The Bible

The Bible is not forcing us to do something, it’s inviting us to be a part of something. God says, “obedience” not to force us to say yes sir, but rather so we can be healed of the pain that life, as an imperfect human, creates. The Bible is not full of men and women that lived, unattainable, perfect lives, as a model for the perfection that we must strive for. It is rather a testimony of what life can be when lived for God. God is not telling us that we must, seek him first, refrain from sin, pray continually, or any other bit of advice in order to gain salvation. Rather God tells us to do these things so that we can live and operate in the beauty of His presence. It’s not that He won’t speak when we are choosing to sin, listen to secular music, watch an unedifying movies, or doing anything else in our media driven culture, but its just that with all of these voices his is drowned out. The beauty of the Bible is that its amazingly up front. God very clearly communicates what life with Him will look like. It’s not meant to be a book of rules but rather an exciting vision casting for what your life could look be. God is clear, He says in order to experience him in a powerful way there are things that must be present in our lives. It’s not because He is so insecure that He doesn’t want us to see the other options. God just knows that we are so easily distracted by things and our flesh is so weak that many times we would not choose the right option. The Bible is a beautiful dream of what your life could be. It will be destroyed for you when you allow it to become a religious manual. We read verses like, “Jesus prayed early in the morning” and say we need to be disciplined to pray like Jesus did. But Jesus met with God early in the morning because there was nothing in his day more important to Him. It was not out of obligation but rather a deep passionate desire to be with the father. The life of Jesus is not a picture of perfection that we must work to obtain, but all the time knowing that we never can. The life of Jesus is a wonderful example of what a life can be. David’s intimacy with God is not meant to create a mandate to seek God but rather to show what close relationship with the father looks like. King Asa’s destruction of the idols is not an insecure god’s need to be worshiped but rather an example of a heart that is fully committed to Him. We take what I believe God meant to be exciting, motivating, and fascinating and turn it in to a burdensome yoke that creates rules and regulations. For 10,000 years God has been trying to motivate us to live fully in the capabilities that we are able, to not obligate us to pick him. Consider me motivated.

Funny the way it is

Life is so much bigger than me. Something that is not new to my thinking, but I don’t know if I really took this into being a part of who I am, making that something I live by daily. Funny the way that is. I think to myself how beautiful life is and how great my GOD is but I forget at times and get wrapped up in doing rather than being and think that the world is collapsing in on me and my problems. Something that I have been hearing a lot lately is to “stop asking God why is this or why did this happened to me but how can I grow from this situation”. My problems look like specks of sand to God, but He still cares and loves me enough to guide me through the situation/problem and help me grow from it. God has done so much in this life that He has given to me. I have to realize that Life is about Life and not so much what the world has for me, but what God gave to me to share to the world.