by Jesse Steele
diligence?
Alexander: Diligence—there he goes again.
Jesus: Diligence about what?
Carl: Diligence about studying Your Word.
Jesus: Diligence about studying my Word about what?
Carl: Diligence about studying Your Word about studying Your Word.
Alexander: This is going nowhere?
Jesus: About what?
Alexander: Circles?
Carl: I must know background, do word-searches, cross-references, word-studies… all of that is necessary to understand Your Word.
Jesus: Reading my Word for what it is first is necessary for “background, word-searches, cross-references, and word-studies” to even be useful.
Alexander: You don’t need all that, I’m telling you.
Jesus: No, he does need all that, and you need to listen to what he says about it.
Carl: But, You’re saying, if I don’t meditate on it first, just for what it says, then none of that research will do any good?
Jesus: I AM the one who illuminates, inspires, and reveals myself. Your diligence won’t unveil one, single new thing about me. When I reveal myself, if you truly grasp the depth and light, it should overwhelm you. You will stand in awe of what you do not yet understand. If you jump right to word-searches before pausing in awe first, then you probably missed something.
Carl: So, when I first read Revelation, I should just be like, “Whoa! This is heavy. This is bright. This is deep. Wow.”
Jesus: Don’t jump to the text books before you have that moment of reading in awe.
Carl: I like my text books.
Jesus: I made you to like them, but they don’t come first in the Revelation process. I reveal myself first, you understand later.
Carl: So, just sit there and understand that I don’t understand?
Jesus: No. Sit there and read it again.
Carl: Then I will understand?
Jesus: No, then you will say, “Whoa! This is heavy. This is bright. This is deep. Wow,” again.
Carl: What’s the point in that?
Alexander: Meditation. Hello!
Carl: Meditation is freaky.
Jesus: My commands are “freaky?”
Carl: No, it’s just weird.
Jesus: My commands are “weird?”
Carl: No, they’re just freaky.
Alexander: “I’m not talking in a circle—it’s more like an oval.”
Jesus: So, you think I inspired Paul with the wrong stuff?
Carl: Huh? He told us to study the Scriptures diligently.
Jesus: I inspired him with the idea to meditate on things that are pure and lovely and praiseworthy.
Carl: But some translations say that he said to “think” on such things.
Jesus: …think… over and over, that’s “meditation,” just like I told Joshua when I gave him his first copy of the Pentateuch, the first installment of my Revelation.
Carl: What?
Jesus: “Meditate on this Book day and night. Don’t let it depart from your lips.”
Carl: So, I should just read it over and over without thinking?
Jesus: Do I need you to think before my Word can illuminate your life?
Carl: I might need to.
Jesus: I AM the one you need. Listen to me.
Alexander: …and cut with all that distracting “diligence” stuff.
Jesus: No. You still need the diligence and the word-studies and background—but not first.
Carl: So, I should basically memorize the book of Revelation before understanding it?
Jesus: You can’t meditate on my Revelation without it eventually shining so much light in your life that your understanding of nearly everything increases. Listen first, then interpret, then listen more…
Carl: So, just be in the light?
Jesus: As I AM in the light.
Alexander: I want to be in the light!
Jesus: But, Alexander, you must study also.
Alexander: I don’t want to! I just want to know You.
Jesus: And I want you to know Carl.
Alexander: I know Carl.
Jesus: But you must appreciate his diligence as I do so you can appreciate him as I do.
Alexander: I thought You just told him to hold-off on that “diligence” stuff…
Jesus: …that “diligence” stuff that I put in his heart. I put it there, so it will stay there. I AM merely telling him to put it on a back burner so he can appreciate my Word from the first moment he reads it.
Alexander: Here I thought You were going to finally get him to lay-off…
Jesus: In the Beginning.
Carl: That’s it!
Alexander: That’s what?
Carl: In the Beginning… God’s Spirit was simply… there. Everything wasn’t made yet, but that’s okay. His Spirit was with everything as it existed right then and there.
Alexander: Sounds like meditation to me.
Jesus: I call it “stillness.”
Carl: And the first thing He did was shed Light on Creation, even as simple as Creation was at the time.
Jesus: I separated the Light from the Darkness when I began to reveal myself.
Carl: And it all unfolded from there.
Jesus: I WAS in the Beginning.
Carl: Just like You want me to be in the Light of Your Revelation. I should just “revel” in it.
Jesus: I revel at the thought of you.
Alexander: But I don’t want all this “diligence” stuff. It distracts me from You, Lord.
Jesus: Anything out of place distracts people from me. That’s why I put everything in place in the Beginning.
Carl: Word-studies later, Alex.
Alexander: I don’t like them.
Jesus: My Word likes you.
Alexander: That’s not what I mean.
Jesus: How can you know what my words mean if you don’t study them?
Alexander: Okay, fine. I’m willing, but I don’t want to go to seminary.
Carl: We talked about this already.
Jesus: That’s why I sent Carl. Meditate first, on my revelation, not on your own academic diligence. Then, afterwards, give academia to what you already meditated on… talk with your friend Carl. Then go and meditate again.
Carl: That makes even more sense!
Alexander: Huh?
Carl: When I go off and jump to the word studies right away, I end up meditating on my own learning. I need to start by just pausing to say, “Wow! What an awesome God! Hey, let me read it again… Wow! What an awesome God! Hey… let me read it again… Wow! What an awesome God!”
Jesus: You meditate on whatever comes first.
Carl: I’ll return after the word studies and meditate on it all over again—once I have more insight. The issue is making sure that we appreciate God’s greatness at every step of the process. I don’t want to be impressed by my own research instead of His Glory.
Jesus: Like an idol worshipper who worships something he himself made, as if it can serve him any benefit. If he made it, then it can’t help him with any problems he couldn’t solve himself.
Carl: So, by doing word-studies before pausing in awe, I meditate on my own ideas rather than being penetrated by His Word. I don’t grow. I hit a glass ceiling.
Alexander: But we need to live this stuff out! We need to apply it to our lives.
Jesus: Not before you do your diligence. First things first. Second things second. Third things third.
Carl: Snap! I got it! We must meditate first… not jump to conclusions… not interpret… not do the “it leapt off the page at me so I’m gonna’ do it right now” routine… not apply… just meditate. Then do our deeper diligence. Then, after all that, we keep meditating as we apply it to our lives.
Jesus: Don’t jump to apply right away. You are still in development and have much to learn. Your first impressions are not infallible.
Alexander: What’s that supposed to mean?
Carl: When you read the Bible, and so
mething “leaps out of the page at you,” it’s possible that you could misunderstand it.
Jesus: I AM revealing myself. You are still growing.
Alexander: That happens to me a lot.
Jesus: What happens after that?
Alexander: I go change my life right away.
Jesus: What happens after that?
Alexander: I make a mistake and have to undo all the stuff I just did because I interpreted it wrong. I’m not perfect, You know, but I try.
Carl: You didn’t do your diligence before applying what you thought you understood.
Alexander: I don’t want to waste time. I want to apply this stuff now!
Jesus: You waste lots of time that way.
Alexander: How?
Jesus: Doing and undoing is a waste of time.
Carl: Walking with Jesus in a circle? Maybe an oval? …maybe running?
Alexander: You talk to Jesus in circles and ovals.
Jesus: Alexander, you yourself said you hit a glass ceiling. If you were growing so fast and perfectly, then all of that “it leapt off the page at me so I’m gonna’ do it now” stuff would be working for you. But it isn’t.
Carl: Be open to something new.
Jesus: Don’t do the same thing over and over, expecting different results—that would be insane.
Carl: Didn’t Rita Mae Brown say that?
Alexander: Albert Einstein said it first.
Jesus: I illuminated his relativity.
Carl: So, we can finally get going to the next level in our walk and talk with Jesus!
Alexander: …And our run with Jesus. Okay. I’m ready for results.
Jesus: I AM too.
Alexander: I’ll try. But Carl, you need to help me with the “study” part.
Jesus: And Alexander, you help him with the “just meditate and appreciate” part.
Alexander: I get this.
Carl: We get this.
Jesus: And I get you both.
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