I attend and participate in a weekly Bible study with some very good friends. We - a bunch of kids fresh out of high school - started out under the umbrella of the church that we were all involved in at the time, but a lot has changed since then. Our group kept meeting faithfully (it's been...ah...six years...at least), but we don't all attend the same church like we used to. We're not even officially affiliated with that church anymore. Our meeting place has hopped all over the Boro. The faces have also changed over the years. Some people have come and gone, and they have always come and gone with our blessing. But our core is essentially the same, and the ever faithful Charlie Chase still guides our discussions and offers us wisdom we couldn't possibly have gained in our scant twenty-something years.
Before I go on to say more about the Bible study, I want to let the attention dwell on Charlie for a moment. Charlie is a man in his fifties, old enough to have been a father to each of us. As his two kids are a part of our group, he actually is a father to some of us, and he's kind-hearted enough to treat the rest of us like we are his own. Whenever we all get together, he remarks on how happy he is that his "kids" are all in one place. As eager as he is to be a father, he's not an overbearing one, which proves he's eager to be a good father. Everybody is always free to share what they have to say, and just because he's a fifty-something-year-old adult does not mean to him that a twenty-something-year-old adult has nothing to offer. Charlie respects. Charlie is also a man that does not let money define him. He spends his days installing phone lines and fiber optic cables, but if you ask him what he does for a living, he'll tell you he's a teacher. He's never made a dime teaching anyone anything, but that singular role is more important to him than all others, save those of husband and father. Often times college students (which is what we all were when we started out) end up leading themselves. I think this is a symptom of two things: 1) we're adults now, we think we can take care of ourselves, and in our want to assert our place in the world, that's what we do; and 2) we're adults now, so the older adults don't want to have to take care of us anymore. They wash their hands of responsibility. Just leave leave them to themselves, they think, they've been taught the basics, they'll find their way eventually; we don't need to help them anymore. We have a gift in Charlie Chase.
Turning attention back to the group, under the guidance of Charlie and the Holy Spirit, we study one book of the Bible at a time. Sometimes we make it through a chapter or two a week, other times we make it through five verses. However much it is that we study, the Bible is all we ever study. There are many people out there who do great work putting together Bible study materials for people to use, and I have used them to my benefit before, but never has a Bible study grown me as much as just reading the words on the page and talking to other people about what we know and what the Spirit has revealed to each of us. It's a life-giving practice.
Our time together this week granted me a particularly alive shot of life. We are currently making our way through the book of Joshua. This week, the Israelites took charge of the city of Jericho. To briefly recall the details of the occasion, Joshua is leading God's people. A messenger, often translated as the "commander of the army of the Lord," comes to Joshua and tells him that the city has been divinely granted to him and his people. They just have to follow a few instructions: have all the armed men walk around the walls of the city once a day for six days, walk around the city seven times on the seventh day, have the priests blow their trumpets during the seventh day's circling, then have the army give a shout while the priests give a long blast after the seventh time around. This was supposed to knock down the walls. And wonder of all wonders, it did. If that's not crazy enough, God's next instructions were for the armed men to storm inside the city and destroy everything, both living and non. The only things to be kept intact were those of silver, gold, bronze and iron, and they were to be given to the Lord, not kept by the individuals who found them. Other than the land, the people were gaining no spoils from this conquest.
This is what we humans call counter-intuitive. Marching, trumpeting and yelling will make a city crumble? Maybe if the city was made out of lincoln logs and stood about two feet high. And who destroys free stuff? We keep free stuff. This mandate of destruction is even more nonsensical in light of the circumstances the Israelites were in before this. Once they gained freedom from their captor Egypt, because they made some poor decisions, they ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. There wasn't a lot of food out there in that wasteland. Nor was there a thriving marketplace where goods were produced and exchanged. The clothes they had when they started were the only ones they would come to see for four decades, and while it was good that they supernaturally didn't rot and wear out, I'm sure their eyes were longing for something new.
After all those long years, always changing in that they didn't have a home, yet never changing in that they did the same thing, ate the same thing, looked at the same things every day, here came the promise of Jericho. A home, protection, food, material things to make their lives more comfortable. But they had to destroy it all. Why would God command something like this?
If I were them, a home with big sturdy walls would have made me feel safe. I would soon have come to rely on those walls as my only source of safety. If some ill-intentioned persons challenged their strength and they ever failed, my peace of mind would fail with them. Having all of that food right there in front of my face without having to wonder from where my next meals were going to come would also have been nice. And the less I wondered, the more settled I would have become, and the more settled I would have become, the less prepared I would have been for any moment when that food might have run out. New things, creature comforts, would have also been lovely. They make one feel comfortable, which is why they're called "creature comforts." I would have been content to let them fuel my comfort. Then one day, should I ever lose them, my comfort would disappear just as quickly as those things did.
The Israelites, as a people, lived in a culture of nonsense that lasted a lifetime. But maybe he led them around like nomads to help them learn that he would provide for all of their needs. Then once a whole city was granted to them, he first took away all temptation for the Israelites to look to their own abilities to help them succeed at life by having them do nothing more aggressive and challenging than walk around and make noise, and he then took away all temptation for them to look to the city as their ultimate source by having them destroy it. The fancy self-contained, self-sustaining city would have distracted them, and if you track their history through the old testament, Lord knows they didn't need any other excuses for distraction. They were good at finding them and fixating on them, even when God worked really hard to eliminate distractions to aid their focus. Maybe all of the wandering, and city-circling, and comfort-destroying wasn't such nonsense after all.
As we were talking about all of these things Wednesday night, and Charlie was gently, persistently leading us to draw these own conclusions for ourselves, I began to think, my life hasn't been nonsense for nearly as long, but in this latest stint it has been so for about seven months, which in my short, ambitious life is approximately six months and 29 days too long. But what if God is removing distractions? What if he's trying to help me to look beyond the success I can bring myself? Because I inevitably fail from time to time, and when success is all about me, my failure to bring it is depressing. What if he's eliminating the temptation for me to find comfort and security anywhere but in him? What if he's helping me realize that he is the ultimate source of all good things I could ever want, not a house that gives me shelter, or things that make me feel like I have some sort of claim in this world, or food that gives my body life, or relationships that boost my self-esteem, or a job description that proves to the world I'm doing something with my life.
My life may look like nonsense, but I think God's in it. Yes, God is in my life, and if he's in my life...friends, that is the most encouraging thing I could ever know.
I walked away from the hospital, our latest meeting place, Wednesday night with a little weight removed from the heavy burden I insist on carrying through my life -a burden God is slowing convincing me to release - and a rejoicing spirit.
Here's to nonsensical living!
Before I go on to say more about the Bible study, I want to let the attention dwell on Charlie for a moment. Charlie is a man in his fifties, old enough to have been a father to each of us. As his two kids are a part of our group, he actually is a father to some of us, and he's kind-hearted enough to treat the rest of us like we are his own. Whenever we all get together, he remarks on how happy he is that his "kids" are all in one place. As eager as he is to be a father, he's not an overbearing one, which proves he's eager to be a good father. Everybody is always free to share what they have to say, and just because he's a fifty-something-year-old adult does not mean to him that a twenty-something-year-old adult has nothing to offer. Charlie respects. Charlie is also a man that does not let money define him. He spends his days installing phone lines and fiber optic cables, but if you ask him what he does for a living, he'll tell you he's a teacher. He's never made a dime teaching anyone anything, but that singular role is more important to him than all others, save those of husband and father. Often times college students (which is what we all were when we started out) end up leading themselves. I think this is a symptom of two things: 1) we're adults now, we think we can take care of ourselves, and in our want to assert our place in the world, that's what we do; and 2) we're adults now, so the older adults don't want to have to take care of us anymore. They wash their hands of responsibility. Just leave leave them to themselves, they think, they've been taught the basics, they'll find their way eventually; we don't need to help them anymore. We have a gift in Charlie Chase.
Turning attention back to the group, under the guidance of Charlie and the Holy Spirit, we study one book of the Bible at a time. Sometimes we make it through a chapter or two a week, other times we make it through five verses. However much it is that we study, the Bible is all we ever study. There are many people out there who do great work putting together Bible study materials for people to use, and I have used them to my benefit before, but never has a Bible study grown me as much as just reading the words on the page and talking to other people about what we know and what the Spirit has revealed to each of us. It's a life-giving practice.
Our time together this week granted me a particularly alive shot of life. We are currently making our way through the book of Joshua. This week, the Israelites took charge of the city of Jericho. To briefly recall the details of the occasion, Joshua is leading God's people. A messenger, often translated as the "commander of the army of the Lord," comes to Joshua and tells him that the city has been divinely granted to him and his people. They just have to follow a few instructions: have all the armed men walk around the walls of the city once a day for six days, walk around the city seven times on the seventh day, have the priests blow their trumpets during the seventh day's circling, then have the army give a shout while the priests give a long blast after the seventh time around. This was supposed to knock down the walls. And wonder of all wonders, it did. If that's not crazy enough, God's next instructions were for the armed men to storm inside the city and destroy everything, both living and non. The only things to be kept intact were those of silver, gold, bronze and iron, and they were to be given to the Lord, not kept by the individuals who found them. Other than the land, the people were gaining no spoils from this conquest.
This is what we humans call counter-intuitive. Marching, trumpeting and yelling will make a city crumble? Maybe if the city was made out of lincoln logs and stood about two feet high. And who destroys free stuff? We keep free stuff. This mandate of destruction is even more nonsensical in light of the circumstances the Israelites were in before this. Once they gained freedom from their captor Egypt, because they made some poor decisions, they ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. There wasn't a lot of food out there in that wasteland. Nor was there a thriving marketplace where goods were produced and exchanged. The clothes they had when they started were the only ones they would come to see for four decades, and while it was good that they supernaturally didn't rot and wear out, I'm sure their eyes were longing for something new.
After all those long years, always changing in that they didn't have a home, yet never changing in that they did the same thing, ate the same thing, looked at the same things every day, here came the promise of Jericho. A home, protection, food, material things to make their lives more comfortable. But they had to destroy it all. Why would God command something like this?
If I were them, a home with big sturdy walls would have made me feel safe. I would soon have come to rely on those walls as my only source of safety. If some ill-intentioned persons challenged their strength and they ever failed, my peace of mind would fail with them. Having all of that food right there in front of my face without having to wonder from where my next meals were going to come would also have been nice. And the less I wondered, the more settled I would have become, and the more settled I would have become, the less prepared I would have been for any moment when that food might have run out. New things, creature comforts, would have also been lovely. They make one feel comfortable, which is why they're called "creature comforts." I would have been content to let them fuel my comfort. Then one day, should I ever lose them, my comfort would disappear just as quickly as those things did.
The Israelites, as a people, lived in a culture of nonsense that lasted a lifetime. But maybe he led them around like nomads to help them learn that he would provide for all of their needs. Then once a whole city was granted to them, he first took away all temptation for the Israelites to look to their own abilities to help them succeed at life by having them do nothing more aggressive and challenging than walk around and make noise, and he then took away all temptation for them to look to the city as their ultimate source by having them destroy it. The fancy self-contained, self-sustaining city would have distracted them, and if you track their history through the old testament, Lord knows they didn't need any other excuses for distraction. They were good at finding them and fixating on them, even when God worked really hard to eliminate distractions to aid their focus. Maybe all of the wandering, and city-circling, and comfort-destroying wasn't such nonsense after all.
As we were talking about all of these things Wednesday night, and Charlie was gently, persistently leading us to draw these own conclusions for ourselves, I began to think, my life hasn't been nonsense for nearly as long, but in this latest stint it has been so for about seven months, which in my short, ambitious life is approximately six months and 29 days too long. But what if God is removing distractions? What if he's trying to help me to look beyond the success I can bring myself? Because I inevitably fail from time to time, and when success is all about me, my failure to bring it is depressing. What if he's eliminating the temptation for me to find comfort and security anywhere but in him? What if he's helping me realize that he is the ultimate source of all good things I could ever want, not a house that gives me shelter, or things that make me feel like I have some sort of claim in this world, or food that gives my body life, or relationships that boost my self-esteem, or a job description that proves to the world I'm doing something with my life.
My life may look like nonsense, but I think God's in it. Yes, God is in my life, and if he's in my life...friends, that is the most encouraging thing I could ever know.
I walked away from the hospital, our latest meeting place, Wednesday night with a little weight removed from the heavy burden I insist on carrying through my life -a burden God is slowing convincing me to release - and a rejoicing spirit.
Here's to nonsensical living!
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I like conversation. Your comments promote conversation. You know what to do. Vielen Dank.