Recently, I read about the difference between tourism and travel. “Tourism” is running up to the Grand Canyon to take a quick selfie and then hustling on to the next stop, self-focused, without much reflection. “Travel” is going to the Grand Canyon and being overwhelmed by the grandeur of its size, the brilliance of its vivid colors, the smell of the air, the buzzing of insects and echoes bouncing against canyon walls. Travel has the power to change the way we see ourselves and the way that we see the world.

I want to use this distinction between tourism and travel and apply it to how we approach God’s word. I’ve often been guilty of acting like a tourist when it comes to scripture, and not a traveler. I’m acting like a tourist when I rush into scripture for a quick fix to help me through the day. I’m hoping that somehow my quick “selfie,” trying in a short time to see how a passage applies to my life, is going to help me have a better day. What God is calling us toward is to be more of a traveler, to linger and to savor the glory of God revealed to us in that particular landscape of scripture. We are to view a portrait of God, rather than take a selfie with God in the background.

Psalm 92 is a good place for this kind of reflection. Recently, I woke up really down. It happens from time to time, but what happened to me sitting on my back deck was nothing short of miraculous. I prayed through Psalm 92 by writing it out, praying in my mind as I typed it:

It is good to give thanks to you, O Lord. It is good to sing praises to your name. You are exalted over all the earth. You are the great and mighty God. Holy and awesome is your name, O Lord. Our Father, help me pray for I am a complete mess . . . It is good to give thanks to you, Lord. It is good to sing praises to your name, O Most High.

It is good to declare your steadfast love in the morning. I want to declare your steadfast love this morning, Lord, and to be healed by you. O how I need your healing and your mercy, O Lord, I am so weak. It is good to declare your faithfulness by night. Is there a reason that you would say for us to declare all of these things, some in the morning and some in the evening or is this just the way of saying that it needs to be happening all the time . . .

I continued through the prayer not as a quick, intellectual exercise but by God’s grace, I spent time there and looked and lingered. The experience reoriented my whole demeanor. I saw God in His majesty and greatness, and was overwhelmed by His faithfulness and the purity of His love for me. I’m always grateful when I encounter God in that way.

George Mueller once said that he saw it his first duty each morning to persist in God’s word until his soul was happy and alive in Jesus. That statement reveals that he often didn’t wake up that way. That is my experience as well. Turning these phrases over and over and praying them back to the Lord is one way for God to restore our souls so that we are alive to God once again.

My good friend Gary Stewart will be preaching Sunday morning at BP. Four of us from BP join a team of 18 who will serve in Barcelona over the next few days. Please pray for us as we go, that God’s kingdom will come and His Will be done in that place through the work we will do there. We are completely dependent on God’s work through us at all times, let alone on a ministry trip of this nature.

Gene