Willy, Dave and I met this week and started talking about the word again only we were talking about what it means to meditate on the word. We read last week in small groups Psalm one which says "I will meditate on your word day and night." But I wonder what that really means.
Does meditating day and night, mean that I need to don an orange robe, go find a cave to live in up in the Ortegas, and sit cross-legged humming to my self for the rest of my life?
Hmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm, hmmmmmmmmm
I'm going to go with the answer of probably not. How would you ever get anything done? Monks don't write papers for English class or do algebra homework or take out the trash or put up with siblings. They have removed themselves from this life. So what would it practically look like to engage in meditation on the scriptures.
When I think of meditation, I think of bar-b-que. In Texas it doesn't matter what you are cooking, but if you cook it on the grill, its barbeque. Every thing from hot dogs, to T-bone stakes, to fish, to ears of corn: its all bar-b-que. And the best bar-b-qued meats are the ones that have been sitting in marinade all day long. The marinade soaks to the inside of the meat, changing the essential quality of the meat by breaking down some of the tough fibrous tissue so that come cooking time its tender and ready to eat. It also takes a rather boring and plain pieces of meat and adds to it the richness of flavors that things like garlic, soy sauce, and Ruby's Red Rub add to the mix. For it to work though, its an all day process. Its gotta soak.
And so when we read the word we gotta get marinated in it. Its not enough to slap a little A-1 bible sauce on our lives and call it a day. Aint no amount of special sauces going to cover up a tough piece of meat, it needs the marinade.
So I thought about what it looks like in my own life and just wrote down some of the things that I experienced through out my day on Wednesday, while I was meditating on the word.
So the first thing I would say is you gotta start early in the day to marinade something. How can you soak yourself in the word, if you haven't cracked a page in the morning?
Its 5:15. I fought getting up this morning. I snoozed the alarm but my neighbor who starts throwing tools in his truck at 5:10 has woken me any ways. I started reading 1 John 3, and its amazing how distracted that I was. Late night at school plus morning devotions equals a severe lack of focus. I was already being distracted by things I needed to get done like cleaning the dishes in the sink before people started showing up for the Ruthless Trust Breakfast Club at 6:30. I was thinking about work and ministry and church and my hopes for the future, and life in general, about everything except for 1 John. I kept having to wrestle in my thoughts like they were a pack of wild alligators. CS Lewis describes this in his book Mere Christianity.
"The real problem of the Christian life comes where we do not normally look for it . It comes the very moment that you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice and taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, life come flowing in. And so on, all day We can do it only for moments at first"
"We can do it only for moments at first" What an encouragement that is. That it's not a super perfection thing, where I've got to have it all right, but a moment by moment that is seasoned with God's grace. There's two verses that kinda stuck out to me.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
Okay so now its 6:15. People are early and I still haven't finished the dishes or made anything for people to eat. Looks like cereal and bagels this morning. We are reading this book called Ruthless Trust by a guy named Brenning Manning. Its always amazing to me that God wants to provide answers to the questions in my head. You see, when a scripture verse sticks out, its not because I think its poetic, or pretty, or that someone else needs to hear that. Its usually because I have some issue or question that is brought up by the passage itself. This morning it was the question "do I belong to the truth?" And the answer from Manning's book? Not really. I think most of the time, I probably want to belong to the truth, even though sometimes I don't. Maybe. Wishy washy bull honky. I've got an issue with being open, honest and real. And I don't know what to do about it.
Eight o'clock. I check my email before starting work. New MySpace messages. Oh goodie! There's times were I wonder if, like Dave says, we are too plugged in. I cover that thought with the reasoning that I don't have TV or Internet at home so I'm okay. I read start reading some thing that Ali wrote. Its amazing.
"I am so overcome by the gentle peace of Christ. Realizing that a life of meaning and joy takes discipline, it is necessary for me to awake each morning and choose to follow Christ. I must take each day one at a time. Living for Christ this way (daily) is so much simpler and refreshing. The future does not make me as anxious. I am content with what I have and where I am because I am with Christ. Difficulties keep finding me and taunting me, but I still find joy and peace in my Savior. I watch people in my life that I dearly love get thrashed by lies, poor decisions, and worries;; my heart breaks for them. True freedom is only ever found in Christ. So, I am choosing trust and hope in God today, because what if there is no tomorrow????"
What if there's no tomorrow to make things right? Do I find my hope and joy and peace in Jesus, or am I thrashed by lies, poor decisions and worries. My own lies and my own poor decisions, my own worries.
Ten thirty. I get in my car to drive up to Moreno valley for work. I have the "heartimus unimus" card in the dashboard of my car. I don't know if I've just never really read it before or what but it said, earnestly risking authenticity.
Earnestly- doing it with all your might.
Risking to the point were you are out of your comfort zone.
Authenticity- being real. Being who God made me.
So I threw up a quick prayer, God help me to be that man. Earnestly risking authenticity with my friends, with my family, with people I hardly know, and with complete strangers. I don't wanna hide who you've made me and what goes on in my head any more.
High noon- Its lunch time I take off to my parents house to sit and write on my lunch break but my friend Sarah comes on Aim and I talk to her instead. She's in St Petersburg Russia teaching English. She had canceled classes because one of the students, Demitri, had died the previous day from pneumonia. "They didn't teach me how to deal with this in any of my classes." She wrote. "What do I tell the other students. How do I explain that God is good and in control and will work this out, when I don't even feel that myself." My answer was you don't. You morn with the students, and when they ask you why you be as honest as you can. "I don't know why this happened, and I'm sad because of it" Earnestly risking authenticity.
One o'clock hits and a friend of mine calls for some encouragement. I've had people call for encouragement but never come right out and say it. I believe the exact words were "Adam, I need a pep-talk!"
1 John 3:18-19 Dear children let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
What happens when we belong to the truth our hearts set at rest in His presence. So I just spoke out some truth, nothing I hadn't said before, and nothing that I wasn't willing to say again, just the reality that God has created us each with gifts and talents and treasures, and that when we come to grips with that truth our hearts are set at rest in His presence.
Crash Boom Bang rolls around, this is when the other verse comes into play.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love that the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And this is what we are!
All day long verse one was still rattling around in my head. "And this is what we ARE!" And I'm sitting at Crash, Boom, Bang wondering how many of them realize that they are children of the living God. Then I smack my self on the head and wonder if I realize I'm a child of the living God. Because a lot of the problems I have with being authentic and real come from the fact that I have some sort of image to uphold. Not an image of coolness or a tough guy, but of the pastor dude. The sort of guy who shouldn't struggle with the basics, right? Its okay for me to say to people I struggle with the application of the soteriolgical axiom of the second ecumenical council. (Don't worry there's no test at the end of this) But its hard for me to say, wow, I struggle with reading the word on a daily basis, I struggle with having mental distractions while I am praying, and I struggle with loneliness and doubt. But as I start to share these things I don't find condemnation, but rather camaraderie. Willy and I have set ourselves to being in the word in the morning, and sometimes its hard and I have to look over at him for encouragement.
Its now a little after midnight, I'm writing this for Sunday thinking what's the conclusion; how do I wrap this up? Two things.
First, when you or I meditate on the word, there will come a place were the rubber meets the road, were we will either do what it says or we wont. And if we wont it will start to gnaw at us. Remember that this is only a day in my life, and that this issue that God is working with me on has really been a process of His word and His Spirit marinating my soul to tenderness and when that fails, He has been gnawing on the tough spots with all the gusto of a dog with a rawhide bone.
And secondly marinating starts in the word and depends on the Holy Spirit to bring verses back up, all day long. That living in the truth of Gods words will bring rest to our hearts in His presence.
Be you encouraged! For though we can do it only for moments at first, God is faithful to complete the work that He has promised to complete in us
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