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Unfolding

                The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. (Psalm 119:130)

                Once upon a time, if someone decided to go somewhere, they pulled out a map. Generally, they were folded in 12” by 3-4” rectangles, and you would have to unfold it, locate where you are, then where you want to go, and figure out how to get from one to the other. It wasn’t really practical to have the whole map unfolded for the whole trip, so you refolded the map so you could see the part of the trip you were map open. There would be times when you might have to unfold it and refold it a different way, to make another part of your journey visible. If you were alone in the car, that could make life difficult. And no, you never seemed to get the map folded back the way it was when you bought it. Now, of course, we have GPSes that in some ways are no better. You only get to see a little of the whole trip, and if you move the screen to see more, you have to get it back to the current page.

                Writers, likewise, must unfold the plot. In some cases, the reader gets the idea fairly quickly. In others, there are lots of twists and turns, and you don’t get the whole story until or unless you read the whole book. There are even methods developed to map out stories, helping the writer and the reader make sense of them. The only real way to fit the story on one page is to make it one page long. The other alternative is to read the whole story.

                Likewise, the unfolding of God’s words gives light. That doesn’t mean reading one verse is going to give you all the wisdom you’ll ever need. But as you read and study, you connect the pieces. You unfold the map of the story. The challenging part is that we don’t have all the story yet. It’s really a trilogy. We have the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Heavenly or Future Testament. Until we at least get into that last one, we don’t really have more than a couple of clues about the whole thing.

                And that’s OK. We’re supposed to unfold His word. It would hardly be worth it if it could be completely traveled in an hour.

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