Friday, January 16, 2009

define: to explain or identify the nature or essential qualities of something

During my devotions this past month or so, I have been into this concept of completely breaking down single verses or chapters. In essence: completely gutting the Word to figure out the meaning.

I have been "gutting" 1Samuel for some time now and last night in my studies I came across quite an interesting word: in.

It is such a simple word and we use it all the time, but what exactly does it mean? It is a preposition so we know it is a connecting word, but what does that mean?

I know it may seem irrelevant to be stuck on this one word in my study since there are other words that I could obviously choose to dwell on, but then I started thinking: even though in is a small word, it actually has big meaning. Think about it. When we use this word, we are usually using it as a connection word with God. For example: "In His Name" and "In Him we pray." So I pulled out my pocket dictionary; yes, I tend to carry a pocket dictionary; and these are the definitions that stuck out to me:
~contained by
~wearing
~with regard to
~because of
~those in power

Complete all those definitions with "Him" and that little word "in" seems so much more powerful doesn't it?
~contained by HIM
~wearing HIM
~with regard to HIM
~because of HIM
~those in power [HIM]

Ok so maybe you found this to be a pointless blog because that word is not as big as I am making it out to be, but for some reason it stuck out so I thought I would share what I learned. Next time you use one of those phrases, I hope you think about how much power those simple statements can actually have.

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