Staying Power
Grace and Giggles: Following the Ultimate Manual
I just put my little one’s high chair together. First of all, children grow so fast! That’s certainly been such a shocking part of motherhood for me — how time seems to go by. One minute, your little one can fit in the nook of my elbow, and the next, they are so big that you literally have to summon strength to lift them!
Anyway, I digress. I was saying that I just put my little one’s high chair together, and I had to use a manual, of course. This high chair has six different modes (ways that it can be used from infancy to toddlerhood). I had finished putting it together for present use, and we had already even started using it. I just decided before going to bed to go through the whole manual to see how the rest of it works before I put it away for later, and I ended up getting so much more information on how to use it, including instructions for cleaning and taking care of it.
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This really got me thinking about the understated role the Bible plays as our manual for life. God has literally given us a guidebook for our journey through life, but we don’t realize and often forget how important God’s Word is for every season and every moment. In difficult times (like when I had to put the high chair together from scratch), we stay in the Word. But when things get easier, we suddenly can’t find time to dwell and meditate until the next difficult season.
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
Joshua 1:8
If I had not gone through the manual again, I would have kept it away and not accessed its full potential until I needed the next mode, and then started looking for it and trying to figure it out afresh because I only read what was necessary for that time. But just as the high chair manufacturer’s intention is for me to go through the whole manual and keep coming back to it, God’s plan for us, too is to use the Bible as a guide for our lives — not just when we desperately need a word for a season or after we have sought help from other sources, but every moment of every day.
Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:105
This is a reminder—yours and mine—that God’s Word is the ultimate guidebook for this journey called life. And the best part is, unlike me, who has to keep a folder of manuals for every piece of furniture or equipment we have bought for our little one, we have one Ultimate Manual for everything—every season, challenge, twist, and turn.
This is what the LORD says — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.
If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.”Isaiah 48:17–18
Oftentimes, what we are looking for in so many different places is right there in God’s Word, if we just stay in it. May God give us the grace and the staying power to use the Bible as our manual for life.
