isaiah’s ruin

I have a special place in my heart for Isaiah. When Greg Stier, president and founder of Dare2Share ministries told me and three thousand other people about Isaiah’s radical encounter with God in chapter 6, it won me to Christ. So I come back to this narrative all the time to remind myself “I’m ruined for Christ.”

But as I was reading it today something else occurred to me. Before now, I have always read Isaiah 6 as the prophet’s FIRST encounter with the living Spirit of God but that can’t be true. In ancient Israel, a prophet did not speak, he did not get up and address the crowd saying “thus saith the LORD thy God” without being anointed and already having an encounter. You see, according to the Law, a prophet MUST be tested and every prophecy weighed. If it is found lacking then the person who claims to have heard from the Lord is in all kinds of trouble. Which means no prophet would speak out unless he or she actually heard from the Lord and had at least some kind of encounter with him.

The Romans Road

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading Romans lately.  (side note, is it proper to italicize the names of books of the bible?  Or is it more like they’re articles in a collection and they should be in quotations? The things I think about when coffee isn’t working so well.)

Paul’s letter to the Romans (and that’s the official title btw) is probably the most quoted of the epistles in Christendom.  It’s a great letter that gives us a general overview of Paul’s theology and how he understands our relationship to Jesus and the Father as well as how we should relate to one another.  The real big thing about this letter though is something called theRoman Road.  Now I’m sure that most of you having been in church far longer than I are very familiar with this concept, but I only met it recently so indulge me while I walk this particular road for the first time.

one more thought on the pearl of great price

So I’ve been camping out on Matthew 13:45-46 lately.  It’s a really short passage that has been a freaking lighthouse beacon for me.  I mean I opened by bible at random this morning to read something and that’s the page I opened up to.  I didn’t really want to read it again so I picked up a different bible, opened to a random page and VOILA – the same passage.

Now my first thoughts on the matter were recorded on @pacnwdadof6 ‘s blog HERE. Basically I say that the kingdom is worth much more than my limited hopes and dreams.  I mean I’m faced with a God who able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I can ask or think and all I can dream and hope for is some career stuff?  That’s pretty lame when you think about the God of the universe saying “what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

“Good enough” isn’t

Ever hear that phrase before?  I used to say it all the time.  The spirit or intention behind this particular phrase is that to say if something I’ve worked on isn’t exactly right and the absolute best it can possibly be, then it isn’t good enough.  People might say that the little flaws and details that irritate me beyond all reason are unimportant and that the work is good enough with them the way they are: flawed.

But not for me.  I stand there and say “Good enough isn’t.”

This is especially tough for any artists out there.  I’m a writer, I have a book I’m trying to publish and six more projects in various stages of (not even close to) completion.  My wife is a painter and sculptor and we go at each other.  I ask her to read over something I’ve read and she says “It’s great, move on.”  And I say “But what about this, and this wording and the imagery” (You’d be amazed at the litany of things I can find wrong with my own work).

Out of Curiosity…

Out of curiosity, what is it in your life makes you think God doesn’t love you?

I read the story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah (Genesis 29-30, today’s OT reading in the Tapestry App) and it occurs to me that you have essentially three miserable people fighting to prove who is more beloved of God.  What blows my mind even more is that Jacob so often serves as the stand in for God.  It’s as if his favor and love for Leah or Rachel or his ability to grant them children, is indicative of God’s love for them.

Now that’s really beside the point because they all have the source of their own misery and discomfort.  Leah is depressed because Jacob doesn’t love her, Rachel is depressed because she can’t have children, then Leah is depressed because Rachel can have children while Rachel is depressed because Leah had more children than her.