I was challenged by God, I think this was a few months ago now, through Scott at Crash (our Sunday night service). He and a group of his friends read through the Bible using B90x. Our church has been reading through the Bible and sadly, because my first response to rules and authority is to rebel, I didn't do it. Wrong response. So when Scott brought this up I knew I should do it.
Some background, I've read the Bible, or at least most of it. I've tried the reading plans before. I remember once when we were all still baby Christians my mom tried to read through the Bible with me and my brother. As most people do, we made it to somewhere in Chronicles and pretty much gave up. In college and seminary I was required to read the Bible and to be honest, I haven't read much of it since then. It's become over-intellectualized for me, too scholarly, too much to comprehend and dissect.
Well the truth is, you don't have to read the Bible that way, but my heart has been hardened. I've hardened my heart unto God and now He's working at softening it up, molding it again to what He wants it to be and one way to do that is to read His story again. So my approach to this reading is not to over-intellectualize it, not to analyse it, but read it as a story, the story of God and his people, my people.
So day 1: I read and listened to the Genesis 1:1-Genesis 16:16 (that's the end of ch. 16 by the way). It was fun listening to the dramatic rendering of the texts and hearing the music in the background - help me keep my mind from wandering a bit. It took about an hour doing it that way and it would have been way shorter if I just read it, but again, I had the time and it was helpful.
What I got out of it: a couple of things. We recently had Kids Camp (3rd through 6th graders) with my church. We went to a full on camping facility and experienced God and nature and all that is camp. Well, the theme for this year was God's masterpiece, as in we are God's masterpiece, very true. We did focus on the beginning chapters of Genesis a bit and a conversation came up in our small group one night (I had 6th graders) about Adam and Eve and the first sin. My co-leader gave a rather good and interesting perspective to our young men and women. He brought up the fact that Eve is often pegged as the culprit for the first sin, but chapter 3 verse 6 is very clear, even though Eve is doing most of the talking, she gave some of the fruit to her husband, who was with her. This means that Adam was with her the whole time, during the whole exchange he pretty much sat there, and what was he doing, just thinking, "Gosh Eve you're so pretty." I don't know. I think he heard everything the serpent said to Eve and he let her do it. I'm sure he was curious too, but just a few verses ago he claims such a close bond with her, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" because she was, but he wasn't alone anymore too and didn't that mean something?
So my co-leader, challenged the young men with this passage encouraging them to step up and essentially, "be a man" and protect the woman and be responsible, which was nice, but what he said really impacted my ladies as well. We had a discussion later about all of this. It was as if they were relieved this whole sin thing wasn't all on them, which is good, but we all share the blame. Just as God said, it is not right for man (or woman) to be alone, we must remember that we do all this together. Even though I might not have been there, I think I would have been as eager as Eve or as silent as Adam. My pride always creeps up on me seeking to take the glory and be God, but there is only one God. To recognize that is important, it is also important to recognize that we can't make it through alone. We share in sufferings and in joy and we need one another. It took two people to bring utter calamity for us all. It only took one, Jesus Christ, to bring us back from certain death.
The second thing that really stands out for me is the call to Abram. First God says leave. Leave everything you know and have ever known to follow me. I have centuries of people knowing God; or I should say centuries and millenia more than Abram, but he willingly went. I'm pretty certain God placed a similar call on my life, but I'm stuck dragging my feet. I need to work on that. Step one completing the application to GIAL. There, so now you know and knowing.....
There are some insights I'd like to share with you and maybe they'll be helpful. If you'd like to join me on this journey, please do. I'm starting today, but don't feel like your 90 days has to start now. Join me whenever you can and we can dialogue. The plan is here: B90X. It's not my idea, nor my invention, thanks to Elevation Church. In the meantime, I'll be sending this out into the abyss. Perhaps it'll touch you and maybe I'll hear from you.
Until then, on a funny note, I love Pharaoh's response to Abram's deception about Sarai. "Here's your wife. Take her and GET OUT OF HERE!" Makes me laugh. :)
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