Introduction
There are few things more terrifying to me than place cards. Little sketched creatures or flowers of bright embroidery do nothing to dispel the horror that engulfs me as I circle the table. Where is my name?
Did my gracious hostess lose thought of me in the computing of her guest list? Did my long-lost invitation specify another time and another place? Where is my name?
I look quickly at the pack circling the table with me like Indians attacking settlers. Each face looks welcomed, assured, and loved. They point out their names with sophisticated glee. I detect a certain smugness as they watch me continuing the circuit. They are wondering how I got in — I am wondering how I get out. Could I grab a tray and apron and pass myself off as one of the service staff? Where is my name?
Suddenly, a flicker of hope similar to that Florence Nightingale's candle flashes through the maze of greenery. There! Held aloft by a broken china jonquil is my own name. I was invited. I was expected. I have a place, and will be fed.
In much the same way, I circled a more significant table, a table provided for the banquet of life. I looked for a token of personal welcome and found none. Those around me found assurance in ways that had no meaning to me.
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In kindness they turned to share their assurance with me. Books and pamphlets were showered upon me, like ticker tape upon a Wall Street parade. They only added to my confusion.
I was introduced to heroic leaders, and found myself intimidated by their courage and excluded by their example. I decided my only way out was to fake it, and strongly suspected that some of them had made the same choice, I tried with all the artistry I knew, and only felt anger and frustration.
Instead of reverence, I sensed an appetite within me for attacking the joy of those who sat with me. I wanted to tear into their holiness and prove it to be as hollow as mine. I resented being left out of all the finger-licking eating that went on so noisily around me.
I knew why I was excluded. I didn't measure up to perfection. I wasn't sure what perfection was, but I knew that God demanded it, and I didn't have it. That left me a little mad at God. How dare He provide a banquet that was not for me?
"Not for Me" became my theme song. Not for me the joy of fellowship. I was too shy. Not for me the comfort of acceptance. I was too far from perfect. Not for me the delight of participation. I had no talents. God had His favorites, and I was not one of them. My name was not on the guest list.
But God had no intention of leaving me placeless. My welcome was tucked away in the pages of His Book. There, principle upon principle and precept upon precept, I found my name correctly spelled and clearly marked. I was invited, expected, and would be fed!
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When I first started studying the Bible, it made very little sense to me. I tried ploughing through it book by book, assuring myself that I was being richly blessed because this was God's message to me.
Somewhere in Leviticus, I gave up pretending and faced God with my problem. "Dear Lord," I said, "I know every word of this Book has a message to me from You. I thank You for that, but at the moment, I'm missing it. I am now in Leviticus, and I know exactly what to do if my neighbor's ox falls into a ditch. However, I live on the eighth floor of a high rise, and although I have suspected that my neighbors on the floor above me have an ox — should it fall into a ditch there would be very little I could do about it. If You want me to get Your message out of all these ancient truths, You'll have to open the Word to me in a special way."
A few weeks later, I was on my way to an audition. I was waiting at a bus stop when a sudden rainstorm begun gullying the streets. I ran to a nearby bookstore for shelter. The rain got worse, and the bookstore closed. The sales clerk invited me to wait out the rain in an adjacent auditorium. When I learned that a missionary meeting was being held there, I refused. I knew I would not be interested in that.
I stepped outside and stood under a small awning, hoping that the rain would diminish. Then they rolled up the awning! I felt like Jonah under the gourd. (See Jonah 4:6).
I ran into the auditorium and perched in the back row. I never took off my coat or put down my purse. I was not interested in the meeting. I only wanted to get out of the storm.
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As I sat in the back of that auditorium in New York, I heard Major Ian Thomas speak of the objects within the Ark of the Covenant. I knew very little about the Ark of the Covenant and had given no thought to the meaning of its contents. To me, any such topic related to blackboard drawings in Sunday-school class. The Old Testament was a collection of unrelated stories about lackluster people in striped bathrobes — wonder workers who had no more to do with my world than the shadow of an airplane falling across the path of an ant.
But then as I sat in that New York auditorium, the clipped British phrases of Major Thomas introduced me to the living, human drama of the Bible as an account of the imperfect people through whom a perfect God worked out His perfect plan. I was faced with a new consideration.
I realized after that meeting that the problem was not in the Book, but in my approach to it. I had tried to approach it scientifically, philosophically, moralistically, although I was not a scientist, philosopher, or moralist — I was an actress. For the first time, I began to consider the Bible in the same way I would consider a script.
My initial acting approach is to examine the character of the role I am to play for any hint of me. I look for any identification I can use. This is my point of entry into the character — the point at which the character I play is most like my own character.
Using this method of study, I began to explore the living incidents of the Bible. I inquired into the lives of productive people of God. I found real men and
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women, who claimed the heights and depths of good and evil. I found that these created beings, whom God called friends, were not unlike me.
I learned that David cried all night, remembering some stupid choice he had made during the day. I have done that! I read that Jacob plotted and schemed for things his own greed had initiated. I have done that! Moses participated in a rash act he thought would be pleasing to the Lord and went through discipline because of it. I have done that! Eve thought God would move at the speed of her assumed timetable. I have done that! My Bible heroes did not have marbled toes on golden pedestals, but feet of clay. And yet, they ran.
I tore away my sanctimonious picture of the saints and found revelation. It was not the messengers who were perfect; it was the message. That first principle transferred me from a seat in the bleachers to a bench in the locker room. The parade of perfection had a break in the ranks that even I could enter.
There are many excellent books written from the viewpoint of a scientist or philosopher or forceful debater — this is not one. I don't offer the life story of a powerful saint or the scholarly thinking of a theologian. I can't run with them. This will be a book written out of my own experience.
