Pure. Simple. Revelation.

Joy. Pure, simple, yet explosive joy. Maybe it was the pure exhaustion of the last two days mixed with a sense of accomplishment of what we had just done, but I think it had more to do with the amazing revelation that had come to us. It was Sunday night around midnight and a group of about ten of us had read the Bible, almost cover to cover in one weekend. (we skipped a few books since it was physically impossible to read it all in a weekend due to time.) It was exhausting but some of the most pure revelation I've ever had. There is an amazing beauty to the story of the Bible. Its so rare that we are able to experience it in its entirety in a short amount of time. So often I feel like the Bible is like a huge painting, usually we are standing so close that we are only seeing a small part of the larger picture. That small picture is beautiful but often we feel like we are missing something. Like this section of the picture just doesn't fit the other sections we've seen.
      Reading the whole Bible is like looking over the whole picture. We remember it so much better, and while we lose a lot of the details, we get a better glimpse of the larger story. So it was at the end of this weekend of reading the Bible that I got such a better glimpse of the grand love story. The Old Testament can look like a book full of wrath and anger, but when we look at the large story we see the love and pursuit of God. We see a Father who so desperately wants to be with His kids and will do anything He can to be with them. You see a story full of the creation rejecting the Creator, of God coming to man and saying "Even though you turn away from me, even though you reject me and destroy my creation, I am here. If you turn to me I will save you." It's the story of faithfulness.
     Old Testament laws make so much more sense when you come at the perspective of a loving father looking out for His children. God telling His children to wipe out nations makes so much more sense when you see what happens when they don't. The teachings of the New Testament make so much more sense when you see the relation between them and the Old Testament. It was an awesome experience. It's not often that you get done with spending a weekend full of reading a book and want to do it all over again. But when you see the depth of revelation that can be had by seeing the Bible in its entirety you can't help but want more. You can't help but want more revelation.