Bend a Little

"Do we have any sour cream?" Scott asks as he opens the fridge.
"Yes," I say. He stands there waiting for it to step forward, I guess, or do a little dance for him so that he can see it. But I just buy the regular kind, not the dancing kind. He can't see it.
"It's on the bottom shelf, in the back." No response. I know it's there. I just saw it yesterday, while looking for something else. I remember years ago, talking to a friend about how the folks in this family just can't find anything. They're bad lookers, I say. She told me what her mom always used to say when she was growing up, "Sometimes you have to bend!" And I have adopted that phrase as my own. It's kind of an abbreviated version of saying I know it's there, I just saw it. It means, please don't make me stop what I'm doing to come and find whatever you're looking for. You can do it. It's there. And I use this phrase with everyone in the family. It just so happens I most recently used it on Scott. I throw it out to him, still waiting for the sour cream to appear. He bends, and sure enough!
"Ah yes, here it is!" Success.

We're studying James in my Bible Study group, and that bending idea came up in the latest lesson. James 1:22-25 says, "But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.(NLT) We learned that the original Greek word for the phrase at the end to "look carefully" or "look intently" means "to stoop down, or looking by bending over." Wow!

In these last months, I have known that I need to be in the Word, need to be going to God as I struggle with grief. And how many times have I sat with my Bible and asked the Lord, "Do you have anything for me?" I've been hoping that it will step forward, and do a dance, so I can see it. But I haven't really tried bending. Time for me to really dig in.