LAYERS -- I Just Love Layers, and I'm not even an ogre

Layers. I just love layers.


In the movie Shrek, Shrek says that he has layers like onions have layers. “Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” There’s a pause when Donkey says, “Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake!” Then Donkey points out, “You know what ELSE everybody likes? Parfaits!” Why? Because parfaits have layers.

The Word of God has layers, and I don’t know why I am surprise when God reveals something in His Word that shows layers, but I am still surprised nonetheless. For example, a verse that I have clung to for years is Isaiah 42:16, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” Cannot tell you how many times in my life as a Christian that I have felt like I was following God blindly down paths I had never been down before – being married, going through fertility treatments, proceeding through the adoption process, parenting, etc. In this verse He says He will guide. He guides by spreading His light because darkness cannot stay where He is.

Then there is this whole “rough places smooth” thing. I know God has gone before me to prepare my footsteps as He has ordained them. I know that He is preparing me for what lies ahead. I know that He will never leave me, but what I didn’t know I found in a layer of the Isaiah 40:3-4: “A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness make a straight highway for our God in the desert. Every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places, a plain.” So can you see why my mind would go from verses 3 and 4 to Isaiah 42:16? So I did some digging in commentaries and different Bibles and found a nugget, a jewel. Anytime a king would travel, people would go ahead of him to smooth out the rocky and rough roads and to straighten out all the curves. They were preparing the way, and they did it for ROYALTY. As children of the Most High King, He considers us royalty, and He goes before us to prepare the way. He’s working it all out for our good. He’s smoothing out the bumps and jagged edges. He is leveling the playing field.

Will our lives be easy? No. That’s not what this is saying, as a matter of fact, it says the opposite. You WILL go through hard times, but the difference is that for Christians He’s ahead of us working it out and preparing the way for us to come. What might seem like an insurmountable obstacle may be a mole hill compared to what it was before God got ahold of it. What seems like an insurmountable obstacle or trial becomes passable and doable when we follow the Light He has put before us, stepping where He steps. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t been down this road before. What matters is God has! We have hope. We can have peace. We can even have joy during the journey because we know the One who knows what’s ahead, and He’s got it all under control.

I LOVE LAYERS! The Bible has layers. Everybody should love the Bible and should dig in.