Forest or Trees

In an online devotional I read from The Message:

“You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.”

And then because I love to compare scripture I read from the Amplified Bible:

³⁹ You search and investigate and pore over the Scriptures diligently, because you suppose and trust that you have eternal life through them. And these [very Scriptures] testify about Me!

⁴⁰ And still you are not willing [but refuse] to come to Me, so that you might have life.

And I had a thought: are we missing the forest for the trees?  

Do we get so wrapped up in reading our Bibles…attending Bible studies…underlining verses…memorizing scriptures that we miss the forest for the trees?

Please do not misread me…reading the Word on a daily basis…attending and participating in a study of scripture, even memorizing scripture all are straight from my soapbox!  They are necessary bread for the journey but…do we tiptoe away from really believing and living what the words we have ingested tell us?  Are we the “Good Bible Study Girls” that Lysa Terkeurst wrote the book about?  The ones that go through the motions of a Christian life: Go to church. Pray. Be nice.

 

Do we resemble the picture Jennie Allen paints of herself in Anything: I was a good girl, from a good family and a good church and a good school, who made good grades and had a good friends and made good decisions and even had a good dog.  I was a good Christian.  I mean, I should have been – I had heard the stories, songs, and lessons 7,338 times.  It was what I knew.

I can relate…I was a good girl too, and sometimes even now I fall into easy ways out…

Sometimes we focus on the “bad” girls…you know the ones…the ones doing stuff that we would like to try to do or we even do, but don’t get caught like the “bad” girls do.  We go all out to save their souls and yes…we should go all out to save their souls…but who is going all out to save our souls?

I sometimes wear a dirty penny…a penny so filthy you have to really look and sometimes feel for the familiar profile to know it is a penny.  I wear it to remind myself that I am not that bright and shiny good girl…I can put on the clothes and shine my Bible and look the part, but inside…well…I can shine that dirty penny and it will be bright and shiny as the day it was minted, but almost overnight it becomes dull and dingy again.

Jesus asks: ⁴⁰ And still you are not willing [but refuse] to come to Me, so that you might have life.

Are we taking the easy way out?  We will read and study and polish and shine but refuse to take that step towards Christ?

Ann Voskamp writes: I said my “yes” to God but what I was really living was “no”.

What is your view? The forest or the trees?

Lovingyougood…sd   

Palm Sunday Midnight

Palm Sunday Midnight

In a darkened kitchen by a window overlooking black, I think of Holy Week and what my Christ bore for my soul.  No moon, no stars, just blackness, and a sense of hope brimming over in the darkness.

And I write with a full heart…as my sweet friend tells it “I am drinking from the saucer ‘cause my cup is overflowing”. 

Today SMC was amazing with the response to confess and come, reclaim and start again, to surrender because “you will never be amazed by grace unless you are broken by your sin”.  Today I surrendered…not in the conventional card signing manner, but one that has been laying hard on my heart since July. 

Today I said honestly…”anything Lord”.  Most will not understand how scary those words have been in my ears for the past 9 months, but like birthing a baby, it takes time and pain of letting go to witness a birth or a new beginning.

The boldness and tossing aside fear of approval have come to a head and the fire within has sparked a risk taking attitude.  Lord, I will do anything…for you, anything. 

I once read a quote that said “To risk is to willingly place your life in the hand of an unseen God and an unknown future, then watch him come through.  He starts to get real when you live like that.”

A question was asked of me this year: “If God is real…than what?” and I have been wrestling with those words…turning them over…hiding from them…burning them into my heart and posting them on the bathroom mirror sticky note gallery.

“If God is real…then what?”  Then he created me with a purpose and a passion and I needed to discover them.

So I read books, and I talked to others who read books and were searching as well and we drank coffee, tea, and water together and got gut honest about our darkness and our hopes and our fears and our dreams.  We allowed each other to speak aloud what had been simmering under the surface of our lives, always turning down the “heat” when it threatened to bubble over.

The author, Jennie Allen, speaks of her writing “…books about God.

…books about us and God… books about facing the God of the universe and answering to Him about the life and the resources that he gave us while we were here.”

“…books about discovering ourselves and getting over ourselves all at the same time…books about being brave enough to imagine a better world and how we may be used to make it that way…books about changing the world”

“…books about fears and suffering and joy and gifts… books about all that lays in our control and how nothing is in our control…books about vision and obedience.”

Today I said “anything Lord”…I fell into obedience.

“If God is real…then he is big enough to see my courage build and boldness replace the timidity of my being.  He is big enough to face evil and strike it down and bring the light into the world.

It is still dark in this world outside my kitchen window but the bright light of Christ is ever so faintly glimmering in the pre-Holy Week midnight preparing for the dawn…we have a way to go to reach the Easter morn and the way will be risky…but I said “anything Lord” and I believe He is real.

Lovingyougood…sd