The Word

I guess the first thing you may ask when clicking on this link is, who is this person and/or why has she started a blog? My name is Lydia and I am a college student trying to follow Christ wherever He may lead me. And I think he is leading me to communicate through this medium. My reasons are three-fold. 1) I love writing. 2) I love words. 3) I want an outlet to testify of the goodness of the one who is the Word.

Ever since middle school when I became painfully self-conscious, I have had a pathological fear of public speaking (even in front of just a handful of people) but I have found great comfort and pleasure in communicating through the written word. Writing is the outlet by which I most like to share my thoughts and emotions because it affords me the space and the lack of social pressure necessary to think about my words, lay them out, pick them back up, and reorder them.

Writing is a gift to all because it allows us to list out our joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares. And furthermore, writing is therapy, for through it we confess to God and ourselves what those lists consist of, taking ownership of the deepest parts of our hearts and minds. And when we share our lists with others, we often find that we are not so alone.

I am choosing to be vulnerable by starting this blog because writing is a gift that I do not take advantage of enough. All too often, God lays things on my heart that I know He wants me to say or do, but I, like Moses, push the button that activates my automated excuse-making answering machine.

“I am not eloquent enough.”

“I have nothing new to say that no one has ever heard before.”

“No one will listen or care about what I have to say.”

With my sinful, doubting, selfish words, I protest to God time and time again. But when I point out my inadequacies, God does not address them directly. Instead, He speaks of Himself, proclaiming “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:3 ESV).

I am grateful that the Great I AM ignores my excuses and gives me both the duty and the privilege of using words to His glory. As an Applied Linguistics-Spanish double-major, language has always fascinated me; it is one of the most “godlike” qualities that humans possess. No other species has a form of communication that comes anywhere near resembling human language. Language accompanies free will, for it is the outlet by which we express either our adoration or rejection of God. Through language, we wonder, we doubt, we challenge, we repent, we worship. We repeat the process over and over and over again.

But even in such a uniquely human quality, we are humbled when we see that God embodied it first. The only reason we have language is because it was God’s idea and it reflects a part of His divine nature. One of the many names that Scripture gives Jesus is the Word. John 1:1-2 says that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (ESV). Christ has existed eternally as the Word. And for some mysterious reason, words are the force by which God creates, calls, and reveals. God speaks and God writes. In Genesis 1, God spoke and by His words created the Universe. It seems that God called Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and many, many other people in Scripture through some form of comprehensible human language. And likewise through language God revealed the Law to His people, and now, under the New Covenant, He writes it on our hearts.

Oh, what love our Abba Father has for us that He would call to us in a way by which we can understand Him and respond to Him. And that He would send His Son who would speak to us through a real human voice for a whole thirty-two years, proclaiming the way that leads to life and then dying so that we may obtain it. The only appropriate response to such love is “‘Here I am’ (1 Samuel 3:4b ESV), Lord; take me and do with me what you wish.”

Most beautiful Savior, we praise You this Advent that You were the Word made flesh. Thank you that, being fully God and fully man, you identified with our human weaknesses yet in no way compromised the fact that you indeed were the Great I AM. Thank you for giving us the incredible gift that is language, and for expecting us to use it as a means of bringing glory to you. Thank you that when our lips proclaim doubts and excuses, You proclaim Yourself. Thank you that when our words are finite, inadequate, and fragile, You who are the Word are infinite, adequate, and very mighty to save us from our frailties. Let us not miss opportunities to testify of who You are to the world this Advent. We pray all of this in your name which is more precious and holy than we will ever have words to describe. Amen.