Praying

Our church is currently preaching through the book of James. When we sat down and worked out who would be preaching particular sections I took James 5:13-18. This section on prayer is convicting to say the least.

Next week's sermon on James 3:1-12 is very serious for those that are in a position as preachers and teachers. Knowing an account will be required of me by the living God for what I teach and how I live what I teach is sobering. As I was originally looking forward to preaching on prayer I made a challenge for myself. The challenge was to pray for each individual person in our church every day from the end of December to the day I preach the latter half of James 5. This is only possible because our church is small.

Still, I definitely have not lived up to the challenge completely. That does not, however, mean it has been fruitless. Thinking back I can not remember a time in my life that I have prayed more often, more earnestly, and for more people than I have in the past two months. God has been utterly changing me through this and spurring on more prayer in my life. It is amazing that we are not only allowed but encouraged to bring our requests and lift up our fellow brothers and sister in prayer. It is beyond compare that the God of the universe listens to us and utilizes our asking in bringing about His will.

Reawakened to my love for reading

Yesterday I wrote about how I learned to read as an adult. No matter how laborious it was learning how to read well, I also learned to love reading. Sitting down with a good book became one of my greatest passions in life.

This past year has been a trying time for me. I started college pre-requisites for the nursing program winter term of 2013. Between taking a full load at school, working full time, running accounts for the church and our missionaries, and being initiated as an elder at our church its been the busiest year of my life.

What this means is that all these responsibilities interfere with the time I previously had to sit down and dig into a book. Even reading the bible has suffered from all this. Where I used to be able to make time to read through many chapters each day, or sit and meditate on a few verses for hours, this time is now taken up memorizing anatomy of the human body or crunching numbers. I enjoy those things, but I enjoy the bible more. I still make time to get up every morning and commune with God in prayer and His scripture. I don't ever want the busyness of life to interfere with that time. Should such busyness ever hinder that time it will be the indicator to cut those responsibilities as quickly as possible.

This term I cut back to only 3/4 time school and the classes I'm currently taking turned out to be easier than expected. I started reading a book not required for school and ended up enjoying it so much I started another. Last night at our community group we decided to go through a book so I now have three books with me that I'm working through on top of my normal devotions in God's word every morning. I've been spending more time in the bible throughout the day as well and it had been so joyous. This past week has continually raised my affections for Christ.

I'm so grateful for the written word. There is something powerful about communicating this way. Thanks be to God who has given us His word to know Him. Praise to Him for graciously giving us the people who have written such great works to help us understand the bible better and raise our affections for God ever greater. Praise God for the written word.

Learning to read as an adult

Growing up I learned to read words. I learned how a bunch of words strung together formed a sentence. And then I learned how all those sentences fit together to mean something. But I never really learned how to read.

Learning to read in order to accomplish school work was never that difficult. All I had to do for most assigments is process the words themselves, pick one piece out and regurgitate it. Even as I returned to college last year this is still the level of reading that is expected.

But around five or six years ago I found everyone in my life knew a lot of theology. They knew weighty and awesome things about the gospel that I didn't quite understand. I was standing among people listening to their conversations, but was completely lost. This was when my friend mentioned to me an online resource called desiringgod.org.

Perusing through the site I found a wealth of resources to help me better understand the bible and the God who saved me. It was at Desiring God that I ran into names like; John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, William Wilberforce, John Owen, etc. Who were these guys?

I picked up a few books these men wrote and found the level at which they wrote was far beyond me. It was difficult. Reading was no longer easy, it was labor. I had to work through a page. Reading Owen for the first time I made it through about four words and had to go grab a dictionary. I think I spent a week reading the first page of Of Mortification of Sin in Believers. (book link has three books in one, the first of which is Of Mortification...)

That week opened my eyes to a whole new world. I realized for the first time that I didn't know how to actually read. The ability to read and understand fully was not a skill I possessed. At this point I had a choice. I could say that this is too difficult, not worth my time, put those books down and return to ease and comfort in my mind. Alternately, I had the choice to press in, push past every difficult word, trod slowly through every thick page, read and reread every sentence until I could understand its meaning and how it connected to the ones before and after it. To make it through any of those paragraphs meant engaging my mind in a more difficult work than it had every engaged in previously. I chose the latter, the fruit of which is worth more than the wages of many years of employment.

Reading through the works of men whom God so graciously gave such great minds has changed me forever. It has taught me how to read and understand. It has taught me to have patience and to stay the course. It has taught me to reside in something until I have found its meaning, refusing to move on until I have explored it thoroughly. It has changed the way I read the bible. It has changed the way I see the Living God.

I am still learning to read. I am looking forward to every labor, every difficult page in every book and the ways my mind will be enlightened to the mysteries of God's glory and grace. I look forward to the ways that this will change my heart and my affections every day.