My firstborn has a main speaking part in a school production.
She gets that from her dear paternal influence.
As I observe my dear Firstborn get to grips with her role in the context of the overall plot line, I applaud her commitment. She is grappling with that capacity to remember her lines. It has been so long since I last had to memorise lines for a role in a play. Wowsers. I used to love that – as in getting to know what I needed to say and when. I got so comfortable with it, that I allowed myself frequent ad libs. All within character, all within the context of the play and all met positively with the directors at the time because I stuck to the ethos of the script and the script outlined the movement of the story.
My firstborn is already a natural development on anything I ever managed. She’s a lot better than me I her commitment. It’s why I applaud her.
I finished applauding her (in my head, of course, if I kept doing that for real, her head might get as big as her Dad’s.) As I did so, I returned to certain sections of the Bible and it got me thinking. It’s one thing to read the words on the paper. It’s another thing to hear the words spoken with dramatic effect. It’s something else, however, to treat the words like those in a script that we read to see what goes on in the active life of the biblical narrative.
You read the part. You see it in the light of what surrounds it. You appreciate how those words moves the plot along and as you say them so you see it enacted. As you do that you are in the episode and being in it from that perspective makes the learning experience very different to just reciting verses like they are magic words. Now when you hear it as living words you see it lived out in the time and it gives insight into modern application.
All because you take the scripture seriously. Consider it for what is going on, what is being said and why. It’s another perspective on how to engage with the Bible and obviously isn’t applicable to all of the Bible, but with the story of God and man being so fundamental to the whole collection of books and letters, it’s another helpful aid to know this life-changing Word.
Meanwhile my firstborn continues to absorb her character and the lines well. Just like her Dad, by God’s grace.
(Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 