"Context" of life

God speaks to us in the context of our lives.....I was reminded of this through a friend's weekly e -commentary. We are often told that God speaks to us through Scripture - fullstop. That leaves us without the other half of the divine-human equation : a down to earth relationship with God, that is expressed and worked out in and through the context of our lives.

I often hear people share certain passages of Scripture that speak to them. They say these passages speak to them. For example, someone might talk about the passage "think about what is noble, right, pure..." (Phil. 4: 8) This is wonderful teaching and encouragement from our wise brother St Paul. But we have to approach the passage with our life context, our reality as well. What if at the time we are struggling with for example, judgmental thoughts about someone. We are hopping mad and just cannot stop our minds from having nasty or at least unpleasant thoughts about the person. That is where we are. Reality. Earthbound human. How does the passage connect then? Does it become a 'magical' word that will take us out of our human struggle? Does receiving it (some people say they 'claim' it) change our thoughts immediately?

First and foremost, the Word should convict us. We become more aware of our reality in relation to the spiritual goal we long for. In this example, we long for the grace to hold on to wholesome thoughts and to focus on the 'good'. But it will take time - if we are hopping mad at the other person. It will take time to align ourselves with that spiritual goal. And sometimes, we are in denial about how far we still are. The most honest thing is to acknowledge where we are before God and ask for the 'grace' to move closer to the spiritual goal. It will be a process, sometimes quite long, even vacillating, two steps forward, one step back. We cannot quote Scripture and hide behind the words, denying our reality. God comes to us in our reality, the misery, the pain and the weakness. We will encounter him there for remember, it was Jesus' desire to spend time with "tax collectors and sinners".