Getting Technical/Saying One Thing But Meaning Another
I write in a prayer journal every night. Well, almost every night. But lately I’ve been keeping up in it. It’s really nice for me to have the journal. I can write my thoughts, prayers, praises, needs and pretty much anything. & it’s easier than praying outlous or in your head because you can really think your thoughts over and write them about. It’s been really helpful the past couple of weeks/months in getting back on track to putting in effort for my relationship with God. A few nights ago I was reading a book written by Josh McDowell that someone had given me about a week or so ago. After reading my chapter for the night, I opened up my prayer journal to an empty page that I could write on. I started off like a normal person would do. I gave praises to God telling Him how great He truly is and some other things. The chapter I had read from More Than A Carpenter made me feel that you have to be really smart to be a Christian or that the way things in the Bible are figured out are by having a lot of accomplishments and writing books or articles. Here is a part from my prayer journal entry of that night focusing on how I had felt:
“I feel like it’s so easy to listen to worship music or read the words you placed into the Bible, but then people start to get very technical and really get to the core of things. They go beyond what is written in the Word and look up the contex and obviously that’s not hard, but sometimes it totally ends up leading to other things. & then you have people like Josh McDowell or C.S. Lewis who go around preaching and lecturing professionally. I just feel like knowing you and fact that you sent your son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins is enough and we should be secure in that while also putting in the effort for a relationship showing love back to you because you showed us love first. But why is it that, for example, someone could ask why Jesus was crucified and it ends up leading to a ton of books being written leading to more questions and more books and so on. But why can’t things be easier and simpler? Why can’t someone just ask why was Jesus crucified, get an answer and be satisfied with that? As Christians and as humans, we are never satisfied. & “No one ever said that being a Christian would be easy”. So now I’m making it sound like I want things to be easier when I really don’t. I want things to get harder for me in my walk with you.”
Isn’t that what most Christians want or am I the only one?
But isn’t it funny how we can say one thing and mean another? Girls get into fights and stab eachother in the back. They do these little come backs like “You said this and this!” but the other girl says, “Yeah, but I didn’t mean it like that!” I find it hilarious that you can say one things, mean something else but then it gets changed into something totally different. & sometimes that’s how I feel about asking questions or reading the Bible.
I find it so weird how these random things I write on pop into my head…I confuse myself and I always wonder what im doing writing this thing…
J0000007UTC 11, 2007 at 4:53 pm
What you have said may be more true than you understand. It is not simple at all and yet it is very simple. The work of Christ, this life, all of history, our relationship with God – it is infinitely more complex than our entire universe, and yet at the same time it can be understood by a child. That is the glory that inspires all the books. We are puny humans with itty bitty brains trying to think about a living God with infinite wisdom, power, and glory, yet he has revealed himself to us in such a way that we can learn about him. Not learning like memorizing dates and names out of a history book, but learning like you learn about a friend as your relationship grows. Each time we learn something new it opens another door to new beauties, glories and complexities. That is the ultimate gift God has given us by grace–he has given us himself, and in his wisdom he saw that we need to get him in little chewable bites. Our job and also our greatest joy is to keep chewing. Never be discouraged when you get a tough bite or feel like there is too much on your plate. The knowledge gained is not like school knowledge. It is life to our soul because it is God himself we are drawing nearer to. That is why you need to keep writing–to chew. To gnaw with all your strength on the complexities of God and this life until you are exhaused because if we do, we will find nourishing strength that nothing else can provide and that the world does not know.