An invitation

Inspiration is a funny thing, isn't it? I am a writer by nature...words draw me with an almost magnetic force and they get inside of me and churn...and at some point, they spill out. I love it...I live for it...Its the thing with me that brings me to life.. but even with all of that, sometimes its like I am running with the wind whipping my hair and I am fueled by adventure and then out of nowhere I run smack into a brick wall. Its like our little puppy, Sawyer, when we throw him his favorite squeaky toy. You throw that fox and he goes running and he's so focused on biting into its fur that he doesn't see the kitchen cabinets coming until he has slid right into them. I feel a little like that now.

As a lot of you know, I have just mustered up the courage to say that I desire to write...and wouldn't you know a milisecond later I found myself dazed, staring at the kitchen cabinets. Sure, I have the desire...bit right into it!....but found that I had nowhere to go...didn't even see it coming.

We took this great vacation 'out west' the summer after my junior year of high school. A lot of families relax when they go on vacation...not so with us. We tease in our family that we have 'regular dad' and then we also have 'vacation dad'. Now, 'vacation dad' is convinced that you must see EVERYTHING a state has to offer if you are in it. So that three week vacation as we drove up the coast of California all the way into Canada and down through Montana and Idaho before catching a flight out of Utah, we were busy! We were determined to see all the animals the states boasted and all of the national parks...and for the most part we did. Besides all of that sight seeing, we spent a lot of time in the car, driving from place to place. There are a lot of us (at that time 7 total) so there's enough to keep everyone occupied. But for me, at the age of 17 and the oldest of the crew, I tired quickly of the car games we played. I found another way to occupy my time.

The year preceeding I had started going weekly to a local youth group. Its an understatement to say that it changed my life, but I will say it none the less because its closest I can get to describing its impact on me. I had grown up in the church all my life, but that year the Bible came alive to me. It was as if the words began jumping off the pages and right down into my spirit. I had heard so many times that we were supposed to hunger for the Word as believers, but I had never experienced hunger pangs until that year. I literally felt that my spirit had taken precendence over my body and was crying out to be fed. Suddenly, Jesus' words "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" seemed real to me.

As we drove around the west, being completely awed by the mountains and the ocean and all of the colors that the west has as its palate, I became captivated by the Word. I fell in love with the ancient Scriptures that had now revealed their youth to me. I felt as if my next breath and thought and desire hinged on making it a part of the fabric of who I was.

I am not 17 anymore. A few years further down the road, I have learned how quickly the most precious parts of life can be snuffed out by things so much less necessary. College was the busiest time in my life. Sure, it was busy with 'ministry' activities, but the constant movement robbed me. I eased myself into it...little by little and before even I knew it, my life had become little more than work and activity. I spent more time going to meetings about how to do ministry and how to be lead than I did being alone with my God. I spent more time doing than listening. I spent more time giving advice than I did being quiet. I had nearly fifteen hours of scheduled ministry and between work and classes and time at the gym, had to squeeze God into the remaining moments of the morning. Every part of my inner person hinged on weaving the Word of Life into the tapestry of who I would become ...every part. My thoughts and desires slowed...I forgot where each breath had originated. I lost little peices of my self. The spirits cries now were muffled under the heaviness of the flesh that had sneakily crept its way to the top of the heap.

It will wear you fighting your flesh. Trust me. Your muscles will fail you and no matter how you prep or soothe them, you will wake sore on the morning of the battle. Trust me. I love God. I can remember even being small and loving Him. No one ever had to convince me He was there and real...I never struggled to believe the Bible was true. I just felt it resonate in me and I knew. And yet, I am no stranger to the fight. Some days, I wake up with the taste of blood already in my mouth...the battle is as real to me as anything I can see. The thing is lately, I have been crawling into bed, feeling like a freshmen after the first week of two -a-days in football conditioning...like I was used for hitting practice.

"Why?" Well that's what I have been asking myself....why? Why am I fighting harder than ever and feel so completely beat down? I got part of the answer at church the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the remainder of the answer was already planted in my spirit. Pastor Ricks said something to the effect of "If there's an area of weakness, its an area that lacks faith. And faith comes from hearing the Word" (I really wish you could hear him say it with his thick voice boldly leaving his stout dark frame) I have always heard that verse "faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God" and related it to a person going from disbelief to belief for the first time. I had never thought about it as it relates to the person who already believes.

As soon as the lightbulb went off in my head letting me know that Pator Ricks had delivered 'answer, part A' to my question "why?", the second half of my answer wasted no time surfacing. I went to my office upstairs and rooted around in my library until I found what I had gone searching for. I have read the Bible through only a couple of times in my life but never since I have been an adult. A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of the Bible that is divided into days so that in one year you could read the whole thing, cover to cover. And this particular Bible is also in chronilogical order. Hmmm...you did know the Bible isn't already put into chronological order, right? I think this sometimes leads to some confusion...anyway.,..

I remember buying it and thinking, "man, I would love to read the Bible like a story". I wanted to really understand the history, to put the right scenes together with the correct characters, and to fianlly put the prophets and their words to the Isrealite people into context where I could really understand the weight of them. I practically bounded out to my little black Sunfire...I hadn't been that excited about a purchase from the local christian bookstore in awhile. I couldn't wait to start reading! Yet, I think I only made it to about mid-March with the readings. Remember I said I was sinfully busy? I wasn't just making that up for effect.

So I picked up that still almost new copy of the One Year Chronological Bible a couple of days ago. I called my sweet sister Beth the same day and told her my intention to read through it in a short amount of time...(this was 'answer, part B') She prayed for me words that ended up in my journal ... "Let your Word bring about and strengthen faith and satisy the aching" As she said those words, I felt them. As I penned those words, I felt them. The ache of hunger is returning.

Okay, why this long blog to tell you all of this? Well because this morning as I was reading and the Word began to jump off the pages of that leather bound Bible and into my spirit, I felt something else. Have you ever felt God nudge you? I felt a little nudging and when I stopped to listen, something surfaced. I soaked myself in it the thought and it resonated in me.

So I am writing this long blog as an invitation of sorts. I want to invite you to come on a journey with me. I said way earlier in this blog that I have been struggling to be inspired and to write. Anne of Green Gables was one of my favorite movies as a child...in case you haven't seen it (and that would be a sad state of affairs) Anne wants to be a writer and she writes and writes but she fails despite all of her effort. A dear friend finally tells her to write what she knows about...to write about the people and places she loves. This advice changed her life. I am a passionate person by nature and I can get worked up about almost anything if you give me enough time...that's true. So if I had to, I am sure I could find something to write about in these blogs and in my journal... But those who know me well, know my deepest passion has always been the Word. I long to ingest it...I long to it grab a hold of people and to transform them. So what better to write about than the Word?

So my invitation to you is this. As we come upon the new year, I would love to band together and to journey through the Word of Life together. For my part, I will email the weekly readings and then each day I will post thoughts about the reading for that day. If you want to come along, your part will be to read and to think...and if you want, to share thoughts and questions and what God is speaking to you. In a years time, we won't have fixed all the world's problems or the churches or our own. But what we will have done is this: we will have journeyed together and fellowshipped together and engaged the Word and allowed it to pentrate us and to change us.

I am not a Pharisee or a mean old school master, so I won't be asking if you have read or giving pop quizzes or anything of the like. *grin* It will simply be put out there for the taking where the hungry can graze.

My prayer for you (whether you come along or visit from time to time or completely deny the invitation) is that you begin (or perhaps, continue) to feel the hunger pangs...that the inner spirit man will crawl out from under the physical man and master it...that you will begin to notice that every breath and thought and desire hinges on the Word being planted into the garden of who you are... that, as Beth prayed, the Word would "bring about and strengthen faith and satisfy the aching"

**if you are interested, please email me at engagethejourney@yahoo.com so that I can add you to the list of people who need to be sent the weekly readings**