My Growing Girl and Book Talk

Hi.

I'm not much of a morning person.  Something really exciting has to be going on for me to feel like one.  You know, like leaving on a big vacation or something of that ilk.  It takes a great deal for me to not hate life during the morning 5 o'clock hour.

This little girl manages to make me smile during that hour.

 

This morning I realized that her newborn looks are gone.  Vanished.  Seemingly overnight.  I've noticed her growing bigger and filling out and becoming more alert, but some of those newborn qualities were hanging on.

No longer.  My baby is a baby now.  Not a newborn.  She is over a month old now, after all.  That fact saddens and excites me.  I never expected to love the newborn stage so much.  I've always longed for babies to hurry up and get to two months because they seem less breakable and more entertaining by then.  Not so scary.

But my newborn wasn't scary.  I  mean, maybe a little, but she was also amazing, and the amazing part took me by major surprise.  Turns out I love the immobile, always down to snuggle, sleeps all the time, teeny-tiny baby month, and I'm sad to see that stage end so quickly.

However, yesterday her eyes locked on my face.  I knew she was really seeing me.  And then she smiled.  It wasn't just a gas-related smile.  She reacted to me.  And this went on for at least twenty minutes.  It was blissful.

I suppose that's one of the lessons of motherhood.  Each new stage brings something wonderful to ease the pain of leaving the previous one.

Well, I said I'd tell you about that book.

 

The Bible Tells Me So, by Peter Enns, was a difficult book for me to read.  Not because of lofty vocabulary or over-my-head concepts, but because it made me question things I thought I knew.

 

The part I struggled with the most was when he said that maybe some of the events we read about didn't actually happen the way they are portrayed in the Bible.  This made me want to set the book down throw the book across the room and not pick it up again.

 

However, he goes on to say that the Bible is a book of stories written by an ancient people, and that we need to realize they lived in a completely different culture than we do today.  That is an extremely basic breakdown of a large portion of his book. 

 

Much of what he says boils down to the fact that the Bible still works just the way it is.  We don't have to protect and defend, or try to explain it.  (Like explaining why God would tell the Israelites to wipe out entire cultures... because if we're being honest, doesn't that bother us?  What kind of gracious and compassionate God would order such a travesty?)

 

He says that this messy, strange Bible is the Bible that God gave us.  Not a neat and tidy rule book for life.  It is a book worth reading and paying attention to because God uses it to bring us to a deeper trust in him.  We were, after all, called to defend our faith, not the Bible.

 

One of his final points is that the Bible is not the center of the Christian faith.  Wait, what?!  That's right- the Bible is not the center- Jesus is, and if we pay attention to the Bible, we will realize that the Bible doesn't ask us to look at it, but through it. 

 

Another point he made was that the Bible is not a weapon for us to use against others.  Sure, it says it's sharper than a double-edged sword, but God is the one pointing it at each of us individually.  It is where we meet with God, "die" to ourselves and "accept the challenge of scripture, knowing [we] will be undone in the process."

 

The book made me wary of reading passages out of context.  But at the same time, it mentions that even Jesus read his Bible "creatively," and that doing so wasn't all that strange to the Jewish culture of his day. 

 

It made me question many of the beliefs I hold just because that's what I've been taught all my life, and that scared me.  It made me uncomfortable, which is why I felt so much better when I read "An unsettled faith is a maturing faith."  Enns points out that feeling unsettled may mean that God is pushing us out of our comfort zone, that he may be trying to get us to experience him more fully and to grow.

 

I think one of my favorite lines from the book is "In the spiritual life, the opposite of fear is not courage, but trust."

 

So, I guess while I grapple with all of these ideas, I should feel encouraged rather than discouraged because they are doing what they are meant to do.  They are making me trust in God, not a book.

 

Well that got a little long-winded, so kudos to you if you read the whole thing.  I honestly would recommend the book.  It was tough.  (For me at least, but that could be because I'm a firstborn and don't like to go against the grain.)

 

Let me know if you do decide to read it.  I'd love to chat about it! 

 

Right now I have a sleepy babe who wants to be cuddled.  It's a rough life I'm leading,

 

Later.

 

Aim