Why I Stopped Reading My Bible

When you teach writing, you teach your students to start with a good hook.  Something interesting, surprising, or shocking to get your reader's attention.

Something like....

Why I Stopped Reading My Bible.

See?  It worked.  You're reading.

Anyway, that title wasn't JUST for shock value.  It's really true.  I'm going to attempt to the brief version of this story.  But we know how I am.  So no promises.

Ten or so month ago, I was at a low point spiritually.  I could probably say, my record low.  My walk with God had become mired in unmet expectations, which led to anger, then bitterness and resentment.  It was delightful.

Needless to say, my devotional life was not stellar.  poor.  non-existent.  I'd forced myself to go through the motions (read some scripture; pray; fall asleep; try to pray some more; give up and set alarm to sleep until time to leave for work) for a long time.  Eventually even the faking it stopped.  I just snoozed my alarm a few extra times.

My counselor asked me about it.  I told her God had stopped showing up, and so eventually, so did I.  She suggested that I try again.  I wasn't interested.  (in defense of my wonderful counselor, this version of our interaction leaves out lots of stuff)

I was in dialogue with a friend during this time.  She has a solid walk with God.  I respect her opinion in Jesus-stuff.  She suggested that I do something else.  Not read my Bible.  Seek God out in other ways.

I was a little scandalized.  Which is ironic, since I wasn't reading my Bible anyway.

My friend had some solid reasoning.  For the majority of Christian history, most Believers never saw God's written word.  Even today, heaps of Believers don't have access to scripture, or ability to read it.

Conclusion: reading the Bible can't be the only way God communicates with his people.

Let's all pause here to relive a couple of events from Sunday School Past:

Teacher: Children, how do we speak to God?
Kids; We pray to him!
Teacher:  Right!  And how does God speak to us?
Kids: We read the Bible!

Is this true?  Yes.

Is it incomplete?  Also yes.

How many ways are there for God to speak to us?

Well now, I don't know.  How many spiritual disciplines are there?  How many mountain ranges are there?  How many spring flowers?  Breath-taking sunrises?  Selfless acts of love?  Children laughing belly-laughs around the world in this very moment?

But back to my story (you know, the brief one?)

Around this same time, another friend invited me to work through a resource called Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun.  [author's note:  WONDERFUL resource.  I highly recommend it]  I started working on the disciple of silence.

If you know me, you're probably gasping.  Or laughing.  You're marveling at my courageous choice.  Silence isn't a natural gifting of mine.

It was hard.  IS hard.  Turns out I'm impressively bad at sitting silently, staying awake, and focusing on God, all at the same time.  It's harder than it sounds.  But I liked the simplicity and I kept trying.

It was through silence that God and I began communicating again after months of nothing.  Ironic, yes?

But here's the simple truth: I was finally listening.

Not waiting for an answer.

Open to anything He wanted to say.

Not reading familiar words without comprehension.  Not repeating a stale list of requests.

Just listening.

Just sitting in silence.  Trying and failing and trying again to clear my thoughts of anything but God.

For awhile nothing happened.  Except falling asleep.  But slowly I got better at staying awake and holding my focus.

And He showed up.  He came with a message.  The message isn't important for you.  It was for me.  What I want you to know is that there WAS a message.

I was...well...shocked.  Just like the prayer team doing battle for Peter's release from prison, I was shocked to receive what I had asked for.

The voice was not audible to my ear.  It was audible to my heart.  In a way that I've only heard God speak to me twice before in my 24 years of seeking to follow Christ.  Twice.

A few weeks later, another message.  Just as clear.

Suddenly, time with God wasn't such a chore.  And one day I thought, "I WANT to read my Bible."

I WANT to.  I WANT to sit and wait for God.  I WANT to spend time in His word.

Just last month, a third message.

Are you hearing me when I say to you that God has given me clear messages five times in the past 24 years, and three of those five times have happened since I started practicing the discipline of silence, in SPITE of the fact that I had been a really bad place with God?  Because this is huge.  HUGE!

Now, let's just say this.  I'm not promising you anything here.  Not that you need to buy that book and do what I did and then God will speak into your silence.  I am not a prophet, and God is not a genie, to perform for us if we do the right combination of things.  I'm just telling you what I'm learning.

I'm learning that time with God doesn't necessarily need to involve a Bible.  Or prayer.  Or a devotional book.  God uses those tools, but He's pretty creative and flexible.  They're not the only tools in his toolbox.

I'm learning that God may not be so hard to hear as I've always thought.  Maybe it's just that I haven't really been listening.  Not long enough.  Not deep enough.  Maybe, just maybe, He is more excited to speak than I am to hear.  If I can just sit in the silence long enough.

How to Weed Wack Your Yard

This past weekend I moved into a house.  I'm renting, and have the (ahem) privilege of now being in charge of nearly an acre of yard.  Some unknown, gracious neighbor has cut the grass twice now, between the time when the owner moved out and I moved in.  However, said awesome neighbor did not do any trim work, so that was looking pretty sketchy.

Last weekend my wonderful, generous, amazing father and step mom came to help me with a day and a half of cleaning and painting in the new place.  Man, did we have fun!  Well, ok, "fun" might be a bit of a stretch, but it was good bonding time.  And we were super-productive.  They're awesome like that.  That was Thursday evening and all day Friday.

The next day (Saturday morning) I went back to trim by hand.  I mean, it looked really bad.  I took my gardening gloves, my scissors, and one of my two gardening tools- a small pair of clippers.

If you've ever tried to trim an acre of yard with scissors, you're probably snickering right now.  Fair enough.  Two hours, a giant blister on my right middle finger, and a wet, nasty mess later, the front part of the yard looked a bit less hillbilly.  And I was determined to find a better solution.

As it turns out, my sister and brother-in-law had recently left a used weed wacker behind when they moved to Seattle, and my brother, Josh,  had been using it.  After seeing my pitifulness, he gave it to me as a house warming gift.  :)

So this morning, day 3 in my new house and Memorial Day, I decided to gather my courage and give it a try.

Allow me to interject here about the emotional strain that has come along with yard work for me.  There are undoubtedly HUNDREDS of things at which I am totally and completely inept.  Milking a cow?  No idea.  Car maintenance (beyond oil changes, tire changes, and giving someone a jump)?  Clueless.  I'm also pretty bad at making fried chicken, which is disappointing to me.  But generally, the things I suck at are things I can avoid without much trouble.

Then I started renting a house with a giant yard.

Yes, I grew up on a farm with a giant yard, but I wasn't the one who kept it looking nice.  I've mowed once or twice, but generally that wasn't one of my chores.  I'd never even HELD a weed wacker before last week.

Anywho, this morning seemed the perfect time to put on my Big Girl Panties and git er done.  No time like the present to try out something intimidating and potentially beyond your abilities.

I tried to bolster my courage by reminding myself that 13 year old boys regularly do yard work.  Surely I can keep up with a 13 year old boy, right?

I put on my work clothes and my oldest sneakers.  I got out my shades (thank you, cousin Muir, for this stellar suggestion).  I grabbed the WW and headed to the back yard.  I figured it'd be easier on my ego to figure it out where no one could see me.

When he was here helping me move, Josh had gone over (very quickly) how to start the machine.  There were a lot of steps and I'm not an auditory learner.  Seeing helps me, not hearing.  I nodded a lot and tried to appear competent.

Now as I looked at the WW, I was greatly relieved to see that the 10 steps are on a little sticker on the side of the engine.  (TEN STEPS!?!?!  just to START the thing!)  Then I noticed that there was no gas in it.

In hindsight, I realized that when Josh had said, "You're welcome for the gas I gave you" he was being sarcastic.  The tank was completely empty.

I left the WW in the grass, grabbed my wallet and keys, and headed to the car.  20 minutes and $20 later, I was back with a shiny new gas can and gas, which, given the price, SHOULD by all rights self-fill with gasoline.  After a bit more experience feeling dumb while trying to use the fancy new spout thingy that's supposed to keep the gas from evaporating, I got the tank filled and got it started.

You know.  Ten steps.

Now her comes the part of a WW that saved my life.  It has a strap.  The strap goes around one shoulder and your neck and carries most of the weight of the machine.  SO SMART!  Kudos to whomever figured out that little stroke of genius.

Did you know that the little plastic strings that do the cutting on a WW disappear as you work?  Yep.  They just disintegrate, right before your eyes.  Did you also know that to pull out more plastic string, you just tap the head on the ground while holding down on the throttle?  Well, I didn't know that until today.  Thanks, Dad.  It's pretty nifty, that.

So around the yard I went, wacking merrily away at my unruly weeds.  After gaining a little courage, I headed to the front yard.  Here are some other discoveries I made this morning:

-If you try to move too fast, you can actually stop the spinning by getting caught in the overgrown weeds.  That's probably not manufacturer-recommended.

-Height is important in this job.  Too high, you just blow the weeds around.  Too low, and you end up skinning a patch of grass down to dirt.  Oops.

-With a bit of encouragement, a WW will happily strip off tree bark and house paint.  Also not recommended.

-WW are apparently designed with people with strong arms in mind.  If like me, your upper arm strength leaves a bit to be desired, do not plan to do anything requiring good small motor skills immediately after WWing.  Watercolor painting is probably out for a couple hours.

-When you're planning your day, be sure to calculate time to shower after your WWing is done.  And you should cover your hair.  Do you know how much fun it is to get grass out of your hair?  Each.  Blade.  Individually.

And so.  I wacked until I ran out of plastic string.  My brother assures me that doesn't run out too much.  I guess I was just lucky to get to experience it in my first go.

Now, an hour and a half after the string ran out, I'm sitting contentedly on my couch in my new living room- clean, and with an arm recovered enough to type again.

That wasn't so bad.  My yard looks MUCHO much nicer than it did.  And now if someone asks if I know how to use a WW I can say yes with confidence.

If they ask if I WANT to use a WW, though, my answer might be a little different.

The Most Important Lesson

My mom was awesome at pretty near everything.  At least that's what my brain holds on to.  A few exceptions include most things to do with fashion, and mastering even the simplest remote control.  Seriously, to the very end we kids would beg her to cut her losses and let us control the remote.

Mom taught me all kinds of stuff.  Basics, like how to cook and clean and sew.  How check out a book at the library when you wanted to do something you didn’t know how to do.  How to garden.  Paint.  Budget.  Hang wallpaper.  Clean a room ankle-deep in junk.  What to do when you run out of gas at an intersection.  [I’m pretty sure that was an accidental lesson.  Especially since she looked over at middle-schooler Leslie and said, “You don’t need to bring this up with your father.”]

She taught me that being a follower of Jesus is journey of errors and path corrections.  That no one’s perfect and sincere apologies are important.  That there is never an excuse to treat someone or something weaker than you unkindly.  That people are created in God’s image, regardless of how they look, think, act, dress, smell, or speak, and that one should always be aware of that.

Going into the woods with Mom was always an adventure.  She drew our attention to the small miracles of God’s creation- the things you miss if you’re not looking.  A tiny flower.  A mushroom (in spite of the hours I’ve spent hunting morels, I’m still terrible at it).  The mark of an animal who had passed this way before.

Some of Mom’s lessons changed my whole outlook on life.  During my sophomore year of high school, I had an art class with a girl who despised me.  She wasn’t in my grade and I’d had no previous interaction with her, so I was mystified that she should seem to hate me for no apparent reason.  One day I was telling Mom how, no matter how nice I tried to be to this girl, she was still spiteful in return.  Mom said, “Honey, not everyone has to like you.”  Wow.  HUGE paradigm shift for me.  What a relief!

This month would have been my mom’s 63 birthday.  The 10^th birthday since she graduated to heaven.  It’s strange to think that had she lived, she would be 10 years older than I remember her, and a grandma six times over.  I wonder if she would have had grey hair?  She wouldn’t have minded, though.  After losing her hair to chemo twice, her motto was, “Any day with hair is a good hair day!” 

I miss my mom.  I miss getting to learn from her.  Normal, boring lessons.  Deep, profound ones.  I miss running errands with her.  And those days when we’d have lunch together.  Being able to use her as a reference for nearly any question.  Enjoying a fire in the fireplace when it was cold; sweating it out in the summer heat because Mom always insisted that hot fresh air was better than cool, stale air.  I miss laughing with her until tears started forming in her eyes.  I miss her hugs.  Being called Tall Daughter when she needed something off the top shelf.  Calling her Shorty.  Disagreeing about music.  Just enjoying one another’s company.   Knowing that she knew me better than any other person on earth, and she still loved me without reservation. 

I think that last one was the best lesson.  If that's the only one I manage to learn, that'll be a win.

The Why

Today during worship I was thinking about how, as a kid, there were a few occasions when one or the other of my parents would tell me to do something and I would ask why.  I could tell that this was not their desired response, but I wasn't asking because I was deciding whether or not to obey them.  I was a fairly obedient kid.  I wanted to know because that's how my brain works.  It is always asking why.  The Why helps me- to know my goal; to get behind the reason; to have a better attitude (hopefully).  I didn't mean to be disrespectful; I was just asking an honest question in hopes of getting an honest answer.

I know that parents don't owe their children an explanation for every call they make.  It's not that I deserved an answer.  And maybe sometimes the answer has to be "Because I said so," but I really think that's not what we normally mean.  In my experience, that answer is code for, "I'm too tired to explain," or "I don't know how to explain," or just, "I feel like you're being disrespectful and I don't to respond to that in a way that pleases you."  My experience is based on my own interaction with young people under my authority- mostly middle schoolers.

When my students asked an honest "why", I tried to answer thoughtfully and truthfully.  I don't think I ever went with, "Because I said so," but I know I have said, "Because I'm the teacher," which is essentially the same thing.  I'm playin' my trump card.  I only used it when a kid was being openly rebellious.  So, I get it.  Maybe my parents thought that's where I was going when I asked, too.  Can't blame 'em for not being able to read my mind.

Anyway, back to this morning.  I'm going through what seems to me to be the longest hard season of my life right now.  Explaining it all would involve a lot of words and drama, and I'm just not up for that right now.  But here's what I was thinking: this would be easier if I knew the why.  Not easy, but easier.  I think I could even be ok with not knowing if where I am is permanent or not, if I could know why.

My theology tells me that my God created me and knows me intimately.  It also tells me that He has good plans for me; plans to prosper and not to harm me.  And it tells me that all things in my life are allowed by my God, for His purposes, which will bring me good and Him glory.

This is all true.  I believe it is Truth, both in a generic,for-the-whole-world sense, and in a personal one.  But when I ask God why, these truths boil down what seems like essentially a God-shaped version of, "Because I said so."  Not an untrue answer, and yet THOROUGHLY unhelpful, unsatisfying.  Un-everything.

And here's the real kicker- God's not misreading me.  He knows that I'm asking out of sheer desperation.  I am in a hard place.  I have been here for a really long time.  I'm trying to hang on.  My knuckles are white and my fingers are bleeding- I'm trying with everything I've got.  I've basically stopped asking for rescue.  He's leaving me here and it must be for a reason.  I'm just asking for a little perspective.  The Why.  Is it too much to ask that He share it with me?  I'm not being disrespectful.  I'm not deciding whether to turn my back on Him.  But it sure would help to be able to hang onto the why.  It sure would help.