Bible Passages That Changed Our Lives

As we continue to roll through our series of lighthearted lists (grace-in-practice movies, paintings of Jesus, podcasts, and 21st-century novels) we figured it was time to do a Bible-themed poll. We hope you enjoy this two-part miniseries. Of course, the Bible is a long, wonderfully weird book, so it goes without saying that we are just scratching the surface with this diverse smattering of verses. In other words, if you’d like more Mockingbird-styled Bible reflections, be sure to check out our sermon archive, our lectionary podcast, and our fantastic devotionals and other books in our online store. You can’t go wrong! 

Genesis 15:6: “And he believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

This may just be the most important Bible verse in the whole of the Old Testament. Abram is famous for a half-dozen major screwups in his life, all of which are recorded in the Bible for posterity. And yet, God recognizes that, despite all his flaws, Abram has one major thing going for him: he trusts God when God makes a promise. Before the Ten Commandments, before the laws of Moses, before the kings and prophets, God is saving sinners by grace, justifying them through faith, just like he does today. Anyone who says otherwise has never read either testament, Old or New. –Bryan Jarrell

Genesis 17:1: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him …”

It might not seem like much, but to twenty-year-old me at a crossroad in life, this verse was a life saver. Most readers note how old Abraham is when God appears to tell Abraham that he will be blessed with many descendants. And understandably so — Abraham makes a big deal of his grey hair to God. What jumped out to me, however, was how thirteen whole years had passed between this verse and the preceding one. Thirteen years since the Hagar/Ishmael saga and who knows how many more since the last time God spoke to Abraham (Gen 15). Some Christians believe God speaks to them every day or that they regularly find God in the small joys of life. I mean, maybe? But Abraham’s experience was far different. His faithfulness was not sustained by God telling him what to do in the day-to-day, but in holding fast to an ancient promise amid long years of divine radio silence. –Todd Brewer

Exodus 3:11-12: “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you…’”

Infanticide survivor. Hebrew. Egyptian. Murderer. Fugitive. Shepherd? A snapshot at the first 40 years of Moses’ life. Yet “beyond the wilderness,” where all is stripped away, a fire like an eternal menorah burns. When the divine one offers Moses a new life charged with meaning, Moses asks the question I can’t stop asking, “Who Am I?” When I was young like Moses when he was prince of Egypt, I would’ve told you that at 35 I’d know the answer – but like Moses, I don’t. How relieving that God doesn’t answer Moses’ question, not really. Rather than manifest for Moses the million reasons why he’s good, the fire’s answer burns up the law with incendiary grace, “I will be with you.” At my most beat-up and insecure — so, basically every Monday morning — there is a voice from beyond the beyond that burns hotter than burnout. “Who am I?” “I. Am. With. You.” –Josh Gritter

Leviticus 19:9-10: “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”

We tend to see laws as a bulwark against receiving judgment, but here God commands us to leave a mess. Don’t tidy, tie up loose ends, or present your best self. And then let others in. The modern catchword is vulnerability. But where does such risky freedom come from? “I am the Lord your God.” These verses have been a gift to me, letting others and Jesus in, to bring mutual blessing. –Ryan Alvey

Psalm 18:19: “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

This verse was first spoken over me by one of the mentors in my church several years ago. I had asked her to walk with me as I explored three decades of repressed anger. Having graduated from a K–12 private Christian school in which we did our school work in cubicles, let’s just say my relationship with Jesus was very structured and based on grades. But this verse “caught my heart off guard and blew it open,” as Seamus Heaney writes in Postscript. What blows me away is it’s out of sheer delight in me that God brings me out. It’s not circumstantial, it’s in my very being, my soul. I’ve meditated on this verse for close to six years now, and the Holy Spirit has enabled me to shed old skin, thereby growing compassion for myself and others and our control issues. I don’t think I’ll ever stop meeting Jesus in spacious places. –Janell Downing

Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?”

This is the verse that was chosen for me by my youth leader when I was confirmed in my faith. Many times in confirmation classes, churches have the students choose their own verse. I love that my youth leader chose it for me because he knew better than I did what words I would need repeated in my brain throughout my life. On that day, I kneeled at the altar, my parents placed their hands on me, and my youth leader read this verse and prayed over me. These words have reminded me time and time again (because let’s face it, I am a bit of a scaredy-cat) that there is absolutely nothing that I need to fear with the Lord as my light and my salvation. –Juliette Alvey

Psalm 51:8: “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.”

I remember the first Ash Wednesday I actually noticed these scandalous words tucked away in this familiar psalm. I had been a pastor long enough to taste failure. I had been a pastor long enough to taste the easy bromides of faith turn to ash in my mouth. That took approximately eighteen months, and I suspect I’m a slow learner. That year, the truth of these words landed like a ton of bricks. I wouldn’t say it was my introduction to the Theology of the Cross, but it was the beginning of my discovery that this theology is no academic enterprise. It’s the radical proclamation that can make a person blurt, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…” (Job 13:15) Or it can make some ordinary midwesterners shuffle up to the front of the church to be marked with ashes and oil and hear a reminder of death that sounds like a promise of death’s demise. –Ryan Cosgrove

Psalm 71:3: “Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; you are my crag and my stronghold.”

For the past few years, Psalm 71 has been a tremendous source of peace. I encountered it during a particularly uncertain time in life. My wife and I had just moved our family to a new city for me to go to seminary. We had two small children with zero income and Covid was raging. Before class, a professor read this psalm aloud slowly and deliberately as I closed my eyes and let the words above wash over me. At that time I had been praying for guidance and for God to direct my future. It then occurred to me that the answer to my prayers was not that God would give me a castle to keep me safe, but that He himself would be the castle. He would not simply provide a crag for me, but rather be the crag. For me, it was a new way of belief, that Jesus does not simply give me things such as safety, security and peace; he gives me his very self, the source of every good and perfect thing. –Sam Bush

Psalm 137:9: “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”

My (unlikely) verse is Psalm 137:9. I’m not joking. In 1972, after experiencing the Rapid City flood in which 238 people drowned, this kid from an alcoholic family went to Bible camp. There among the ponderosa pines of the Black Hills, I had the scriptures opened to me for the first time. This psalm was the gateway through which I encountered a word that was big enough to encompass disaster and dysfunction. If God isn’t afraid of the rawness in the psalm, maybe God is able to deal with what I see in my life. Wild. –Ken Jones

Psalm 139:8-12: “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

As someone who struggles with depression and mental illness, these verses were some of the first that showed me that God is always with us and that God is not afraid of darkness, in fact darkness is as light to him. My personal darkness, whatever that may be, is not even dark to him. I memorized these verses during a particularly low period, and they often come to mind when I face the dark, knowing that God is holding me close and is right there with me in the scary and sad times. –Jane Grizzle

Psalm 139: “If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

Some people might find it a little suffocating to be “hem[med] in, behind and before,” but find it immensely reassuring. The best part is that no realm of geography or, metaphorically, of human experience — no matter how dark or remote — is separate from God, and “even the darkness is not dark” to God. It is probably the closest thing I have to an adult security blanket. –William McDavid

Isaiah 43:1-4: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

Standing at a pay phone (remember those?) at the Mall of America in Minnesota without a Kleenex for my tears or nose, Pastor Mary gave me this verse. I had just seen a movie that unleashed spasms of pain from my husband’s alcoholism and our subsequent separation. How can words heal pain? I don’t know, but this scripture began to bring peace to my feelings of betrayal. I heard a promise in these words. The “waters” or “fires” of the moment would not overwhelm me because God was faithful and I was loved. –Marilu Thomas

Joel 2:25: “I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten …”

My father had died unexpectedly just a few hours earlier when I picked his Bible up off the coffee table. “God, if there was ever a time I needed something from you, now’s the time,” I said as I did the old — and not recommended — flop-open-to-a-verse maneuver. “Unless you are going to raise him from the dead, what in the world is this all about?” I asked the Promiser in exasperation after my eyes fell on the verse, repeatedly. God’s people were asking the same question as they were being ravaged by armies of people and/or insects; nothing was left. Since the cross, we know this is actually a gospel verse — the judgment has been paid, everything ravaged by evil is remade in Christ. I’ve had glimpses of that since Dad’s death; Dad is seeing it in its eternal fullness, now and forever. –Josh Retterer