It is Sunday. The 7th day of the year. I have been successfully reading my Bible and studying and journaling and praying for an entire week.
It is important to point out this accomplishment because, while I am a huge Bible nerd and love reading and discussing it so much, I am also an even bigger procrastinator and all around lazy human. I often get behind in my reading and have to play catch up. And when I say often, I mean at least once a week.
This is a tough truth for me to swallow because it seems really strange for someone who just confessed to being a full out Bible nerd to have such a problem with reading it daily. My mind and heart sincerely desire to hear from the Lord everyday, my body really really loves to sleep that extra 30 minutes or my eyes really want to scroll through Instagram or watch one more episode of the crown on Netflix. This is a struggle we all face everyday although I think some of my friends struggle less with slothfulness than I do.
I'm reminded that this is a universal struggle right out of the gate in Genesis when we see our girl Eve struggle with the same problem of listening to her body instead of God (we all know the dangers of shopping on an empty stomach) and making a decision based on what she sees right in front of her. (Raise your hand if you are still grabbing chocolate from the Christmas stocking stash every time you walk by even though you told yourself you were not eating sweets during the month of January.... No? So it's just me then.)
Genesis. Y'all, I am ate up with Genesis. God's entire plan for the world is laid out right there. He doesn't leave anything out. He is pretty specific about what he wants and tells His people over and over and even using visual aids to make it easy for those folks to understand. And Y'all, the people are not spectacular. They are Flawed. Super flawed. And they waste no time jumping into sin. You can almost hear God sigh and say "really? already, guys? I mean we JUST named the animals and I was JUST getting used to our afternoon walks. Sigh. Ok. Here is how we will fix this...." (paraphrased).
And it happens again and again. But God forgives and still provides because He is good and He loves us even though we can't seem to say "No" to the snake, put down the chocolate covered cherries, turn off Netflix, or wake up 30 minutes earlier to spend time with Him. He still loves us.
How do we know that He still loves us and still has a plan? Because we read it in God's word. Faith comes through hearing the Word of God. As I was reading this week about our girl Eve, this thought came to mind....
Eve's knowledge was secondhand and that cost her. What a gigantic commercial for reading the Bible. We can't allow our only knowledge of God to come from someone else in the form of christian books and blogs and sermons and podcasts. Those are great, but we first need to get it straight from the horses mouth.... er rather the mouth of the God of the universe. There that sounds more respectful. But you know what I mean. Lets not be caught with a handful of apple because we weren't exactly sure what God said concerning His love for us.
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So tomorrow is Monday again. We made it through the first few days back at school. We are slowly easing into 2018. Like I said, I really only accomplished reading the Bible and getting kids to their correct schools before the bell rang. Hoping I can do the waking up earlier and resisting the chocolate this next week. But I'll settle for just one of those. I can't set the bar too high, you know. It is only January.
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