Fill in the Blanks

By Linda Grabeman

My computer knows me well. If I type the letter “B”, it fills in the blanks and Biblegateway.com pops up on my screen. Pretty cool. It knows me as well as any inanimate, man-made machine can know me. But it doesn’t know my heart, so let me give you a far better example of the joy of being known.

With ridiculous understanding, God took my rambling, run-on prayer requests recently and answered them with one statement. It was a verse printed at the bottom of my journal, a verse I’d known portions of but had never taken the time to contemplate in its entirety.  I was struck speechless by its truths.

“The Lord your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take delight in you.
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17 

 There are five promises here, adding up to a pretty amazing life for those of us who choose to take God at His word.  Who wouldn’t want a God who is with us, loves us, fights for us, and settles us down, all the while singing over us?

Back to filling in the blanks. It’s the story of the Bible. In Exodus 3:14, God calls Himself “I Am”.  Jesus uses that same wording over and over in the gospel of John. He calls Himself seven different names, all beginning with, you guessed it, “I Am”.  After He fed the 5,000, Jesus said, “I Am the Bread of Life”. To people who walked in darkness after the sun went down, He said, “I Am the Light of the world”. To those familiar with flocks of sheep, He said, “I Am the Good Shepherd”, and even sweeter, He said, “I Am the Gate”.

Now, we don’t understand that title, but His hearers did. You see, sheep pens had no gate. The shepherd was the gate, lying across the entrance to the pen, guarding the sheep from danger. Anything that threatened the sheep had to contend with the shepherd first. Jesus calls Himself our Gate. Nothing happens to us without going through Him first.

After raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said, “I Am the resurrection and the life.” On the night before He was crucified, He said, “I Am the way, the truth, and the life”, and “I Am the vine.”

Bottom line–Jesus is the Answer, regardless of our needs. He knows us well and is fully aware that our needs change from day to day. Jesus fills in the blanks for us, whether it is for His protection and comfort, His love and companionship, or most important, His forgiveness and eternal salvation.

So, how would you fill in those blanks after “I Am”? Wherever you are frantic, discouraged, doubting, or just plain lost and in need of a Savior, He is waiting for you. All you need to do is call out to Him. Will you do it today?