John is so beautiful...

Now, don't anyone get excited! 

I'm talking about John the apostle and the book he wrote. He has been my favorite apostle ever since I read the Mark of the Lion series (which is probably above all else my favorite series - taught me so much about faith). Oh, right, I know that his character in the story is historical-ish fiction, but still, there must be a reason he's referred to as the "disciple whom Jesus Loved"! Ok, I lied before, there is no more beautiful word than God's so technically Francine Rivers is not my favorite author... Anyway, John is beautiful. As I may have mentioned I've taken up reading the 

Gospels again, to learn from the master and teacher the right way to live, and I realize now that I've finished, that I don't think I've actually ever sat down and read John. And it is so beautiful and so reassuring. (*Jackie Smallbones was right!) I can definitely see how reading John's Gospel alone can lead someone to believe in Christ. When I find myself doubting, it is usually over the unbelievableness of the person and life of Jesus as well as the authority of the Bible. Sometimes, and this is hard to admit, it all can just seem silly and irrational! (The message of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing...) But then John says several times that he has written these things so that we may believe and it is so true! and I do! and I must rejoice! and be filled with the truth! The last line may be my favorite of all: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." John 21:25. Which reminds me of a verse of a song that I adore singing and thinking about:

If we with ink the ocean filled,

and were the sky of parchment made,

were every stalk on Earth a quill,

and every man a scribe by trade,

to write the Love of God above

would run the ocean dry,

nor could the scroll 

contain the whole

though stretched from sky to sky. 

Hallelujah!