Pig's Out

Laura Booz: Hi there! You’re listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. I am here to tell you that you can expect the good Book, the Bible, to show up in your everyday life. 

Every summer I read E.B. White’s belovedchildhood classic, Charlotte’s Web to my children. It’s the perfect book for my kids because we live on a farm. And every year in August, our community has the great Grange Fair, complete with cotton candy, Ferris wheels, spider webs, and more. 

My dream is that my children would hear the story of Charlotte’s Web and then go to the fair and experience it for themselves. Because they’ve heard the story so many times, maybe they’ll understand the around-the-clock care the 4-H kids have invested in their animals. And maybe they’ll see those animals through those eyes as we mosey through the barns. 

Of course, they’ll appreciate the blue-ribbon milk cows, and those majestic roosters, as well as the humble goats, and the modest chickens who are just going home with participation ribbons. Maybe, they’ll spot a spider’s web in the corner of some pig’s stall and see the miracle in it. 

One year we didn’t have to wait until the grange fair to experience the book in real life. It was mid-July afternoon, and the kids were outside doing whatever kids do in the summer. I grabbed our copy of Charlotte’s Web, a quilt, some snacks, and headed outside hollering “story time!” 

Kids appeared from every direction, hopping off the swing set, parking their bikes in the garage, rolling down the hill. One of my daughters, who had been feeding the chickens in the barnyard ran towards me yelling, “Mom, mom! The pigs are out! They are running all over the barn!” 

See, at the time, a neighbor boy was raising pigs in our barn to show at the Grange Fair. Now, I like pigs in books; I like pigs in pictures; I like pigs at the fair. But I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about pigs in real life, especially pigs that had just escaped.

Charlotte’s Web would have to wait. I was the adult in this story, so it was up to me to get those pigs back in the stall. I put the quilt and the snacks and the book on the ground and headed towards the barn. When I opened the barn door, the pigs were galumphing up and down the hallway. Boy, had they grown! I was out of my league. I closed the door and stepped back outside to collect my thoughts. And you know what came to mind? Philippians 4:6, pray about everything, and so I did. I prayed, “Lord, please help those pigs go back to their pen.” And then I took a deep breath and entered through the door again. 

You would not believe it, because instantly the pigs stopped in their tracks. They turned around and walked back to their stall. I followed them very cautiously. As they entered their stall, I closed their door, latched it real good, and returned to the kids—wide eyed, telling them about how I prayed and God had granted my request. 

Yes, we thought it was amazing, but wait it gets better. I laid out the quilt. The kids dug into their snacks. I opened Charlotte’s Web to the place where a folded napkin served as a bookmark, and I read “Chapter 3: Escape” The timing of this being the chapter we would read next was remarkable because in this chapter, if you don’t know, Wilbur the pig escapes his pen. The farmer’s wife sees the pig outside her window and hollers, “Pigs out, Homer!” And the barnyard animals cheer Wilber to run forward, run backward, jump and leap. Eventually the farmer lures Wilbur back into his pen with a bucket of slops. 

Woah! My kids and I literally stepped inside Charlotte’s Web that day and got to see for ourselves that pigs really do escape. They really do run and jump and leap. They really do return to their stalls when properly motivated. The book showed up in our real, everyday life, and we’ll never forget it. 

The kids and I were surprised when real life seemed to match the book we were reading, but that experience really can be normal when we read a different book, the Bible, and keep our eyes open to how God is at work. 

I believe it’s God’s intention that you and I would experience this type of life and book phenomenon with the Bible every day. Deuteronomy 32:47 says that God’s Word is no empty word for you but your very life. God’s Word is our very life. Think about the air that you are breathing right now. It’s all around you, in your mouth, up your nose, filling your lungs, traveling throughout your body. You are relying on it to survive from moment to moment and you’re counting on it to be with you and sustain you everywhere you go today and in everything you do. 

God’s Word is like that. We need it, filling our minds, traveling through our thoughts, keeping us alive. We count on it to sustain us everywhere and all the time. We would perish without it. Why is God’s Word, the Bible so important to us? Because the Author, the God who wrote it, who breathed out Scripture to teach, and reprove, correct, and train us in righteousness, as the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy, is the same God who has written every one of our days before we ever existed, as David wrote in Psalm 139. 

The Author, who inspired the sixty-six books by forty-some different writers over 1,500 years, with one consistent storyline—namely His plan to redeem mankind for His glory and pleasure—is the same God, who as Hebrews 12 says, is the Author and perfector of our faith. 

The God who authored His Word, which is sharper than a two-edged sword, to discern our thoughts and intentions, is the same God who knit you together in your mother’s womb and called you by name, who ordains where you live, and establishes the works that your hands make. 

What I am trying to say is the Bible is our very life, because its author is our author. The same author who ultimately wrote the Bible is the same God who is writing the story of your life. This means that on an average day, you and I can expect to read the Good Book and see its truths play out right in front of us, right around us, and right within us. The more we read and understand our Bibles, the more we will see evidence of our Author in our own lives. We will recognize His sense of humor, His character, His voice, we’ll know it’s Him. 

The Bible’s themes are the themes in our own lives. The Bible’s plotlines and subplots are the same as ours. The metaphors, the symbols, the wisdom principles, the beginning, the middle and end and even the Bible’s hero, Jesus, is our Hero too. The Bible explains, clarifies, beautifies, sheds light on our stories. It helps us to interpret the past and understand the present, and certainly anticipate the right thing about the future. 

I think it’s interesting that unlike any other book, the Bible does not depend on me or you to validate it through our experiences. Rather, we depend entirely on the Bible to understand and to interpret our experiences. Or let me say it this way, we do not lean our understanding on our everyday life to make sense of Scripture. Instead, we lean on Scripture to make sense of everyday life. 

We see God’s Word play out in front of our very eyes. Proverbs assures us that every word of God proves true. Isn’t that amazing? Every word of God proves true. 

So, for example, when we step outside and look up at the sky, we can expect to see evidence of God as Creator, as described in Genesis. As we interact with other people and help one another through hard times, we can expect to see evidence of our sinful nature and hear creation groaning for redemption as described in Romans. 

As we gather with other believers, we can expect to see evidence that He is keeping His promise to redeem mankind and gather His children from every tribe, tongue, and nation as described in the book of Revelation.

And in our personal devotions, we can see for ourselves that obeying God’s commands are outlined in books like Deuteronomy and Matthew, and living according to His wisdom as in Proverbs and James. It all leads to our peace and contentment and joy. In every season, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, page by page, year after year, every word of God proves true. 

We can certainly ask the Author Himself to help us see how it applies to our circumstances. You know He delights in using Scripture to help us make sense of everything that comes our way. From those epic natural disasters to our own private feelings and thoughts. It’s the perfect book for us because it’s the true story of how our heavenly Father loves a whole bunch of runaways, certainly not pigs, but dearly loved children, and He did what it took to rescue us. He restored our relationship and He is bringing us home. He gave us His book to nourish our souls, equip us for our daily work, guide in our relationships, and give us hope for the future. He gave us this book to invite us to be His friend. 

You know, it’s not often that someone comes along who is a true friend, and a good writer, God is both. 

Hey, the more you know God’s Word, the more you’ll recognize your place in the story. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will help you get to know God’s Word every week day on the podcast, Revive Our Hearts. Nancy will help you understand biblical passages and discover ways to put them into practice. You can listen to the Revive Our Hearts podcast at ReviveOurHearts.com.

And you know me, you know how I love to explore how our stories intersect with the story of the Bible. In fact, every episode of Expect Something Beautiful is an example of that. I hope you’ll subscribe and share your favorite episode with a friend. 

Expect Something Beautiful is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.