Every Story Speaks His Name

There are mornings when my alarm plays gentle worship music and I wake up, pour the coffee, and turn straight to my Bible like I’m walking into the throne room of heaven.

And then there are mornings I scroll Instagram before my eyes even focus.

I’m a pastor. I love Jesus. And I confess that I still have mornings—entire weeks, even—when it’s easier to reach for noise than for the Word. Nights when I convince myself a Guardians game or another reread of a comic book will quiet my soul better than the Psalms ever could.

But it never works. Because nothing satisfies the soul like the sound of Scripture opening.

When I crack open the spine and sit beneath the words that breathed galaxies into existence, I remember what I’ve been missing.

God doesn’t just speak in the Bible.
He whispers, shouts, sings, and bleeds.

But what happens when we stop listening?

Crack open the book of Judges, and you’ll find out. And I know—it’s not the first place you’d expect a devotional about Bible reading to land. It’s dark. Bleak. One of those parts of the Bible that feels more like a warning label than an inspirational quote. You won’t find many life verses on Etsy from Judges. But that’s exactly why we need it.

Because Judges shows us what life looks like when we abandon the voice of God.

The book opens with promise—Israel in the land, ready to walk with the God who rescued them. But it doesn’t take long for forgetfulness to turn into faithlessness. Over and over again, the people drift. They ignore God’s Word. They do what feels right. And it always ends the same way: destruction, despair, and desperation.

The cycle is brutal. Sin. Suffering. Crying out. Rescue. Repeat. It’s like watching someone stuck in a loop they don’t know how to break. The deeper you go into Judges, the worse it gets. And by the end, it’s almost unwatchable. Civil war. Moral collapse. Unthinkable violence. The last verse lands like a tombstone:
“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

No compass. No King. No Word. Just chaos.

Judges is a mirror for what happens when we trade the voice of God for the noise of our desires. When Scripture becomes a closed book on the shelf instead of the lamp to our feet. It’s not just ancient history—it’s the modern condition. When we stop hearing from God, we don’t just get lost. We get wrecked.

And yet—grace whispers, even here.

Because even this story—one so bleak and broken—speaks His name. The Judges themselves, flawed as they were, pointed forward to a greater Deliverer. Every rescue, temporary as it was, hinted at the One who would come to break the cycle of sin once and for all. The darkness doesn’t drown Him. It only sets the stage for the light.

The blood on the pages of Judges cries out for justice. And Jesus is the answer.

Yet, when we turn one page from the ending of Judges, Ruth opens like a whisper in a world of screaming chaos.

The first line of the book places us squarely in the same timeline as Judges: “In the days when the judges ruled…” That’s not just a timestamp—it’s a theological thunderclap. It means this tender story of love and loyalty is set during one of the most violent, godless, and gut-wrenching chapters in all of Israel’s history. A time when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes”—which is Bible-speak for “the wheels had completely come off.”

But right there in the rubble of Israel’s rebellion, God was writing a story that would lead to redemption.

Ruth doesn’t begin in strength, but in sorrow. A famine. A funeral. A family undone. Naomi is bitter. Ruth is barren. They are poor, vulnerable, and overlooked. No kings. No prophets. No miracles. Just two widows, limping back to Bethlehem with nothing but broken hearts and empty hands.

And yet… God was there.

He was there in the barley field. In the routine. In the silence. He was there in Boaz—a man of quiet strength and fierce compassion, whose kindness foreshadowed the kindness of Another.

Boaz is called a “kinsman-redeemer,” a legal role in ancient Israel that allowed a relative to step in and rescue a family line from extinction. He redeems Ruth—not just her name or her future, but her entire story. He gives her a new home, a new hope, a new legacy.

And here’s what’s astonishing: Ruth, the Moabite outsider, becomes the great-grandmother of King David. And from David’s line comes Jesus—the true and better Redeemer, born in the very same town where Ruth gleaned grain and grace.

Do you see it?

Even in the time of the Judges—when Israel forgot their God—God had not forgotten His people. While nations spiraled and leaders fell, He was weaving a story of salvation in the background. A love story that whispers the name of Jesus.

Because that’s what Scripture always does.

When things feel hopeless, it reminds us: Christ is still coming.
When the night is darkest, it says: He is still working.
When you think the story is over, the page turns.
And grace shows up in the field.

Ruth is not just a tale of romance—it’s a portrait of redemption. A woman beloved. A redeemer who risks everything. A future rewritten by grace.

And it’s all pointing forward to the One who would one day walk into our broken story, take our shame, and make us His own. Not with a bag of barley, but with His blood.

The Redeemer has come.
And every story—even this one—speaks His name.

There’s a reason we say every story speaks His name. Because woven through every page of Scripture is a crimson thread—the blood of a Savior, the silhouette of a Redeemer, the whisper of the Word made flesh.

You cannot read the Bible and miss Jesus—not if you’re really looking. He’s there in the beginning, the Word by whom all things were made. He’s the seed promised in Genesis, the Passover Lamb in Exodus, the priest and the sacrifice in Leviticus. He’s the greater Joshua, the better David, the faithful prophet, the suffering servant, the Son given and the King enthroned.

Jesus isn’t just in the Bible—He is the point of the Bible.

And that’s why studying Scripture is indispensable to knowing God and following Jesus. You cannot separate them. To know the Father, you must come through the Son. And to come to the Son, you must hear the Word. “Faith comes from hearing,” Paul says, “and hearing through the word of Christ.”

The Bible is not just ancient ink on thin pages. It is the voice of your Maker. The breath of the Spirit. The light in the dark. The daily bread your soul craves. It is how God reveals Himself and reintroduces you to yourself. Because the more you see Jesus, the more clearly you see everything else.

You see the world rightly—not as it pretends to be, but as it truly is.
You see sin for what it is—deception, destruction, death.
You see yourself—not as worthless, not as invincible, but as someone broken and beloved, in need of mercy and made for glory.

This is not Bible reading to impress God or earn points. This is coming to the Word because Jesus meets us there. And when He meets us, He changes us.

You open the Book—and the Book opens you.

When you feel dry, Scripture is the cool glass of water.
When you feel empty, it feeds you.
When you feel lost, it leads you.
When you feel ashamed, it covers you with grace.
When you feel weak, it reminds you: your strength is not in yourself, but in your Savior.

So open the Word—not as a box to check, but as a lifeline to grip.
Let its pages draw you near to the One who came near.
Let its words do their holy work—teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training you in righteousness.
Because when you come to the Scriptures, you come to the Savior.

And every story—even yours—speaks His name.