As Jesus and the disciples walked along the road to Emmaus, he explained to them how he was reveals and came to fulfill the Old Testament scriptures about the Holy One.  These were scriptures all good Jews would have known and would have studied and heard preached.  Yet on this day the scriptures seemed new to their ears.  The living word was made new again in their hearts.

Sometimes when I read a passage that I have read or even studied before, sometimes something new jumps out at me.  Does that ever happen to you?  The living word is made alive in a new way within us.  It may be a passage I ‘know’ but there is this new nugget.  We are not who we were when we first read it and we are not the same person after discovering our new nugget.  This is why we are on a journey of faith.  We never ‘arrive’.  In the DEVO today the author wrote of their love for geocaching.  It was not in the finding of the cache or in using the technology.  The joy came from noticing all of the details in God’s creation as she carefully looked for the cache – things she would never have noticed and found joy in if she were simply on a hike.  The Bible can be the word of God or it can be the living word of God.  We can read a passage or we can engage a passage.  We can be simply reading or we can be seeking to find new nuggets.  We can think we have ‘arrived’ or we can be on a journey.

And like the two disciples walking along the road with Jesus, once they allowed the living word to change them, they realized that Emmaus was not their destination anymore.  God was leading them somewhere else and they left for Jerusalem.  May we too allow God’s living word to speak freshly into our lives and to be the guide that directs our paths and that brings us new growth on our journey.