Traveling Matt was a Fraggle by creation and lived underground in the Rock with his many Fraggle friends. The Fraggles were a hard working bunch. They had a deep understanding of life within their Rock and never had a reason or occasion to travel outside the Rock. The Rock was safe. If was predictable. Life in the Rock was controllable. Life was good. Excuse me. Did I just describe a Fraggle's life or was that your life I just described?
One day Traveling Matt got the wild idea to travel outside the Rock. He wanted to explore the world in Outer Space. The very thought of travel to Outer Space created great fear in his friends and family. It made no sense to leave the comforts and predictability of living safe within the Rock. Against all known reason and known sanity, Traveling Matt left to explore the far reaches of Outer Space and sends a series a postcards back home, describing his encounters.
There is much in common with Traveling Matt and us in this world known as Outer Space. The commonality is found in consuming versus just reading the inspired Words of God. Many of us have read the Words of God for a life time. We have read commentaries and studied books written about the Bible and can debate Biblical issues with the best of them.
We, like the rest of the Fraggles are quite content where we are and enjoy the safety experienced while living in the Rock. But every once in a long while, someone peers from within the Rock and sees a world so much larger than life. It is a world waiting to be explored. It is a world that can only be seen through hungrily consuming the very Word of God with the appetite of a lion having been locked in a cage far too long.
I peered out from within the Rock because I knew I would die within the Rock never to experience the life God had planned for me. Sure, I had made my run for Wall Street with an unquenchable appetite to launch an IPO. I had accumulated millions of dollars in real estate and lost the same. I had married good and enjoyed a wonderful family. I had been a "Believer" for almost 50 years, but to my surprise I woke up one day to find my cup empty. There had to be more.
Out of a desire to survive and a belief the Word had to be key to my future, I began reading the Message version of the Word aggressively. Every minute of free time, I read more of the Word. I got up early and went to bed late purposed to read the Word. I discovered my unquenchable hunger to feed on the Words of God out of a necessity to survive, developed into a voracious appetite to consume the Word out of a new found love for God.
Eating the Word drew me back into His presence every time I broke bread with the Father. His presence was predictable and the freshness of His Spirit poured out on my heart was undeniable. I could not get enough. I read the Bible multiple times in a manner of a few months. It was one of the most awesome benchmark experiences of my life. I became a different person.
It is as if I was "born again" even in recognition of my childhood experience of "accepting Christ". The challenge for me today is to somehow communicate to my friends who honestly ask themselves the question, "Is that all there is?" that there is so much more. I missed so much for the first 50 years of my life as a Christian. The so much more is found in the consuming of the Word. Such a simple concept... but missed by most. How about you? Will you take a peek outside the Rock?
Will you take the chance and venture out to discover what you have been missing? I don't know, but I pray so.
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