Make a blessing an earworm

God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is and we know who we are: Father and children.

Romans 8:16ish, The Message

Digesting Scripture

I am terrible at memorization. Always have been. One of my clearest memories is reviewing multiplication flashcards with my mom for hour after frustrating hour, until exasperation finally set in for both of us and at least one abandoned the task in tears.

I believe with all my heart that Scripture memorization, particularly of longer passages, is critical to apprenticeship to Jesus. He knew Scripture, of course, and that's reason enough, but mimicking him in this is not the point. The point of memorization is to "eat the book" -- to digest it, to make it part of oneself. The Bible is the clearest shared record of God's self-revelation and our shared history; knowing it changes who we are, how we know God, and the people we are together.

For my current class, I have chosen Romans 8:15-39, The Message version. It begins like this:

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, gravetending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"

Writing this from Little Rock, with Smyrna days off, this passage is ready for consumption, altogether nutritious. What's next, Papa, indeed.

More Oswald Chambers

Fellowship in the Gospel

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Nov

10

2011

. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . —1 Thessalonians 3:2

After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy “world within the world,” and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

Schedule, finally

Nov 19-20: Pack
Nov 19-20: Smiling Daughter's early birthday.
Nov 23-29: Thanksgiving in Little Rock
Nov 29: TN House closes (with God's grace); 2/3 of family goes home
Nov 29-Dec 3: Smiling Daughter in day care, Daddy in charge; Mama doing house-y things, like having heat installed.
Dec 3-5: Pack
Dec 6: Movers
Dec 7-11: Drive with Wonderful Husband, Smiling Daughter, Dog and Cat in Honda Accord to Little Rock.
Dec 12-23: Movers arrive, sometime. God willing.
Dec 24-27: Asheville!

We'll see how this actually goes, but that's the plan. Today. Of course, we've had plans before...

God snickers a little.