​It happened again. Someone I know was facing a problem, people threw Bible verses at her, promised to pray, and then sat back and waited to hear a good report.

Guess what didn't happen? Anything good. In fact, things got worse. A lot worse.

She stopped talking to her Christian friends, she drew back from church, from God, and day by day a little more bitterness set in. Finally, she walked away from her faith as if it were a bad dream, a time where she was out of touch with reality, unable to address her real problems because she had sank too deeply into denial of what was really going on in the world around her.

Reality wasn't any less scary than the dream, it may have been even worse, but at least now she wasn't forced to face her problems and fears by muttering "For I know the plans I have for you..." under her breath to a God who didn't seem to have a plan at all. Or worse if he did, it was one of pain, frustration, and futility.

And I can't really blame her. I have been there myself, and faith does seem pointless when the only support your friends have to offer are words. Words supposedly written to and about me, about you, but which never seem to pan out.

But what else do we as Christians have to offer her or anyone else in a painful situation? It seems as if all we know about our faith is how it is supposed to make us feel, how it is supposed to be the answers to our problems, and how it the grand arbiter of all things ME.

We approach the Bible like a band aid or some prescription drug to be applied to our lives as needed. We pull out the passages that we like, that inspire us, or otherwise make us feel good about ourselves. We skip over those passages that are too ugly or too hard to understand. We label them as "irrelevant" or, if we are being honest, "too boring."

Oh, we might skim through them in our attempts to read through the Bible in a year or as we take our daily preventive dose in quiet time - because you know "a chapter a day keeps the devil away." But we don't study them, we don't dig into them, and we definitely do not sit and ponder what they might mean apart from ourselves.

I think this is the problem: we treat the Bible and its words as some sort of magic talisman that is supposed to serve us. And in doing so we have missed the point of why it was given to us.

The Bible, first and foremost, was written to reveal the tiniest glimpse of God's glory and power. It contains a record of how he has been present in history, weaving together the often selfish and sinful acts of man into a redeeming whole, redeeming even the worst of times to reveal himself as sovereign and almighty. But we cannot see this if we do not see how his word is constructed, story built upon story, verse upon verse, in a brilliant display of artistry and grandeur.

We can't see this if we refuse to look upon the ugly parts of this text, the confusing and horrifying tales of humanity at its worst. Because who needs a hero if there is no threat? Who needs to be saved if there is not destruction? Neither side of the story rings true if we neglect the other.

Pretty verses ripped from their context to be cross stitched and hung on walls or emblazoned across serene pictures to share on social media do not have the strength to carry one through the hard times. It is only when we realize that these beautiful words were often spoken at the most desperate of times do they have the power to inspire and heal.

Even then we must be careful to realize that the power is not in the words themselves because they are not some spell to be cast or ward to keep the demons at bay. They are powerful because of the One who spoke them.

Hurting people do not need more Scripture flung at their heads.

They need the God who gave us the Scripture, and that means they need you.

They need the you who was called to live out the truths written in this book, and they need the you who has been inspired by this book to move in faith and in awe of a God who shows himself to be faithful in the words of this book. But we cannot do that if we have been content to get our theology from the shallow pools of memes and inspirational sayings. That only comes from intentional study of his Word and a willingness to live in the light of the full truth revealed there.