If you go ahead and develop this product, the Christian Fortune Cookies, please say you heard it here first, and be sure to do the honorable thing and send me the commission checks.

Here's what we do to God's word. We make it into little tasty Fortune Cookies. We tend to chop it up into little tasty morsels, just a bite-sized bit. We use just a tiny collection of inoffensive words, "Be still and know that I am God" and slather it over little slips of paper, little bumper stickers, little greeting cards and in general, try to take something BIG and make it little.

How do we do this? We edit the Word to make it portable or more palatable. Yes, I guess we section it off to make it easier to understand. We make Christian Fortune Cookies out of it. Like right here, right in front of me on my desk is a little card that says, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Nice fortune cookie. There's no reference cited so unless you know it's from the Bible, you'd have no idea where it came from. Maybe you think, "Is that referencing Oprah? Oprah is the way, the truth and the life?" Or worse yet, is that referencing me? I am the subject? I am the way? Who is this "I am"?

Perhaps you're suprised that the rest of the verse is not there on my little card. Are you? I'm not...because the rest of the verse says, "No one comes to the Father except through me." (By the way, it's from the Bible, John 14:6.)

That inflamatory statement, "No one comes to the Father except through me", while being the cornerstone of the gospel, is less tasty, so it's not included in our sweet lil' morsel.

This happens everywhere and the place it frustrates me the most is Bible Study. "Read Romans 12:8b and fill in the blanks." So specific. So cut and dried. So boring. So "just-one-correct-answer."

If we're studying the Bible, awesome, awesome, awesome. Let's do it. Let's read the verses that come before the referenced verse. Let's go crazy, let's read the verses that come after the referenced verses. It'll be nutty, let's read the whole chapter, the whole book.

Let's not make Christian Fortune Cookies any more.

My husband, Dave, asked this morning, "What are you thinking about?" I replied, "Nothing". This is a secret code which means, "Too much to summarize at this time." He knew enough to break the code and ask, "No, really, what are you thinking about?"

I'm thinking about my friend's sister, Lisa. Lisa has cancer and has just been referred to hospice. I believe God can heal her, I truly, truly do. Yet I cry out, like the father in the Book of Mark, "I do believe...help my unbelief." See, cancer has snuck up on my friends before and now I'm cynical. Cancer sucks. But God is God, and He has a plan, and I pray it's to heal Lisa this side of eternity. That's what I was thinking about.

I was thinking about one of my twins, Trevor. He's appearing before the Honor Board of his Christian School today. He copied his brother's homework...WORD FOR WORD. Good news, he admitted to it when the teacher questioned him. I mean, c'mon, he copied the misspellings and everything. I was thinking that I'd like to have a kid who was on the Honor Board, not appearing before the Honor Board. That's what I was thinking about.

I was thinking that my dad is getting test results back today. He had a malignant tumor removed from his bladder last Friday. Repeat, cancer sucks. I was thinking about him, praying for a good report today.

I was thinking about coffee and wishing the coffee machine was in my bedroom and not all the way downstairs.

And like most mornings, I was thinking about laundry.

What are you thinking about? What's on your mind? (Don't just say nothing because I know that's not entirely true.)

The Bible says that God knows us inside and out. He knows every word that we're going to say, before we even say it. He knows our hearts. He knows our mind. And here's what I realized today, He doesn't have to ask, "What are you thinking?" He already knows.

But still, like Dave, He likes to hear us tell all. He wants us to get it all out. Take a minute and tell God what you're thinking. He likes that.