“The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.”
Psalm 119:130 NLT
Once upon a time, I loved Mad Libs.
If you don’t remember this particular cultural phenomenon, Mad Libs was a book of short, simple stories. Each story had several blank lines marked with a part of speech—noun, verb, adjective, etc. One person would interview another and ask them for random nouns, verbs, adjectives, and the like to fill in the blanks. Ultimately, you would have a story with the blanks filled in but with random words that didn’t always fit.
The results were predictably hilarious because you could fill in the blanks with virtually anything and sometimes bizarre words. Sure, the story would end up nonsensical, but that was the point. It was to think of the most outlandish ways to fill in those blanks and then sit back and enjoy how it all came together.
Wouldn’t it be nice if life were a little like that? That you could fill in the blanks?
In such a world, you might say, “For dinner tonight, I’m going to have ___________.” And you could put anything in that blank that you wanted. Or you could say, “I’m going to take a trip to __________,” and you would magically be able to visit that place. Of course, life doesn’t work that way. Many limitations and exceptions keep us from filling in those blanks—time, money, and access – all limit how they can be filled in.
So, we know life doesn’t work like that, but maybe the Bible does. At least in a sense.
In fact, maybe the Bible invites us – even dares us – to fill in some of the blanks.
Take, for example, Romans 8:28:
“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
We are invited to drill down on “all things” and do our best to fill in that blank. Sickness? Trouble? Job loss? Those are all big, significant, life-changing things, and you can fill in the blanks with them. But you can also fill in the blank with traffic, interruptions to your schedule, or an awkward dinnertime conversation. Those are small things. In either case, fill in the blank because everything does work together for our good. But don’t forget the rest of the verse, “…of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” The rest of the verse changes everything.
Or this from 1 Corinthians 10:13:
“No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.”
Fill in the blank with whatever temptation you are facing today. It still works, without exception, because no matter what happens, God will always provide the way for you to get through it.
Of course, we could go on, and there would be many more blanks to be filled in. But be assured that the blanks can always be filled in because of God’s certainty, unchanging nature, and rock-solid promises to us through Christ.
Despite our best efforts to find the exception, we cannot.
We will not.
And praise the Lord, we can’t.
Written by Michael Kelley, Guest Contributor
DIG DEEPER
Read “Why is Understanding the Bible Important?” at GotQuestions.org
