Devotional: Spark Notes
Who remembers sparks notes? Spark notes have saved me through out high school. If you don’t know what sparks notes are it’s basically the easy way out or shortcut of reading a book. Many of us didn’t want to read those thick, boring, chapter books our teachers would assign for us to read and to top it off there would be a book report or quiz that would follow.
Sparks notes gave you a summary of what each chapter was about, important characters, important meanings/sybolism, and help us have a pretty good understanding of the book. If you were to be graded on the book based on your knowledge of spark notes you could pass with a C….if that.
However, even though spark notes gave you important details and facts that helped you have somewhat of an understanding of the book, there were a lot of details that are left out. Things that would tie everything together and give you the full picture of what the author was trying to get across.
When I hear scripture being quoted out of context or without full understanding it reminds me of sparks notes. I know we have all used these or heard these “ God knows my heart”, “ Only God can Judge me” , “ all things work together for my good”, “he will give you the desires of your heart”, so on and so forth.
Yes, these are Biblical truths but if you read the whole scripture in full you will see that there is more to it. There is usually a command or instructions that lead or follow those sayings. When you only say half of what the scripture says or not know/understand the full context of why it was said or what was going on during that time, your not getting the full meat and potatoes.
God does not want us to only read and apply some truth to our life. So let’s use one of these examples above to show you what I mean:
( He will give you the desires of your heart)
Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the Lord , And he will give you the desires and petitions of your heart.
God said to DELIGHT yourself in him. DELIGHT yourself and THEN he will give you the desires of your heart. That sounds like a command to me. If your delight is not in Christ, if you are not truly fulfilled and find peace in him your desires may not get answered. So a good example of this is being single. Your desire is to be married and start a family. If all your doing is worrying, stressing, and trying to figure out when God is going to bring you a spouse, your desires may take longer to be fulfilled or never be fulfilled.
Instead of idolizing marriage and a relationship , we are suppose to use this season of singleness to seek God, put Him first, develop a strong prayer life, relationship with God, work on ourself and learn to be content in the season.
When you read and understand what the word of God is saying (instead of picking what part of the scripture you want to hold near and dear) you can see the full picture of what God desires and wants from us and how he will move on our behalf.
I’ve been guilty of this time and time again. I’m learning each day that the more I dive into Gods word, study it and dissect it, I don’t want the spark notes version. The Bible as a whole is so good, full of gems, wisdom, life changing lessons and you don’t want to miss out or read over anything . The Bible is our guide through life as we wait for his return.
So no longer will we spark notes the bible. We will speak what the word says word for word.
xoxo..ZM
