Crater Lake and beyond!

I won't be online this week- we're going on vacation!  Chip, the boys and I are piling into Chip's parents' RV (together with Grandpa & Mimi!!) and heading to Crater Lake, Wildlife Safari, and the wonderful Oregon Coast.  Be back in a week!!

Reading the Scriptures

First I want to say Thank you Carolyn! for the most wonderful gift you sent me.  Then I want to share it with everyone else.  My sister sent me this version of the Message because it has blessed her tremendously.  The introductory pages written by Eugene Peterson are absolutely the best information I have read about how to read the Bible.  I wish I could type out all 7 pages.  But here is just the beginning:

In order to read the Scriptures adequately and accurately, it's necessary at the same time to live them.  Not to live them as a prerequisite to reading them, and not to live them as a consequence of reading them, but to live them as we read them.

Reading the Scriptures isn't an activity discrete from living the gospel; it is integral to it.  It means letting another have a say in everything we're saying and doing.  It's as easy as that.  And as hard.

This kind of reading has been named by our ancestors as lectio divina, often translated "spiritual reading".  It means not only reading the text but also meditating on the text, praying the text, and living the text.  It is reading that enters our souls the way food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and transforms us.  Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we feed on it.  We assimilate it, taking it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in the company of the Son.

Words spoken and listened to, written and read are intended to do something in us, to give us health and wholeness, vitality and holiness, wisdom and hope.

We open this book and find that on page after page it takes us off guard, surprises us, and draws us into its reality, pulls us into participation with God on his terms.

Makes you want to jump into the Bible, doesn't it?  Have fun!!!!!!!!

too easily pleased

This morning's reading in Isaiah 53-56 was absolutely beautiful.  Beginning with the prophetic description of our Savior and filled with hope, promise, redemption and invitation, this portion of Scripture reminds me of the glory and poetry of life with GOD.

Isaiah 55 begins like this:

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;

and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, 

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

There are many people who assume that submitting to Jesus means saying goodbye to pleasure in favor of a life filled with rules and stoicism.  But we who know Jesus have experienced that God invites us to a life of freedom to truly live!  In Christ we realize our purpose, we commune with our Creator, and our souls feast on the presence of GOD.  We find joy that transcends our circumstances and discover the true satisfaction of doing what we are created to do- bring glory to our God and Maker.

As C.S. Lewis wrote:  "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased."

God's words in Isaiah this morning stretched me, enlarging my imagination and desires and reminding me not to sin by settling for less than what God offers me.  Oh Lord, let me not be pleased by anything less than YOU!