The journey through a book

So I set out into this new year not with resolutions, but on a journey.  To improve/strengthen myself in terms of getting more exercise, more sleep, eating healthier foods, spending more time growing spiritually, having more patience with myself so I can do so with others.  I think I have done pretty well the first half of the month.  I am definitely eating healthier, getting more sleep, improving how often I work out, but can still use some work on that.  The part I am most excited/proud of is the work I am doing growing spiritually.  I have discovered the best way for me to finally go through and read the entire Bible in a year.  By listening to the pod-casts on my computer each evening, or whenever it works best into my day, I am reading along in my Bible and enjoy listening to a brief summary placing what I just read/heard in context of the world back when it was written.  I have never read through the Bible before, but believe it will only deepen my understanding and help strengthen my faith.  Along with reading/listening, I also just finished reading the book, Passages:  How reading the bible in a year will change everything for you  by Brian Hardin.  He is the man who began pod-casting the reading of the bible six years ago, as he worked in the recording/music with Christian music and was doing it the first year to keep himself accountable for making his resolution of reading through the entire bible.  Not only did he do so, but in a few months, a website was set up with interactive chat rooms to discuss the readings.  Prayer rooms, or links so that you can state a pray request or find someone to pray for around the clock.  He found such positive, amazing results in his own life with this experience, that he continued on the following year and the years to follow due to all the positive feedback from others, all over the world.  He can now be heard in all different languages, travels around the world with his wife at times, to meet, share/listen to stories from lives touched by his ministry.

In December, 2011, his book was published and a review of it in a Christian magazine I enjoy reading, it what brought me to all of this.  I just finished reading this book yesterday and it was wonderful.  What was also amazing was that the message I read Saturday night in the chapters I had just finished was the same message that I was hearing my pastor share in church yesterday morning.  It was about allowing yourself time, silence, a chance to listen for God speaking to you.  Whether it be through the written words in the Bible, through the spoken word, or through words that others say to you.  Some believe God is always trying to speak to us, if we only allow ourselves to listen, to become aware of his help and guidance.  Our pastor said yesterday that when she decided to go to seminary, she never had that magical experience that some do, where God actual speaks directly to her.  But she believes it was God speaking to her through others, friends and family that brought her to where she is.  A story she told also gave a example of a women who continued to pray through a challenging time in her life and didn't understand why God wasn't answering her prayers...come to find out he was, just not in the direct way she was expecting.

So I was trying to decide what it was about this book I liked so much, so that I could summarize it for you today.  Of course I enjoyed the gray boxes from real people who had experienced change in their life, with each unique example, but I don't think I'd suggest the book based on that.  I think it is the way the author speaks of his own real life. 

I considered the poverty of the semi-agnostic life I'd been living.  Let's be honest:  Isn't that pretty much how many of us live as Western Christians?  We acknowledge God and possibly even go to church regularly.  Perhaps we even donate generously.  But when push comes to shove, what kind of spiritual foundation do we really have?  pg 18

He was right, I was, I am searching for that foundation.  So that when I talk with others who are not sure, questioning Christianity, I am better informed to discuss with them.  Not just that, but to understand that others, thousands of years ago faced hardships and survived/thrived with the help of God. 

The Bible isn't hocus pocus and reading it doesn't give you magical powers, but it does reveal to you who you really are and illumines a path that you were created to walk.  When I began to believe its words and obey its instructions, life began to align with what it said, and this has made all the difference.  My heart has been transformed completely.  I find myself passionate about hings that previously seemed drudgery.  The neon blinking lights of culture do not seduce me as they once did.  I have little use for the plastic life that makes many promises but rarely delivers anything at all.  pg 26

The Bible isn't a magic book of ancient wisdom; it's a book about life and about God's love for you....The Bible will challenge you to reorient your life to God and will offer you the life you were created to live-which may not be the life you are currently in.  What you'll find is the utter relief of truly trusting God and finally believing that although his ways are beyond us, he actually knows what he's doing.  He really does love us, is present and wants authentic life to be our everyday experience.... pg 43 

He continues on explaining that we will receive hope, peace, correction, guidance and self-discipline, life, maturity, and a friend with endless benefits.  Brian explains that the Bible must be approached a as story through God's people through history and reminds us it hasn't ended, that we too are a part of it.  He stresses that the Bible wasn't made for you to open and magically be drawn to a couple words for guidance, but rather you need to read and absorb, take in and process. 

The Bible is a book of examples, not a book of exceptions.  The characters in Scripture are unlikely heroes....The Bible isn't devoid of utter humanity and frailty.  The heroes and heroines on its pages were all ordinary people who, with God's help, did extraordinary things.  All the grit of life is in the Bible because all the grit of humanity is what brings the biblical context to life....This is the story of the people of the Bible.  This is our story.  pg 71

Again, I loved the way Brain helps us to take a different perspective at what we are reading. 

If we're going to grow into the maturity God has designed us to have, we must modify our thinking.  We must begin to think in terms of wholeness, connection, and integration-about the proverbial forest as well as the trees.  This is a stark contrast to modern culture, which has us parsing life into small, disconnected elements that we can arrange and rearrange to fit our circumstance's. pg 72

For Scripture to have the impact we long for and to bring us the life it promises, we have to be willing to follow wherever it leads us.  This is going to wreak some havoc on our best-laid plains--especially for those of us who gauge our value with checklists and efficiency quotas.  But is also the only way to discover genuine life...We dont' merely read the Bible; we live it.  That's how we experience life with God.  Life on earth is not a waiting game.  pg 101

This is the last part I'll quote for you....and then I'll explain why I did...

His commitment to making space in his life to listen to God was a vital component of his life and ministry. (referring to Jesus) Trying to keep up with the speed of the world we live in and dealing with the endless distractions and obligations pressing in on every side of our lives threaten the very core of who we are as spiritual beings created in the image of God.  In the midst of this kind of life, what would happen if we sat still, even just of five minutes?  No texting, no phone calls, no email, no television, no radio and no Internet.  What would five minutes of distraction-free silence be like?  What about ten?  Fifteen?  At what point would we be ready to crawl out of our skin?  Our discomfort with silence, with stillness, reveals how addicted we are to motion.  It shapes and defines us.  We dont' want to be alone without the comfort of something to do, a distration within arm's reach.  Yet, if we are unwilling to withdraw to a solitary place---to make sacred space in our lives for God---we will never be quiet enough to hear the whispers of guidance we need to simply survived, much less experience life to the full.  pg 102

That, my friends, is what stuck out most in this entire book.  That was, as Oprah calls it, the "ah-ha" moment.  Trying to mediate, to relax at the end of yoga class, trying to be okay with not having places to go and things to do...that is my and I think many of our biggest challenges.  Because, being alone all weekend without my kids this past weekend, with no plans, no other people to talk to, that is what you have to face the silence.  Silence is something I've always been scared of.  Yes, I have the TV on many times for background noise...or I am sitting with my laptop searching Facebook, Pinterest or just finding anything to do so that I won't have to be forced to just be, with my thoughts.  That is why I don't go to bed until late hours at night, until I am ready to fall asleep sitting up in my chair, as I know if I go to bed any earlier, I'll be faced with that stillness, that silence.  I have grown up in that Western/modern culture where we always have something that can distract us if we so desire. 

Forcing myself to face the silence, that is that scary part, but why?  I think because all the thoughts, worries, anxieties about my life come rushing to the front of my mind, overwhelm my head with stress and concern at times.  But reading and listening to the passages of the Bible each night, taking time to thinking about what is being said and how I can apply each lesson to my life, that gives me another way to face the silence.  To become stronger in my faith and understanding that I shouldn't be waisting energy on those anxieties anyway, as God will take care of me and to instead listen to what he has to say, that is where I should go when silence arrives.  It is not what we are use too.  Giving control of our problems in life to God and it is not something we release easily.  I have gone in spurts, the past few years, of having faith, giving over my troubles to God and having the faith that he will help me through the tough times and help me discover joy in life again.  Why is it that we are so easily taken away from being at that level of faith?  I guess that is part of being human.  Doubting, being sucked into beliefs that it wont' get better, I won't be okay, allowing fear to get the better of me.

Instead of using this blog entry to update you on my challenges in my life, as I used up eleven pages in my journal Saturday night writing about how concerned I was about things, I decided to instead give them to God and have faith that he will take care of those things.  As Brain Hardin said at the end or start of one of the pod casts I recently listened to, what if we take this Bible and believe it, hold it to be true, have faith in it, if only for one year, imagine how life changing it could be.  After the last year in my life, I am ready to journey deeper into a better understanding of my faith, in Christianity.  Who knows where it will take me...