Blue Books (Nov 15)

I'm sure that everybody that has been through college has fond memories of the blue books. It gives me a warm feeling just thinking about it. No, I'm kidding. You know, the blue books are those small composition notebooks (with a blue cover of course) that many professors require you to use for exams, particularly if the exam requires essays or pertains to literature or philosophy. If you've ever taken a blue book exam, you'll remember the feeling of coming into the classroom and having nothing on the desk except for a blank blue book and a pencil. Then you begin to write. You write and write until the book is full. Sometimes you have only one question and sometimes many questions, but you must fill that book with all of the right answers if you hope to get an A for the course. There are other exams, of course, which don't require the blue book, but these written exams came to mind as one of the more pressured and stressful types of exams. But, for any exam, you'll remember that you usually study a lot before hand. Sometimes the professor gives you an idea of what information will be on the exam and sometimes they leave it very vague so that you will study everything (after all, they want you to learn ALL of the information). I'm sure we all had at least one professor that would give exams that were so difficult that we had to study for days, memorizing every little detail so that we had a chance of getting most of the answers correct. But, I also had the occasional professor that would let us use notes or some other resource while taking the exam. These exams were often the easiest, because if I had good notes or a good resource, I could readily find the answers.

Well, let's face it: life can be difficult and every day we usually face a test. We go through trials and we deal with temptations. Even on a good day (which are hopefully more often than the bad ones), we have decisions to make.

Psalm 119:105-112

105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. 106 I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments. 107 I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word. 108 Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me thy judgments. 109 My soul is continually in my hand: yet do I not forget thy law. 110 The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts. 111 Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. 112 I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes always, even unto the end.

You ask: How can I live righteously? How can I know the answers? How can I do the right thing? I make a commitment today to follow God and live for Him, but how can avoid going my own way and know the fullness of the truth to live by?

You have the Word of God and also access to the Heart of God. It's like being allowed to bring notes and other resources in to take that big blue book exam. One time I had a professor that gave the class a question a day or two before the exam. We were allowed to study it, consider it, and even write out some thoughts. On exam day, we had only a blank blue book and had to fill it cover-to-cover with an essay that answered the given question. Can you imagine how it would have been if we were allowed to bring in notes? I could have written the essay at home with all of the resources at my disposal and then simply copied the essay into the blue book on exam day. You have all of the resources of God at your disposal. Spend much time in God's Word! Spend much time in prayer discovering the heart of God! Be open to hear God's voice! Later today or maybe tomorrow you might have a real-life blue book exam, but remember that you can have the notes with you! You can have God and His Word with you!