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Word in the Wild is a one year Bible adventure with friends. Join from anywhere and enjoy a fun, rewarding, and doable 12-month journey through the Bible where you read it from cover to cover and understand it. It’s not a devotional or recap. It’s a guide by your side through God’s Word. With support from a weekly podcast and an online community of fellow travelers, this is the year when you finally explore the Bible in its own words and on its own terms for yourself.
This is Word and the Wild. It's a one year Bible adventure with friends. My name is Owen. I'm your host and your guide. Delighted to be together with you on this 12 month journey as a podcast plus community where we read the Bible for ourselves but not by ourselves. This is week 28 and this week We are on a road trip and it's not just any kind of road trip.
It's a road trip through reality. And this week's Psalms are the songs on the radio. So hello and welcome in. I want to give a special welcome to our Word and the Wild Plus community members. It's their support of this non profit endeavor that makes space for all of us here on this Bible reading adventure.
As part of the word of the wild plus tribe, they enjoy access to our private, safe online space where no honest question is a dumb question along with weekly live stream, Q and a bonus content live stream, teaching gatherings with yours truly and more. So if you've been craving a way to dive into the Bible and understand what it's all about for yourself, now's a great time to jump in.
We'll be hitting the Old Testament before we know it. Get a running start at it. Check out the show notes for how to become a member of the Word and the Wild Plus community for yourself. Go over and check out all the details on our website, word and the wild.com, whether in the show notes or on the web word and the wild.com.
Now's a great time to join us. Alright, so with that my friend, let's get to that road trip. Grab your son shades, get your snacks together, and let's jump in the car for a special kind of road trip this week.
Road trip. Headed out west on the open road. Man, there's nothing better, isn't there? Isn't there just something about a good old fashioned road trip? So let's hop in the car. What's what's your car of choice? Alright, let's, let's paint the picture here. Are you you know the kind of person who wants to hop in a ripping muscle car?
You like the chromed up classic convertible? Or maybe something a little more modern. Maybe something German with a sunroof. Well, okay, pick out your favorite car and then put yourself in the driver's seat. Put your hands on the wheel and put the pedal to the metal. We're hauling for the west coast and I'll be riding shotgun with you.
Okay, so you drive and I'll chat. Well, this week on our one year Bible adventure, we are Cruising through a final section of psalms We've hit some psalms before and this is our last stretch through them and this week's psalms They're kind of like a playlist for a road trip through Reality. All right.
These songs are meant to keep us moving The songs to help us keep our courage keep our pace Songs to pull us through the long nights of fighting to stay awake and The long stretches of those tedious miles through the desert where the road is arrow straight And there's nothing but mirages all around us Even pull us through those dangerous mountain curves that are draped in fog drenched in rain We're on this road trip.
The psalms are on the radio and our destination Is a place that we've always longed for and never been Now, there's a word for this kind of longing. You've heard the word nostalgia, of course. Nostalgia literally is a pain to go home. That's what nostalgia means. It's that, that, that pain deep in your heart to return back to the place where everything's familiar and times were good.
It's it's homesickness. Okay, that's, that's different. What about what I'm talking about here? The pain of longing for a place that you've never been. That's a real thing. In fact, there is a word for it. It's a somewhat untranslatable German word. It carries this kind of meaning and I'm probably going to butcher it here, but I'm going to try to say it.
The German word is Fernweh. Fernweh. It means far sickness. It's the ache to be somewhere you've never been, but you feel like you will belong when you get there. That's our destination on this road trip through reality. And this week's Psalms are keeping us company and helping us keep the pace on this long winding road.
And as you ride along this week, you're going to see that these Psalms make no attempt to hide the fact that life on the road isn't easy. It's full of pain, discouragement, despair, injustice, cruelty, longing. And for many of us when we hit those, those patches on the road, those tough stretches for many of us, our instinct, And as we cope with the grind of life is just to put our head down and power through, right?
You just dig deep, you buckle down, you stay practical. You don't daydream about the future. You, you focus on reality, just, just focus on what you can control, focus on the here and now. And now when we say things like that, and when we think that way, what we're saying is that it, we should base our, our actions.
What's concrete, right? What's, what's real reality? What exists? What is right? But here's something interesting and a little bit unsettling. And we pick this up from the songs on the radio, on a road trip this week and unsettling truth. Reality is fluid. Okay, now stick with me here. This is our crazy road trip.
Here's where it's taking us. Reality is fluid. It's not rock steady. Okay, reality moves. Reality is only locked in to a single time and a single place. We can't talk really about reality. We can only talk about our reality right now. Okay, let me give you an example to help you understand what I mean.
Because I know that's a little bit of an out there thought. Think about this. Alright, we're on this road trip. Okay, let's say you picked the Chromie Classic Convertible. That's what I would pick, alright. So let's say here we are. We're on the road trip. We're headed west on the the black top the ribbon of highway stretching out in front of us So let's say we're in the middle of Kansas You ever been out in the middle of Kansas?
I mean the road is so straight the planes all around are so flat That you can literally see the earth curve out in the distant horizon. The air is thick with humidity. The sun is blazing hot. Okay, now we keep driving and, and after a while we hit Colorado. Mountain passes, curvy roads, maybe even a little spit of snow up there high on those mountain passes, and you got that cool, crisp mountain air.
Reality for us on that road trip, it was Kansas, now reality is Colorado. Moves All right. Now, how about this for a mind bender? Okay, let's let's let's keep going with this this example Let's change it up a little bit Let's say we're in Colorado now. Okay, we're on one of those mountaintops We take a pause pull off the road to enjoy the view And there's a valley that stretches out down below us that valley.
Imagine this it's filled with a city You In fact, there's even a little airport. We're up so high, we can watch the airplanes take off and land down in the valley below from that airport. Now this time, on our road trip, we're going to stay put, and instead of moving our location, like we did when we moved from Kansas to Colorado, instead, we're going to move our time.
instead of a road trip. Now we're on a time trip. Imagine we can scrub backward in the timeline, you know, do the little, all right. And that airplane that just took off from the airport down in the valley below that airplane zooms backward through the air curves around, lands backward on the tarmac.
We're, we're skipping through time. Then the airport. Rewind it. The airport turns into a dusty field. Then the town shrinks. Skyscrapers in the city unstack. Electric lights disappear. Paved roads and highways, well, they go to dirt. They shrink into trails. Cars become horses. and wagons. Homes become log cabins, then homesteads, then they're gone and signs of civilization disappear.
It's back to trees and streams and the mountain snow caps that we see around us on the horizon. They grow with a strange speed and they fill the valley with ice. We've been traveling backward in time. Reality was for us A sunny day in the mountains with a city view. Now it's an ice age. And here we are, we're sitting in our car realizing we're gonna have to wait a few thousand years for our next tank of gas.
Reality moves. Reality is here and now. That's all it is. And there are many places and many points in time that are neither here nor there. Nor are they now. There are other realities. Things weren't always like they are here and now. And things will not always be like this. That's one of the invisible threads, I would say, that ties the story of the Bible together.
If you think about the Bible as a cinematic universe You know, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are thousands of characters, there are hundreds of stories. But there are also just a few unspoken rules that give shape to the story. They're the rules of our universe. They're the basic assumptions, they hold true in every plot line, every spin off series, no matter where we go.
These rules follow us and, and this is one of those rules. It's, it's subtle and it's simple. So subtle, so simple. We can easily miss it. It's like, like the air we breathe. It's like gravity. It's just there. And that, that, that, those rules are in part, things aren't always like this. Things won't always be.
like this. All right. Things aren't always like this. Things will not always be like this. The Bible gives us history. The Bible also gives us future. It's subtle, it's simple, and it truly is just profound and even subversive, I would say. It's about the, the nature of reality itself, the here and now reality.
Yeah, it's real, but it's got holes in it. It's wearing out. Things will change. Reality will move and get this. When God decides it's time for that change to occur, it will be easy and simple for him to do it. Here's what's crazy. In fact, listen to just how easy you look at Psalm 102, starting in verse 25.
It's on page 862 of our chrono Bible. It goes like this talking about God. It says long ago you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. They will perish, but you remain forever. Well, we're out like old clothing. You will change them like a garment and discard them. You are always the same.
You will live forever. He says of God, the children of your people will live in security. Their children's children will thrive in your presence. You catch that when God decides it's time to change things. Oh, it's going to be as simple for him as changing a shirt or putting on a new pair of shoes. I mean, if you're a person who spends outsized energy and effort in arranging life and controlling it and shaping it into your idea of perfection, well, keep in mind today's reality will be replaced.
Things won't always be like this. And on the other hand, if you're a person who is just worn out, ground down, despairing of life and the way this world works, hey, be encouraged. Keep in mind. Today's reality will be replaced. Things won't always be like this. There is, in fact, a place we've never been. Where we will feel at home and feel like we belong.
It's the place we ache to see. We know there is such a place. We know there is such a reality. That there's such an existence. We can feel it. And we can see evidence of it. Even if we can't see it itself. Every wound tells us there's a place without hurt. We Every ancient ruin tells us there's a place where time is not an enemy.
Every aging beauty tells us there's a place where beauty never fades. Every restless night tells us there's a place of rest. Every fear and worry tells us there's a place where we are safe. Every death tells us there's a place where life is endless. Every broken heart Tells us there's a place where love endures forever.
That, my friend, is the song on the radio. The Psalms sing it to us and over us again and again this week as we roll on, as we roll through, as we roll past this beautiful and broken Now, on this wild road trip, we roll on to the place we ache to be. Things will change. Reality will move. Things weren't always like this, and things will not always be like this.
There is a place we ache. To be.
All right. Enjoy the journey this week, my friend. Hey, how's it going for you so far? I'd love to hear from you. Hit me up on Facebook, and if you're not already part of the Word of the Wild Facebook group, search for it there and join in. It's easy to find, or look for us on Insta. The account is TheWild. us.
All right, and Make sure you subscribe to this podcast, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, all the places we're there. Word in the wild is a one year Bible adventure with friends, man. I'm loving this. I hope you are too. All of you word in the wild plus community members. Big thanks once again, to you for making this journey a reality, I'll be seeing you out in the wild this week.
That's our private online community space. Everyone else. Hey, make sure you find us so we can interact. Word and the Wild is a LineHouse community. It's part of the LineHouse Community Network, a nonprofit organization with a mission to bring neighbors together, to promote awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the Bible, because we believe friendship and God's Word change lives and change cities word and the wild is presented by the LumaVoz podcast network and with that we are out!
I'm Owen, once again, your host and your guide and until next time I'll be looking to see you out there on the trail in the word and the wild you have a great week