I’ve been reading through Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago
(author and illustrator of The Jesus Storybook Bible). This is a new book
of devotions, geared for kids, but applicable for anyone. It is really a lovely book of very short
devotions/thoughts on Biblical stories, verses, and themes with wonderful
illustrations.
 |
One of the devotions picks up on an image in Jeremiah 8:6 to help us
think about the nature of sin.
“The Bible says [sin is] not like simply wandering off the
path and getting lost by mistake. It’s
like a horse charging at full speed away from him. We want to get away from God that badly! We are like horses galloping headlong after
the things we want” (pg. 32).
This vivid image reminded me of one of the starkest
Q&A’s in the Heidelberg Catechism, which says “I have a natural tendency to
hate God and my neighbor” (Q&A 5). Most
of us don’t really like this much. We
want to believe that we are naturally good people, full of love and not hate.
But we are like galloping horses. Without the Holy Spirit, we naturally are
galloping away from God towards what we want.
It is easy for me to see a horse galloping across a field, away from its
owner or another horse. The picture
captures, for me at least, the heart of this question and Biblical truth in a way that the words
themselves don’t.
Used by Creative Commons License.
