EAT this book

I’m having a GREAT time with a book I just picked up by Eugene Peterson, called “Eat This Book”. You can check it out here.

But in just the first few chapters, I got some GREAT insight that I wanted to pass along. Nothing I didn’t know before, but Peterson puts it better than anyone I’ve encountered.

I don’t know that it’s really so wrong to read the Bible for instruction or illumination or guidance or inspiration or even comfort, but I don’t think that’s how God wants us to approach it. Instead, I think he wants us to look at every single page as the way God communicates about himself, his work in the world, and his plan for mankind. Not just for me, but for everyone. Hopefully, that’s instructive or illuminating or guiding or inspiring, but our purpose should always be seeking God, not answers. And the answers are, I’m finding, more uncomfortable as I get older in the faith. (That’s good, by the way…)

In other words, God isn’t looking to inform us, but to form us. Not just telling us things, but revealing himself. It sounds basic, but how often do we look to the text for answers about life, rather than the direct revelation of God to all of us.

Today is my day off. I’m going to work really hard to do that with my Bible today.

Go be formed… not informed…

Weakness and Sea-birds

I just love the reminders that God gives me every now and then that even though I’m weak, he can use that. Or… maybe I don’t love those reminders, but I always appreciate them looking back, and, when I’m lucky, in the moment.

Last weekend I was feeling sick as a dog* for all three of the worship services I had to lead. The last song of the worship set right before the message was a song that is normally pretty easy for me to sing, but this time it took every fiber of my being to get all the notes out.

You know what, it felt great. I felt like I meant it so much more. I felt that maybe people could tell that I meant it even more. Yeah, I just about crashed and burned when I got home on Sunday afternoon after the services were over, but it was IMPOSSIBLE to just “go through the motions” for even one moment. It was impossible not to really mean every word, and in the last song in the service, when I got to the lyric “You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same” it struck me nearly to tears every time, in practice before Saturday’s service and at all three services on Sunday. That’s rare for me. It makes me wonder sometimes why we don’t actually pray for the opportunities to be weak so that Jesus can be strong in us.

And it reminded me of the puffins. I learned while I was in Alaska last year that a lot of the seabirds who dive to feed under the water, like puffins, don’t actually have hollow bones like most birds. Their bones are solid. So… when they do fly (which they don’t do much) it takes a tremendous amount of effort just to take off. I remember seeing one basically running across the water, desperate to get into the air and fly. I just barely got my camera trained on the bird as it was taking off. I will bet you that once he got into the air, he appreciated his brief flight way more than your average sparrow does… every moment. Strength in weakness… sounds familiar…

*I don’t know why we say “sick as a dog”, when my dogs are sick, they are so good at hiding it…