I’ve been working through chapter 3 of Women of the Word, and one sentence really stuck with me. Jen Wilkin describes several ways we commonly approach the Bible, and as I read through them, I realized I had spent years asking the wrong question.

Almost every time I opened my Bible or Bible App, I was asking, “How can this help me?”

To be fair, there are seasons when that is exactly where I am. When life is falling apart, I do need God’s comfort. David, Elijah and even Jesus all sought comfort from God. Jesus said his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Then Jesus prayed and asked God to take “this cup” from him and then followed with “not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:38-39).

There is nothing wrong with bringing our pain to God. But somewhere along the way, I began to realize that Scripture wasn’t inviting me to make myself (or anyone else) the center of every verse. It was inviting me to know the One who is at the center of every verse.

All I used to want was for God to calm the storm. I wanted answers. I wanted healing. I wanted certainty about the future of my marriage. But in the middle of all of those wants, something started to change. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I stopped searching for the exit. I started looking for God. Instead of asking, “God, how do I escape this?” I started asking, “God, who are You in the middle of this?”

The best thing is that the more I’m getting to know God, the less desperate I am becoming for escape. I’m not consumed with asking Him why anymore. I’m no longer consumed with escaping the pain. I’m not sitting and sulking in my pain. I have shifted my focus from me to God. When I read Paul’s letters now, I notice something I used to miss. Some of the most joy-filled words in Scripture were written from a prison cell. His circumstances didn’t determine his peace because his peace wasn’t rooted in his circumstances. It was rooted in Christ.

I’m still learning. There are still times when I open my Bible looking for answers about me. But more and more, I’m learning to ask “Who is God?”

Along this road I have discovered something I didn’t expect. The more I get to know God, the more everything else begins to make sense.

Not because I have all the answers, but because I am really getting to know the One who does.

-Aimee