance with God—and let me tell you, that’s fun stuff! It’s worth the time and effort to create a playlist with fresh rhythms for our hearts, but tested truths for our souls. Music was God’s good idea. It’s ringing through heaven this very moment. Why not crank up the volume and let it be true on earth too?
- Words: I recently heard about the new ESV audio readings of the entire Bible by people who have accents very different from my own. Crossway has released versions of the Bible read by Conrad Mbewe, Kristyn Getty, Ray Ortlund, Jackie Hill Perry, Robert Smith Jr., and Michael Reeves. These international accents remind me there are people all over this planet looking to Jesus as their Savior. The earth is chock full of the sons and daughters of God, praising his name and marching one day at a time toward eternity with him—and with me! When I cannot seem to absorb the truth of God’s word by reading it with my eyes, I let a sister or brother with a lilting (poppin’!) accent read it aloud, and I take it in with my ears instead.
- Food: The communion table is a big blinking arrow that points the physicality of our bodies heavenward. Luke 22:16: “Jesus said, ‘For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God’” (NLT). Interestingly, Jesus is fasting from this very supper until we all get to heaven. He’s waiting for the whole guest list to get there. He’s keeping everything warm in anticipation of our arrival and the culmination of the grand narrative of creation. Each time we eat our communion meal with fellow believers, we can allow the bread and the wine to remind our taste buds and our bellies that Jesus meets us every day with his very self, but he’s looking especially forward to when we will get to meet him face to face. The bread and the wine are a foreshadowing to that day—to THE day—when spiritual and scriptural dryness will be a distant memory. As the old hymn says, “Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight.”
When my body is off kilter, it can feel like I’m far from God, and he’s far from me. The gospel truth that eventually finds me and takes root during these seasons is this: Jesus is—and always has been—the one holding onto me, whether I feel it or not. Salvation comes through his blood, and trusting he will never leave me or forsake me enables me to assume the posture of a child resting in the arms of her quiet, but strong father. While these times may seem spiritually dry at first, our good and gracious God uses them to invite us to meet him in fresh and fun places. It’s then that we’re able to say with sincerity, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in him” (Psalm 34:8).
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Candace and her husband Jim enjoy raising their five children in Tennessee. She has written a children's book calledJosephine and the Quarantineabout how God cares for us in times of loneliness through puppies. Candace also writes a weekly column for theDaily Memphianand for publications likeThe Gospel CoalitionandRisen Motherhood. She dreams of having her own writing cottage in Oxford someday (England is the dream, but Mississippi's not bad either). You can find Candace on Instagram @candaceecholswrites or on her website atcandaceechols.com.
