I literally forced myself to sleep in longer, show up late to work, and to disengage from all things that had become routine and forced.
You could argue that this probably wasn't a wise thing for me to do, and while I'd agree with you and wouldn't advice others to follow my course of action, it was something that was necessary for me. I'd begun to hate who I was becoming...the self-righteous, pious girl who thought because she was in the Word, responsible, and reliable that I was allll that (yes, we can allow for the z-snap that might accompany such a phrase).
Now, keep in mind that I also work at a job with flexible hours where there's not exactly a firm 'start' time. Yet, for years I had trained myself to be in the office before 8:00 a.m. because I felt like a bad employee if I was 'late'. For years I had trained myself to wake up with enough time to brush my teeth, wash my face, change clothes and open up my Bible. It was necessary, it was discipline, it was what you're 'supposed' to do: start your day off right with a dose of your 'daily bread'.
The strange thing was is that when I stopped, I didn't feel like it affected my day or my attitude in the ways we Christians typically moan about. There are always the comments of, 'I can tell when I haven't spent time with the Lord today'... and while I do believe that there's a lot of truth to that, I hesitate to say that I was ever really 'spending time' with the Lord in those brief moments each day. It was simply a part of a routine, a checklist, a 'how to be a better Christian' step program. When I stopped worrying about coming into work right on time, when I stopped reading my Bible... I felt more freedom than I did anything else.
'Cause when I looked at the reality of what my life had become, I was ruled by laws and expectations. As a Christian leader in a ministry, there was no room for me to fail. There was no room for me to not do the things that were expected of someone in a leadership position--I had to lead by example in everything. It was exhausting, it was impossible....it was prison. I had become that Pharisee who looked good on the outside, but felt so trapped on the inside.
So while I stopped reading my Bible daily, I found myself still in constant relationship with the Lord. There was something natural and good about it--it was relaxing and comforting. I didn't have a quota to meet, a schedule to be dictated by, a type of "now that I've put in my time with the Lord for the day..." mentality. There was now room for the Lord to move in me in a way that I had suppressed through my legalism and outward decay. It was once again about a simple relationship with Him, not a regimented time slot.
I recently picked up my Bible again.
Stripped of an image that I didn't want for myself, I've found a freedom that exists in just being with Jesus each day. I'm not convinced daily bread means reading a certain amount of Scripture each day. I am convinced that it's important/vital for us to be grounded in the Word, though (just want to be clear on that). I am convinced that our relationship with the Lord is going to look vastly different than our friend's, or our family, or our pastor's, or our mentor's. I do believe that spiritual disciplines are important.
I'm just so tired of Christianity telling us it has to look a certain way and causing us feeling inadequate for the ways that we long to meet the Lord, for the ways that we worship, for the ways that we desire to engage deeply in a spiritual realm that we can barely begin to fathom.
Be with Jesus today.
Seek Him daily, yes. But don't be confined to a certain pattern of what it must look like. Train for the race. In training you don't work on just one thing, but you must change it up. In order to grow, in order to be stretched, in order to move forward...we must work out different parts of our spiritual lives as much as we would our physical bodies.
Try something different. Allow it to be different, and believe that it could be just as good...believe that it is necessary.
Let us all be stripped of the conventional solutions to all of our problems, and let us go to the true source of healing and light: Jesus Christ. Let Him move in you in the way that you need, not in the ways that others need.
May you find freedom there.
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I agree, the regimen isn't the puzzle; its a piece, that fits in the puzzle of knowing God. Checkout part of chapter 6 from, The Pursuit of God by W.A. Tozer.
ReplyDeleteI believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.
I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, "Thus saith the Lord." They meant their hearers to understand that God's speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a child once born continues to be alive, or a world once created continues to exist. And those are but imperfect illustrations, for children die and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God endureth forever.
If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.
Thanks for this, Scott.
DeleteI now understand why you always scoff at the answers to "From your perspective, what is the Bible?" ....
I once held the notion that we could never read Scripture and leave unchanged. I believe I still hold that notion, it seems that I just have failed to really come to it at all...
Ultimately if we are to consider everything rubbish compared to knowing Christ- I believe we have to come back to Scripture in order to know Him...in order to know His voice. The power and mystery it contains is beckoning... when I view it like that, and not as an item to check off.
Oh- how perspective can sometimes change everything.
That is an awesome perspective, and so true.
DeleteAnother thing to add; a friend gave me an analogy awhile ago explaining why I needed to read my bible. If someone wants to reach you to talk to you, they can call you all day, but unless you answer the phone, they can't talk to you.
Is God calling me all day? Does He want to speak to me that badly? I believe He does, and that's... exciting. :)