My first quest will be to read the bible. I think I have read the whole thing before, in some fashion, maybe skipping over some of the more tedious genealogies,but there is a lot I don't remember, and frankly, I don't think I've ever read the bible before without an agenda.
As a kid, I read the bible to learn about God and to please God. I wanted to be a good Christian. I wanted to know God. In adulthood, I have become more skeptical--not skeptical that I can learn about God from the bible, but I believe God loves to reveal himself, through writers from all times and places. As I rebel against this heard mentality that causes my church o profess the bible is "inerrant" even before we open it up, and that encourages mental acrobatics to make everything fit, I would like to read the bible with as few expectations as I can muster, just to see what I learn. Maybe I've given it a bad rap. I find myself put of by religion, and I hate that, because while I want to keep my distance from ideology, I don't want to keep my distance from meaning, from God, from Love--and sometimes it is difficult for a Southern girl to differentiate.
I want to document how I think of God now--so I can see how this experience changes me. Right now, I have a more peaceful relationship with God than I ever have. I don't worry about salvation or stress about predestination. I don't fret that God doesn't love me...all things that used to occupy much of my mind, even as I listen to sermon after sermon that reminded me of grace (after reminding me of my sinfulness). I believe God is good and loving. I believe my prayers are heard and answered. However, this contentment could definitely be mislabeled complacency. It is easier to have peace when I don't dwell on worries or inconsistencies, or questions of faith. I am not sure if I am a peaceful Christian or as the bible would put it: luke warm, bad soil, or virgin in the night with no lamp lit. I want to know God, but I don't think understanding him is possible, and I find people who act as if they do pretentious, off-putting, and dubious. And then I feel very guilty about these feelings. Donald Miller said in one of his books that understanding God was like your pancake trying to understand you...God is too big to be boxed in. It is difficult to know things. Just as it is difficult to know even people. I love my husband. We spend countless hours together. We don't even grocery shop alone. Lots of time we continue our conversations through bathroom doors while one or the other of us is peeing...and to say that I really know him? Well ,that would be tough. I can't name his favorite movie or his shoe size with accuracy, and I'm sure there are a million facets of him I don't even know I don't know. All the more with the supreme creator of the universe.
Now that I am having a child, I am especially concerned with how a human should view God. I was raised to be moral, kind, and religious--and while this undoubtedly scars you for life, it did keep me out of a lot of trouble and felt bible characters and VBS taught me many valuable life lessons. How do I teach my daughter that she has purpose and is loved--that God and prayer and faith are real and powerful--without making my daughter think she is better than other people because she knows the capital T Truth, that others are going to Hell. How do you teach a child to sit with uncertainty? To value it? And to feel secure, in all that grey, in God's love? I do not know the answer to that, but I do believe that is the definition of faith, and that is what I hope to model.Hopefully this journey through the bible will be a start of my journey to examine my own faith, misconceptions, doubt, and relationship with God. What will come of the pancake examining her creator?
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