This is my 1,000th blog post. 1,000 ideas,
yes, but 1,000 stimulating thoughts, or 1,000 inspirations? You be the judge! Some people think a “a picture is worth
a thousand words.” But a blog post is more akin to the Chinese proverb, “1001 words is worth more
than a picture” (only in my case, about 160).
I researched the number ‘1,000’ to find something splendidly symbolic
about it. Wikipedia tells it tersely: 1,000 is the natural number that follows
999 and precedes 1001. Not so exciting. Then I read Peter’s
words: “With the Lord a day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day; The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but
is patient toward you” (2 Peter 3:8-9).
And therein lies the significance of ‘1,000’—the Patience of the Lord.
Though you and I may fail 1,000 times, “He is a faithful God who shows it by keeping his covenant of unfailing love for 1,000
generations” (Deut. 7:9 edited). Not to worry; there are still lots of generations (and posts) yet to come!
I love idioms: using words to create pictures. However, most are not to be taken literally. Think about the dreadful pictures conjured up by these: “You're killing me” or “I almost died laughing” or “you’re beating a dead horse” or “he lost his head” or "I'm bending over backwards."
We’re all familiar with the phrase: "Say what you mean, and mean what you say." Well, idioms are an exception. And if people don’t know that, they can be very confused. Now "hold your horses," I do have a point.
I think Christians must seem idiomatic to nonbelievers. We say we are about love, but our claims to exclusivity in matters of salvation can create a picture of intolerance. We say we are accepting, but our resistance to anything unbiblical can cause people to see us as mean-spirited. And though we can't control how people picture us, we can make every effort to be people who "say what they mean and mean what they say." And even more, to say what they mean without being mean when they say it. Picture that!
