Faith

Lately, I've worried too much about transmissions and hives. I scrambled from one partially completed project to another. I entered conversations dazed and left them trying to remember what was said. And I forgot what I read this morning: God keeps my way secure. How do I trust his security and stop trying to create my own?


Psalm 5
2 Samuel 22:21-51
Matthew 9:18-26
Romans 1:8-17

And so...I have abandoned The Book of Common Prayer for now. Instead, I'm trying to read through topics. This is my rewrite of the pattern...

Beginnings

Psalm 1, 2, 3/5, 7 [morning/evening]
Genesis 2
John 1:1-18
Hebrews 1:1-14

I have to admit some disappointment this morning when I realized the coming weeks of Epiphany readings are sending me back to the beginning. In an effort to read the Bible through from beginning to end, I've read Genesis countless times...usually fizzling out somewhere in Leviticus. But each of these readings pointed toward the beginning of God's story in a different way: John highlights Christ's presence "in the beginning" and Hebrews differentiates that presence from angelic beings. And today, as I read Genesis 2, I reflected on the creation of humanity. Rather than simply speaking us into being, God formed us with his own hands, breathed his life into us, created us in his image.

I need to know that. It seems that lately I've been questioning God's story overall. Somehow it was easier to believe in cosmic significance in my early 20's...and now, as I approach [gulp] 33, I wonder if this is it. I've gone from lofty (but never enacted) plans to assist in humanitarian efforts around the world to a more practical day to day existence. But when I read Psalm 1, which contrasts the firmly planted believer with the unbeliever blown about by the wind, I found this written in the margins: "a heavy life." And I want that heaviness--not in a melancholy, self-absorbed sort of way, but in building a life of depth, deep connection, and beautiful weight.

"Is the Lord among us or not?"

Psalms 121, 122, 123
/131, 132[morning/evening]
Isaiah 45:14-19
Colossians 1:24--2:7
John 8:12-19

When the normal schedule resumes, blogging apparently proves challenging. Time has again become a commodity, and I determine the worth of a task or event by time-spent. In fact, this week, it occurred to me that I don't have an insatiable desire for money--I have an insatiable desire for time. To a fault, I don't care about clothes or make-up or cars; but, I'm greedy with each second of my day--also to a fault. I find myself planning ahead in terms of minutes, gathering seconds for myself whenever possible, and dreading bedtime because it means the end of the day and sleep seems unproductive. When the psalmist compares the length of our lives to the life of grass, I get it. I feel it. I hate it. More often than not, I don't know why I'm here. There's no melancholy attached to that statement; I'm just not sure how packing lunches, cooking dinner, or running like mad from activity to activity is serving the greater good or how it fits into God's story.

I've always wanted God's story to feel like something along the lines of The Lord of the Rings--a little bit of fairy tale, lots of beauty, and some struggle (but just a bit.) The other day I discussed a particularly brutal section of Joel with some friends. We've been reading through the minor prophets together--a task I haven't been excited over just because, to be frank, it's hard to take. And when someone asked, "How do you feel as you read these chapters?" [which are full of destruction, fear, and God's anger and judgment] I blurted out, "That could be me! God could exact that punishment on me...and he loves me?"

So today, as I read these pieces of scripture, I found a common theme that took this issue to the mat. In Isaiah, God says, "I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right." Paul, in Colossians writes of maturing in Christ to understand the mysteries of God. And it occurred to me that in many ways, I don't live as if I acknowledge the immensity of the cross--it revealed the mystery in God's story as much as it redeemed us. And it should reorder my time, or, at the very least change the reason I'm so greedy for it.

In another, unblogged, reading, Exodus 17:7 caught my attention: "Is the Lord among us or not?" The question comes from a place name Moses used after providing water for the wandering Israelites; he was understandably frustrated by their persistent doubt. I should ask the same question...it changes my interpretation of the story.