The Beautiful Center Again

My disappointment over how little I gleaned from my recent time in the book of Acts has been assuaged in the most obvious of ways:  by looking to Jesus, of course.

After staring at the Bible for a day or so after completing a study of Acts, and feeling more than a little ignorant, I found The Beautiful Center again, and tip-toed back a few books to start back at the beginning of The Gospels.  Honestly, since I am pretty sure I failed to, you know, pray about what I should study next, I might have let discouragement win out again were it not for the children's Bible study that I do every morning with my 6-year-old.  He and I have spent the past 10 months reading from a children's Bible storybook every morning (ahem, most mornings) at breakfast, and we just recently began the New Testament.  It was there, while eating cereal with my children, and glancing over to the side of the page where there was an illustration of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus that I again felt that glorious calm.

And so it was that I had another forehead-slapping moment.  I had been reading Acts, after all, which begins at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry.  If it is Jesus whose feet I want to sit at, then Matthew might be a better place for me to be at this moment.

It is working, as I should know to expect, and I am slowly reading Matthew for the umpteenth time, but truly studying it for the very first time.  It is there that I find Jesus right now, and it is there that I feel a closeness to God, as I draw nearer to Him, and he draws nearer to me.

Maybe someday I will learn to adjust the focus on my own, but until then I will be content with knowing that a children's Bible has the power to turn my heart.  And I pray that it has that same affect on my children as we take baby steps together.