Look Past the Literal

We are so dependent on what we know and can see that we are not able to understand things that we do not and cannot.

“⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” – John 6:52 (ESV)

The Jews, who had just witnessed Jesus feeding 5000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, and yet they were still trying to reason things. Sometimes, we have to take things as they are and work to understand them as opposed to accepting them as they are. The Jews may have been taken aback by that which they had witnessed and were trying to understand. Isn’t that what we all should be doing each day. We should be asking questions to understand and not be so accepting only of that which we see.

I am torn in my reading this morning and will say that even as I am writing, I have had some realizations or “understandings” that I did not have when I began. I was looking to find the lesson in the passage this morning and what I should have been doing is letting God’s Word come to me and enter my heart and mind and teach me. I am to be asking questions and not just reading. I am to be working to understand and not just accepting what is written. I have to be like the Jews and looking past the literal to the message and not just the words.

“⁴⁴No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” – John 6:44 (ESV)

Jesus is the way to the Father. In the literal sense, that is where it all begins and where I am drawn to Him and to the Father. It is in the full understanding that I am able to spread the good news to others so that they to are drawn to the Father. That understanding comes from my questions and looking past the literal into the full meaning of partaking of Jesus, the bread of life, so that I will no longer hunger for something more.

What I can see is only the beginning. The literal gets me started in the direction of the LORD. It is my thirst for more that brings me closer to Him and that thirst is quenched by Him as I am seeking and gaining more and more understanding.

Where are you looking? Are you seeing the literal and accepting of it as the end? What if you see the literal and ask more questions to understand to draw closer and closer to the LORD?