April 6, 2009
I’m wishing to get started again on my family stories, photo scanning, blogging, going to coffee times, visiting friends… must be starting to feel better (even if my back is still sore).
I’ve been kind of struggling with my Bible read-through… maybe because my daily reads have been in the Pentateuch (as well as a Psalm and a NT gospel chapter daily) at the same time as I’ve been “studying” Deuteronomy. Finally finished that study a week or so ago… and haven’t started anything new. Really don’t want to do another “history” book just now. Finished Deuteronomy read-through yesterday and started Joshua today. I fell like I “should” do an OT “study” now… but am really longing for the NT … especially one of the epistles! Of course I’ve done ALL the NT “studies” in my “inductive study Bible” long since… plus the Psalms and Pentateuch.
I don’t mind the OT history books… but I don’t know: I don’t “know” You in the same way (in OT study) as in Your Word to me in the NT. The OT seems to be so much about rules and regulations – and it seems like, why do I have to spend so much time “mired down” in “studying” them when I’ve been freed from them by You? I do appreciate seeing the “big picture” … and I do get to really see (even know) aspects of You (refuge, Rock, shepherd, justice, etc) there… but there seem to be whole parts of You that are missing in the OT or at least only hinted at.
Maybe I’ve been thinking I “have to finish” the “inductive study” of the whole Bible, especially since I’ve already been working at it for so long. Maybe it’s the “school teacher/ student” in me that demands that I “finish the course,” or “complete the curriculum” or “get an A” or whatever… which is a rules-and-regulations system that I’ve pretty much rejected, so far as school is concerned. But maybe I’m still thinking that way in terms of my “Bible study.” It seems to be becoming a “necessary evil” that I “have to complete” in order to get my “graduation certificate.” Which is ridiculous! There’s so little enjoyment (though I’ve loved it in the past). Maybe at some point, I lost my “first love” related to it, my enthusiasm, my passion: finding, knowing, being with You in it – and yet it’s become a drudgery too often. (And as long as I’m relating that drudgery to YOU… it’s definitely not healthy for my relationship to You, either!).
So if You don’t mind, I think I’m going to “lay aside” my “NASB Inductive study” for now… and just sit back and soak up Your words to me in the NT… just listen and enjoy… and chat with You about what You are saying to me… without a goal to “study” or to “complete the program” or whatever. No curriculum, due dates, tests, papers, grading, report cards… just friends enjoying each other, getting to know You, fellowship, relationship, learning adventure!
(Adventure suggests that there are surprises around the bend, some exciting risk-taking, enjoyment, curiosity… instead of planned drudgery with the goal of a “completion certificate” at the end).
I’ve been thinking about that “job possibility” over on Vancouver Island at that Christian School… and I just can’t “go there” again… it just seems to me, after the past four years of “Christian school,” that there is something very inherently wrong in using the “methods of school” in place of the “adventure of Life with YOU – the LIFE!” – and if it’s a wrong approach for “learning/education with a Christian worldview” I bet it’s also wrong for me to do much the same with my “daily devotions” ….
My daughter is urging me to get back to “going to church” and “being an active member.” She didn’t have much of anything to do with it for years, and at the moment she is finding it exciting, and she is “knowing You” in the midst of it… much as I was when I started the “inductive Bible study”… and even as I did with “church” when I first really came to You…
So does that beg the question – is it really “the church system” or “the study system” or the “school system” that is the problem… or is it that at some point I wandered away from the “adventured” and got drawn, dragged, into the “system?” Is it then possible to be “in the system” but “of the adventure” (like “in the world” but “of the heavenly kingdom”…)? I really, really long for relationship with You AND Your family… but if Your family (that I know) are pretty much all hanging out in the system, should I then be “in the system” in order to be with them, and (hopefully) manage to stay connected to You, living the adventure of Life with You?
Okay, this is a serious question I have, but have been scared to ask, because somehow it seems like it might be construed as “heretical”: is it possible to be in relationship with You (Your Life, adventure, reality), while at the same time (at least for a period) pretty much “disconnected” from “the body/ the family?”
And – why is it so hard to find others who are far more interested in Your life, Your way, Your adventure, than in any “system” that supposedly supports it? No wonder people don’t want to leave the system (besides that they’ve been taught that the system is the way to Your life – there can be a difference, can’t there, between “Your way” and “the way to You?”)… anyway, people don’t want to leave the system because they are afraid they’ll be lonely and alone… sure, they’ll have YOU… but they might not have other, human, flesh-and-blood-people to be with. And it does seem that You have made us to need others… that whole “body” metaphor… okay, maybe this is another horrible thing to say… but there seems, to me, to be something incomplete about a head (YOU) and a little finger or whatever (me). Is that a horrible, wicked thing for me to say?
Oh dear, now I’m going to say another horrible thing… if YOU are so incredible (and in my experience, You are), then why do so few people seem attracted to really “following You” like the disciples did? (Well of course there were only 12 disciples, and one of them wasn’t, as it turned out. And while thousands were attracted to the fish-and-loaves perks, most of those eager followers evaporated when You started talking about eating-Your-body and drinking-Your-blood and taking-up-Your-cross… but then You sent Your Spirit, and Your church grew by leaps and bounds… but then there were all kinds of system-loving people wanting to do the Judaistic-rules-and-regs or the Greek “secret-knowledge” or whatever… I guess things don’t change much…
Why is it so easy to lose “first love?”
What if a lot of people who consider themselves Christians – Your followers – really aren’t? What if they’re just following a system? You look on the heart… You know if they’re doing that because that’s what they’ve been taught… so can’t You draw them closer to Yourself? Or?
Does anyone else wonder these things? Do they even matter? Is it just the enemy trying to destract me? (I’m pretty easily distracted by mind games, I’m afraid…)
Okay, so enough already with my questions…
I’m going to Your Word (the NT part!)… and You… to hear what YOU have to say! I’m SO longing for adventure for You…. I’m totally tired of wherever I’ve been lately.
