Dear God, I’m a devoted reader of Fred Smith’s weekly blog, and I enjoyed what I read this morning about The Soil of Partial Truth. In it, he listed the five most popular verses in the Bible. This is the order in which he listed them. I don’t know if it is by popularity or not. I’d be surprised if it was. They were:

• Jeremiah 29:11 – …”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “Plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope…”
• Psalm 23:4 – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, the comfort me.
• Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
• John 3:16 – “For God so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
• Romans 8:28 – And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Instead of looking at the meaning of each verse and going into whether or not they are out of context (for example, the Jeremiah 29:11 is REALLY out of context if you read that verse alone), I want to talk to you about why we are drawn to these specific verses and what it says about what we need from you.

With the Jeremiah verse, I think it means that our psyche needs to know that you are in charge and that things are going to work out well. Now, while you are, indeed, in charge, working out “well” is a relative term and needs the broader context. But our human hearts want to know that our circumstances are going to work out well for us.

The verse from Psalms is about addressing our fears. we need your comfort during the times that we are afraid–especially of death. Whether it is our death or the death of another, we need your comfort when we are afraid. And that’s okay.

Philippians 4:13 is about leaning on you and looking to you for our strength. It’s a good one and a good reminder that we need you. The Isaiah 40:31 about those that wait on you will mount up with wings like eagles is a good one for this sentiment too.

I love the John 3:16 one because it is actually right in the middle of Jesus’ rant to Nicodemus. He’s trying to explain being born again and gets on a roll. I actually enjoy this whole speech more than just this verse. But in the end, Jesus is convincing an unbelieving Pharisee to believe.

And the Romans 8 verse brings us back to the need to know that it’s all going to be okay. I think the danger here is that we know that sometimes those who love you suffer, and we are looking at these verses and hoping that the suffering will happen to someone else and not us.

Father, I think, at the end of the day, we are just looking for your comfort, your strength, and your reassurance. We need to be reassured that you are there, we have access to you, and that, at least on the other side of death, there is hope. It would probably be good for me to sit down and some point and talk about my favorite scriptures/stories of the Bible. I wonder what looking at that collection of passages would reveal about me.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen