12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[a]
Reflection
Joe and I have a sister who is a very talented artist. At her show last year, I was in a small group of people chatting about her art and what some of her abstract pieces and their titles meant. A friend of my sister’s husband was in this group. He was wearing a black eye patch as he had recently lost his eye to cancer. He was doing well physically and adjusting to his new perspective of the world. One of the paintings that we were looking at was called “glimmer of hope”. It was a brightly colored abstract with a patch of black in the center. The man who had lost his eye questioned the title and how the black space reminded him of the loss of his eye and that it didn’t feel very hopeful to him. Someone in the group made an observation that without him losing his eye and having an empty space that he now covered with a black patch, he may well have lost his life, so in that way the black patch did in fact represent the hope of a long life for him, albeit without his eye. He apparently thought about that and later texted with his wish to purchase the painting, but unfortunately it had already been sold.
Just as when we read a book, or look at a piece of artwork, we may get a different meaning from scripture depending on what is happening in our life at that time, how tired we are, what the lighting is, whether we are hungry, who we are with, etc. The Holy Spirit may be speaking to one of us about something and to another about another detail in the passage. That is why it is important to talk about scripture with others. Maybe a person is very knowledgeable about history and can give us that context or maybe someone just has a different perspective than we do. We need to be open to what the Spirit may want us to see or hear so that we can use it in our lives.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering & Prayer
Just as it says in the scripture, the Spirit will give us wisdom. Do we remember to ask for wisdom and vision before we look at scripture?
*Note: The picture below was taken from a brochure, so it is not as vibrant as the original “glimmer of hope” painting
Prayer:
God of wisdom, please give us new eyes to see what your scripture is telling us so that we may be open to new truths you want to share with us. Amen
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