Author: jdunderwood

It’s the little things…

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DSC_0697Dave was watching football while grading papers (a common Sunday afternoon for him). I stopped as I walked by because a commercial caught my eye.

Scene: a man sits at the foot of his immaculate bed at the end of his day. He slips off his work shoes and then his socks. He sits there, socks dangling from one hand. Voice over says, “Just as Phil is about to drop his socks on the floor, as he does every evening, something occurs to him for the very first time: The clothes hamper is only four feet away, straight across from him.” Phil then leans forward and tosses the socks in the hamper. The camera pans to a woman just about to walk into the bedroom. Voice over: “Proving to Phil’s wife that miracles really can happen.” Her jaw falls slack, the shot holds for another beat and then fades to an Illinois State Lottery logo.

I howled with laughter.

Howled.

Dave raised his eyebrows at me, with a look that said, “Please tell me you don’t identify with that woman because I am NOT a slob, and if you tell me I am, I will have to remind you that I—yes, I—cleaned up after YOU in the early days of our marriage.”

When I finally stopped laughing, I said, “It’s not because it’s the husband. I mean, they could easily do it from the opposite point of view, wife for husband. Plus, for me, this is not really about you. Just think of all the things the kids do that could have been used for this commercial. I mean, if I went in the kitchen and found that someone had actually put the clean pots and pans away, I would think our house had been broken into by someone who was trying to stock their kitchen!”

He laughed then, too, and we brainstormed a couple together, but I decided to journal a longer list that, were they to change, I might just consider that a miracle:

  1. I open the cereal cupboard to find not one but two (and sometimes three) open boxes of the same exact cereal. When I look into them, I see why. There’s a little bit of cereal at the bottom of one bag. Rather than finish it off and have to actually deal with the empty box, “whoever” just opened a new box.
  2. Use #1 above and apply it to the last bit of leftovers in the fridge, the final slosh of milk in the bottom of the gallon, etc.
  3. I open the under-sink cupboard to put trash in the kitchen can and find it is overflowing. No one besides my husband and I seem to ever think of actually emptying the overflowing kitchen trash can—or at least pushing down the debris. Rather they all try to balance trash on top so they don’t have to “touch it—eww!”
  4. Apply #3 to the recycling bin.
  5. I find empty toilet paper tubes on the holder—with a new roll half-unrolled on the floor next to the toilet. (To be honest, they’re getting better about this.)
  6. “Mo-om, where’s my…?” I walk into the room and discover it’s three feet to their left.
  7. I change the kids’ sheets (confession: I don’t do that very often!) and learn the bed has become a dresser. Missing socks underneath the covers, t-shirts between the pillow and headboard, jeans stuffed behind the mattress.
  8. The top rack of the dishwasher is stuffed full—while the bottom is nearly empty, EXCEPT for the first compartment in the silverware container—which is bristling with forks, spoons, and knives stuffed in all directions! Reason: it’s more effort to actually bend over to put things in the bottom rack, and—in the case of silverware, which obviously can’t go in the top—it’s easier to pull out the bottom rack just a little bit.
  9. In the transition time from summer to fall, when the temperature outside is suddenly colder than inside, I find open doors, open doors, open doors. “Close the door!” Don’t know how many times I holler that.
  10. 10. Clothes on the floor. Doesn’t matter how often I make my boys clean them up (and I fuss the whole time), they STILL simply drop their clothes onto the floor when they change.
  11. 11. I KNOW I did this when I was a kid (and I have to remind myself of this often), but why is it that kids can take something out of its accustomed spot and never, ever, ever think of putting it back there when they are finished with said item. Then, when they need it again, they go back to the accustomed spot and assume that it will be there. (What do they think it is, magic?)
  12. 12. Question: “Mom, where are my shoes?” Answer: “Where you left them.” Question: “Where did I leave them?” Answer: “How on earth would I know?” (But I usually do L).
  13. 13. Soggy cereal in the sink. Don’t know why—but a pet peeve and one of the few things that gross me out.
  14. 14. “What’s for dinner?” I think this question should be banned for anyone who isn’t planning on contributing in some way to the dinner.

Oh, kids! Gotta’ love ‘em! And we gotta’ laugh, right?

Got any of your own? Let’s share a chuckle!

When our stories stretch long

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genregraphFor years I taught the short story plot graph to middle and high school students. You first encounter the exposition—where you meet everyone and discover the setting. Then a conflict is introduced—things get exciting. The action rises (called “rising action”—surprise!) and culminates in the climax! (Trust me—I know that high school boys get the innuendo.) Then there is falling action and the resolution. Some stories have a denouement (a French term I was never sure I pronounced correctly), which is like an afterward—the “____ years later” addition to stories. (I love denouements).

Last fall my good friend Susanna visited. She’s in her first job, working as a third-shift ER nurse, and we talked about how she often leaves so many “stories” unfinished when her shift ends at 11 in the morning, before the doctors or social workers or psychiatrists see the patients admitted during the wee hours of the morning. “Often, all I’ve done is stabilize them,” she told me. “I never hear what happens with them unless they come in again.”

We talked about what that does to our souls when we continually leave stories (the real ones that people live) unfinished. Susanna doesn’t like doing this with her patients, and the stress of constantly living in the rising action of her patients’ hospital stories often makes her weary and numb.

But we also talked about the human tendency to exit stories before the ending or to dream about entering other, more exciting stories.

Susanna and I both have this tendency. We like traveling to needy places, and we’re constantly intrigued by the thought of going someplace new/doing something new.

Part of that desire is driven by the instinct to live only the more exciting half of the story, to move on when the action is no longer rising, when a climax is not around every turn.

To live out full stories, though—through the falling action, into the resolution, even past the denouement—requires determination and commitment.

I think of child-rearing—particularly when the child has a special need or illness or trauma;

Nursing older parents—especially when the years of diminishing ability or memory stretch long;

Marriage past the honeymoon stage;

Keeping the same job when the promotion offers begin passing us by.

These long-term stories sometimes seem short on excitement and long on the daily grind.

Until trauma hits! Then we remember the daily grind with nostalgia. “Oh, if I could only have that again,” we think. “I wouldn’t complain about …”

But when we are in the doldrums of our long stories, excitement beckons. We get weary. We long for … something. We forget that God has put us right in the middle of these stories for a reason. We forget that every daily grind moment has purpose and how we live these times affects the Story-at-Large. We may never know the hows or the whys or the specific effects, but we can know these times have meaning.

Oh, Lord, help us to remember this.

Resting Place

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No connection to today's post--I just like the look of joy on Mad's face!

No connection to today’s post–I just like the look of joy on Mad’s face.

I went to a women’s service at our church yesterday. For two days I’d wrestled with a strange melancholy. I’d tried and tried to understand it, but couldn’t. I’d searched my soul, confessed the self-focus I saw, and asked the Holy Spirit to reveal other issues. I’d looked at the level of my mommy martyrdom—yes, there was some, but it wasn’t high enough to explain my strange sadness. I thought of things going on around me: my renewed research on sex trafficking, a friend going through a very difficult time, the transition to being a mom of a teenager…

Nothing jumped forward as a principal cause.

I tried reminding myself that others were dealing with horrible losses and troubles. They had real reason to be sad. I did not.

That didn’t help.

Is it all right to sometimes not know the reasons for our lows? Is it all right to simply be sad sometimes without clear cause?

I think it might be, if only because of the ways the Lord ministered to me yesterday morning without my ever learning the why and what of my mood.

The speaker for our service had chosen II Chronicles 20 as the text. King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah knew a great enemy was coming against them. They chose not to trust in their own might or in the might of allies. Instead, they turned to God. They fasted and prayed and cried, and finally Jehoshaphat stood in front of his people and said, “Oh, Lord, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (vs. 12b).

Well, I’m not really faced with a decision right now, but the not-knowing certainly fits me right now, I thought.

At the close of the service, we sang “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” by Horatius Bonar, one of my favorite hymn writers.

I heard the voice of Jesus say

Come unto Me and rest

Lay down thy weary one

Lay down thy head upon My breast

I came to Jesus as I was

Weary, worn, and sad

I found in Him a resting place

And He has made me glad.

It was as if the Holy Spirit whispered the words to my heart. Weary?—yes. Worn and sad?—yes, yes. I didn’t know why (still don’t) and that’s all right.

Because, finally, when I rested and simply said, “I’m sad, Lord. I don’t know why. Here’s my sorrow,” He gave rest to my soul.

And He made me glad.

*The second and third stanzas of the hymn are truly beautiful as well. Here’s the link. And if you’d like to hear/sing it, here’s a Youtube video with words and music.

Practicing Awe

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Sorry for the poor photo quality, but I took this on my phone on an early-morning jaunt a couple weeks ago. The sunrise reflected on a patch of ice in a field. Definitely a moment of awe!

Sorry for the poor photo quality, but I took this on my phone on an early-morning jaunt a couple weeks ago. The sunrise reflected on a patch of ice in a field. Definitely a moment of awe!

I continue my “crawl” through the Bible, and a phrase from Jeremiah jumps out at me. It’s from the fifth chapter, in which God is reminding the Israelites they have broken the covenant He made with their ancestor Abraham. Verse 24 is but one piece of His evidence: “They do not say from the heart, ‘Let us live in awe of the Lord our God, for he gives us rain each spring and fall, assuring us of a harvest when the time is right.’”

“Live in awe!”

What an incredible phrase.

They didn’t do that.

Much of the time, I don’t either.

The consequences of their awe-less life were concrete and strong. Verse 25 reads, “Your wickedness has deprived you of these wonderful blessings. Your sin has robbed you of all these good things.”

The consequences for my oft-times awe-less life tend to be more abstract.

I have the concrete “good things”: food to feed my healthy children, a warm, snug house, enjoyable and fruitful work. A lack of awe does not always result in the gifts themselves being taken away, but we do lose some of the blessing and goodness of the gift when we do not see it as such, when we let it become commonplace, something we believe we deserve, or something less than a gift—a burden.

So, this day, I am going to practice “awe” for the gifts surrounding me in the moment. I will journal my practice. Here goes…

+++++

As I write this, I am secreted in my bathroom, the one that has one door that opens into my bedroom and another that opens to the den. Patrick and his friend, Ben, are having a rock concert in my bedroom; Jake and his friend, Josh (Ben’s older brother), are in the den playing on the Wii. I can hear both sides.

They’re. Loud.

Much of the time I forget awe at these amazing gifts: two healthy sons with good friends, toys for them to play with when the weather is such that I can’t simply kick them outside all day, more than one bathroom (that’s HUGE!), a warm house, and bathroom doors that LOCK! Woohoo! I am in awe at these gifts of God in this very moment, and the goodness of this moment is revealed, and I can view the chaos and noise as a blessing.

+++++

It is now ten minutes later, and I am no longer in awe.

I am fixing mac ‘n cheese and dishing up bowls for five children so they can go out and play in the snow with full bellies (and not come back in 15 minutes later because they want snacks). I’m feeling hounded by questions of “Is it ready yet?” “Where are my gloves?” and “Mom, I think I left my snow boots at school. What should I do?”

How quickly I move from awe to frustration. It doesn’t even feel deliberate. I don’t remember making the choice to get frazzled: I just slid right into it.

Choosing awe, on the other hand, requires, well, choice, requires acknowledgment of need and cries for help—and then requires the entire process again only moments later.

Awe is clearly not my natural state!

+++++

It is now three hours later—three loads of laundry finished, three loaves of bread made, children out to play in the snow then back in (with another neighbor friend in tow), the two brothers picked up by their mother, two of mine sent to a friend’s house, one quick run up to the high school to pick up Judy, who is exhausted from all-day play practice, and snacks fed to the only two young children left in my house—and they are busy with non-destructive play—Yay! Someone actually remembered to charge my laptop after they played on it during the three-hour interim, and I am sitting down to write this—because writing is how I meditate on truths God is teaching me.

As much as I would like awe to be a constant state, it simply isn’t, and that really has nothing to do with the chaos of my family. If I lived in a monastery, and everyone around me had taken a vow of silence and peace, something would still cause me to slip from awe.

Perhaps that is actually a good thing—not necessarily the slipping, but the struggle it pushes me into (which reveals my helplessness and ends in my crying out). The battle for awe, for joy, for peace—for God, ultimately—strengthens my desire for Him. I see the contrast between awe and “regular life” more clearly as I wrestle my way back to awe time and time again. Is this what James was suggesting? That my ongoing struggles will build endurance, that patient endurance will open my eyes to see God’s “good and perfect gifts” and see Himself as the Father of lights?

Maybe? Like my struggle for awe today, all my spiritual sight is shadowed and grows clearer only in small increments.

And that is all right.

On Inner and Outer Needs

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Late last summer I took my children to the dentist for their pre-school-year checkups. One of them had some kind of procedure done, and the usual “thirty minutes before you can eat solid foods” was extended to two hours. So I decided to treat everyone to milkshakes from Scoobys.

On the way there I stopped in at Walgreens to pick up a picture order. The kids began to troop in with me, but a voice behind made us all stop.

“Hi m’am. Hi kids.”

We turned. “M’am, I was hoping to get some lunch at Subway. Do you have something to spare?”

He had big eyes and a mouth that grinned wide.

I pulled a bill from my wallet and handed it over.

He said it before I could. “God bless you, m’am. And your children.”

“God bless you, too,” I told him.

We picked up the photos, got back in the car, and headed to Scoobys. The children talked about the man. “I wonder what he’s ordering at Subway?” one said. “Do you think he has a home?” said another.

No one was in the drive-through at Scoobys, a good thing since my kids suddenly couldn’t make up their minds about flavors. I stopped about a car length from the order board so we could decide.

Suddenly a loud honk interrupted our deciding. A man in a large, shiny SUV, parked in the small lot to our right, was trying to back out, and we were in his way.

We weren’t keeping him from getting out of the lot. His was the only car in it. He could have moved straight back and had clear access to the road. We were in the drive-through lane, exactly where we would have been had another car been in front of us. But he wanted to go where we were.

And he was angry we hadn’t noticed.

Very angry.

Our windows shielded us from deciphering his actual words, but the volume of his scream penetrated the car. His face had turned deep red and his mouth twisted and distorted as he screamed. He jabbed his left hand up, middle finger skyward in a clear gesture.

For a brief second I froze. Then I eased the car forward.

He screeched back and rocketed out of the lot.

Silence.

I tried to bring back the celebratory mood. “So, you guys know what you want now?”

There was no more banter, no more fun in deciding. “Two chocolates, one vanilla, one strawberry,” I told the woman at the window.

The quiet persisted until one of the children softly asked, “Why was he so angry?”

We talked about it then, and Emily eventually cracked a joke that eased the tension.

But my kids haven’t forgotten. The other day I asked Patrick, “Hey, do you remember the man who yelled at us at Scooby’s?”

Patrick’s eyes went wide. “He was scary,” he said.

But he’s forgotten the man who asked for money just minutes before.

I have not.

They were so different—the one with his well-worn clothing and cracked shoes, the other with his giant, shiny car.

Yet they were also alike—with matching inward needs that stretch to the soul.

Would SUV man able to admit this inner need? Subway man admitted to his outward, obvious one. SUV man didn’t have Subway man’s obvious, outer needs, yet his angry outburst was evidence of something broken within him.

As I’ve thought about these two people, I’ve wondered which one would be more open to Christ. If God were holding out His hands to both men, which one would be more likely to grab hold? Could outward vulnerability make people more able to admit to an inner need as well? Could this hint at what Christ meant when he called the poor in spirit “blessed”?

I don’t know, and honestly, it’s not really a valid question as it pertains to those two men. I know nothing of them. I don’t know if Subway man was conning me with charm or if SUV man had just experienced something horrific and was simply overwhelmed with emotion. I’ve never seen either man again.

Will you acknowledge your soul-deep needs and cling to God’s hands?

I don’t need to know their answers to that question.

I need to know mine.

The Real Battle: followup post

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Dear Readers,

I have gotten so much response and information related to the last post that I’m writing a followup post mostly comprised of all the links/books/info I’ve been given through Facebook/blog comments.

First off, some continued reading:

I found an article, “The Super Bowl Could Never Not Be Breeding Grounds for Sexual Exploitation,” written by the Chief of Policy and Planning for NYS’ Unified Court System, Judy Kluger. She is also the Executive Director at Sanctuary for Families, the leading nonprofit in New York State dedicated exclusively to serving domestic violence victims, sex trafficking victims, and their children. She wrote in response to several articles which said the hype about the Super Bowl being a “trafficking magnet” was not only overblown but was also potentially harmful to trafficking victims.

Then a friend suggested reading Half the Sky (the link is to its Amazon page) Without having read it yet (though it is now in my shopping cart at Amazon.com–my friend offered to let me borrow her copy, but I’m thinking I will probably want to mark it all up!), I can tell you that Amazon.com calls it “a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world” AND, only moments after my one friend posted the suggestion on Facebook, another friend called the book a “must read.” This friend should know, as she, with several of her friends, started the West Chicagoland Anti-Trafficking Coalition to inform and activate people about the issue right here in our area. While I’m on this topic, here is a link to the Coalition’s Facebook page and another to an article written about it.

And, on that note, more about this issue in my local area, the western suburbs of Chicago:

Over the weekend my husband forwarded to me a prayer email from New Name, a ministry of Parkview Community Church in Glen Ellyn, IL, (that’s my area) that “partners with local churches to reach out to and help walk along side the women who are caught up in these industries.” I prayed my way through the message (heartbreaking stories) and then emailed its sender, asking to be added to the list of people who regularly receive it. I mentioned New Name to my Anti-Trafficking Coalition friend, and she wrote back: “New Name is awesome!” She’s used its videos when she has spoken about trafficking in the West Chicagoland area. If you go to the “New Name” link above, you’ll find more information about it as well as a contact email.

Another friend mentioned A21, which is an official coalition partner with End It, an organization I mentioned in the last post. Both these sites have great information.

I’m also sharing the blog site One Small Voice–which I found through New Name’s prayer email. The blogger says this about the site: “My goal is to post information about global human trafficking issues as well what’s happening right here in the Chicagoland area including strides that are being made by the government regarding this issue.” Right at the top of the site is information about a forum being held this Saturday on this topic.

Lastly, I just want to remind all of us why we should care.

Many years ago, when I was a very young middle-school teacher with no children of my own, I sat in a meeting that involved a student, her father, and our team of teachers. The father was overbearing and belittling to his daughter, and we left the meeting feeling discouraged. One of our team members, the lone male on the team, father to a young daughter himself, was more than discouraged. He was angry. “Any man can be a sperm donor,” he said, “but it takes a real man to be a father, and that girl doesn’t have one.”

Most of the girls involved in trafficking have never had a true father, one who protected them, cherished them, and honored them. God longs to be their Father. He’s angry and sad they’ve never experienced true love, and He’s called us to have His heart for them. He says He “will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them” (Psalm 10:18), and He’s called us to enact that justice in the here and now.

Let’s pray for some genuine religion, friends.

And then let’s do it.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

The REAL battle this weekend

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NOTE: The topic and the links I’m sharing are not comfortable.

A year and a half ago I wrote an article (it’s on page four of the link) about two American women who provide dignified employment for at-risk women in Bangladesh, a country known for its sex slave industry. At the same time my husband, Dave, was teaching a new class at Wheaton Academy titled Culture and Theology. One of the units in the class was modern-day slavery, so we were both researching the issue and how it impacts every single country, including the U.S., where we live. I read a book titled The White Umbrella about the sex slave trade in the U.S. and about one specific ministry in the Atlanta, Georgia-area that reaches out to girls rescued from it. Dave discovered ministries like End It Movement and Love 146, which fight against human trafficking. At some point in our research, Dave discovered that the Super Bowl creates a huge market for trafficking.

That’s the reason for this particular post at this particular time.

“In 2010, the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children reported that 10,000 women were sold for sex at the Miami Super Bowl.” That quote is from an article published today that calls the Super Bowl a “sex-trafficking magnet.” Here’s a link to the several articles The Huffington Post has recently published on this topic.

Please pray.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

All is not well

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My youngest child had academic testing yesterday. He and I arrived at an office in the morning, and I was ushered into a room and handed three inventories to complete. One had 86 questions; one had 275; the last had 160. Needless to say, they were thorough.

I answered “true” or “yes” to quite a few questions, most of them related to high energy levels and difficulty focusing, and there were others about which I thought, “Well, that doesn’t relate to Patrick but it’s true for Jake”—or Maddie—or Emily—or me! I recognized each of my four children—and myself—in some of the items.

But most of the statements brought me both perspective and gratitude. For every “false” or “no” I checked, that was another issue we were not facing.

I texted some of these to Dave, my husband.

“My child has very low self esteem.”

Um, no.

“My child is painfully shy around new people.”

Definitely not.

Then one of the statements simply made me stop.

#53: “I’m afraid my child is going insane.”

True or False.

And I felt a little sick.

Because, obviously, there must be parents who have to mark “true.”

We each have troubles we can talk about, things like frustrations with our children or our parents, illnesses and actual losses.

But there is also a list of unmentionables we generally keep hidden: addiction, mental illness, rage issues, money troubles, marital conflict…

Our voices literally hush, softened with shame, when we speak of those. If we speak of those.

When the testing finished for the day, Patrick and I put on coats, hats, and gloves to brave the deep cold. Our drive home took us past the middle-class suburban neighborhoods I drive through nearly every day. One after another, the homes presented neat, tidy fronts. Trim siding and smoke from the chimneys proclaimed “All is well!” but I wondered about the unmentionable topics hid away inside. If I slipped an inventory under each door, which ones would come back with “true” marked for #53? Which ones would affirm “I’m afraid in my own home,” “My child is a real threat to himself or others,” or “One of the child’s parents continually threatens abandonment”?

No adults shoveled driveways; no children played in the snow. The cold had driven everyone inside.

Where secrets can be kept, and unmentionables are lived out.

All is not well.

Oh come, Lord Jesus, come.

And in the meantime, help your people to see and speak.

Praying for Sudan today

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This past weekend Dave and I watched most of the documentary God Grew Tired of Us about the Lost Boys of Sudan who left their homes during the long, drawn-out war between north Sudan and south Sudan (as of 2011 a separate country). Thousands upon thousands of South Sudanese were displaced by the conflict, among them 20,000 boys who trekked their way to Ethiopia, finding relief (those who didn’t die on the long journey) of a sort in refugee camps there. Violence forced them to move again, and those who survived eventually settled in camps in Kenya. They were dubbed the “lost boys of Sudan,” and the documentary tells the story of a few who were eventually relocated in the United States (you can watch it free on Hulu). It isn’t short, so if you are interested, you’ll need to set aside a couple hours to watch it. Warning: there’s footage and pictures of boys close to death from starvation, so not one to watch with small children. There is another film (which I have not seen) on this story titled, appropriately, Lost Boys of Sudan.

This is a popular topic, made so by the films and books written on it and by the involvement of the actor George Clooney. Due to the publicity, many of the lost boys who settled in the U.S. were able to begin relief work in their country and to advocate for their country’s separation from northern Sudan. When South Sudan gained its independence, many of them returned to celebrate. However, violence has broken out in Sudan again. John Bul Dau explains the conflict well in an article by National Geographic. Here’s another article about it at the New York Times. South Sudanese are being displaced once again.

I know this is only one of hundreds of conflicts in our world today, one of hundreds of issues that grieve God’s heart, but it’s the particular one I prayed for this morning. I was reading Isaiah 63, and this verse jumped out at me: “I (God) was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed. So I myself stepped in to save them with my strong arm, and my wrath sustained me” (verse 5). The “oppressed” who came to my mind when I read that were the South Sudanese. I did some quick research, read about the current conflict, and wanted to share.

ADDITION: World Vision, of course, is already in the area and taking donations for their efforts. Here’s the link if you want to read more/donate: World Vision.

The “why” of Bible reading

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When I open my online “Read through the Bible in a Year” program, it tells me I am on day 275 of 365.

That’s true, but it’s taken me quite a bit more than 275 days to get to this point. I don’t remember exactly when I started this plan, but right about the time I started falling behind in it, I discovered the “catch me up” button at the bottom of each daily reading list.

At first I felt guilty, as if I were a woman on a diet sneaking cookies.

But I don’t feel guilty now.

Not long ago I downloaded The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer to my Kindle. He wrote this in his preface to the book: “The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.”

I reflected on Tozer’s words in my journal. Why do I study Scripture? I wrote. That is a necessary question to answer. If my desire, as I read, study, and meditate, is not to know God better; to be more awed by His beauty and goodness; to be convinced more fully of His love for me; to be satisfied in Him and by Him—if all this is not my aim, then I may as well read another book.

Christ did not die for me to make me a Bible scholar; He died so I could have relationship with His Father. The only point in being a Bible scholar, then, is to deepen my knowledge of and relationship with God.

Yet other purposes often take over when I read Scripture. Sometimes I am seeking a particular answer to a theological question. Sometimes I simply want to know more just to know more (and I don’t mean that in a good way). My purposes can get even further from what they should be when I am following a reading plan. I like to see the little checkmarks fill in the empty circles on the reading calendar. I like the completion aspect of it. “Well, I got through Leviticus and Numbers. Now let’s tackle Deuteronomy.”

It can become a homework assignment; something to “get through.”

And when I don’t complete it, I experience guilt.

All these purposes cheapen both God and His Word.

Early last fall, my mother-in-law sent me a devotional she’d written for me to edit. The title was “Encountering God.” She wrote this: One way I encounter God that is such a thrill is when I draw near to Him before beginning my Quiet Time. I deliberately turn my focus to His presence. In my mind, I see Him standing before me. I focus my mind on Him, blocking out all else around me. Then I pray: Father God, I draw near to You, and in faith, I receive You drawing near to me. I see Him smiling at me and then coming near to embrace me with His Strong Arms. My soul is filled with delight as I allow myself to feel His embrace and His love for me pouring out through his loving arms. 

He never fails me. When I draw near to Him, He is always ready, and He graciously draws me close to His heart. These encounters strengthen my faith and hope in the One Who calls me His very own special treasure.

If I prepared for Bible reading and study like that, I would see and treasure Scripture as the very words of God. I would be unconcerned with “getting it done” and completely consumed with seeing God revealed in Scripture.

I share this post because a new year began only 21 days ago, and I know that many Christians resolve to read the Bible more in the new year than they did in the old. I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from reading Scripture—it’s still the Sword of the Spirit even when we don’t approach it as such—and I know we gain much from reading the entire Word of God…

but we gain God Himself, and not just knowledge ABOUT Him, when we read His Word with anticipation and awe.

*For a great article about yearly Bible reading plans, read Bible Gateway’s article “When Reading the Bible Becomes a Chore: Six Ways to Keep Your Bible Reading on Track This Year.”

*Bible Gateway also has a variety of Bible reading plans. Visit this page.