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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

My Challenge... Day 1.

First, I ought to explain what I am doing. Right now, I am in Austria. I've been attending Bible school, and now I am a nanny for the principle's family. I'm going to be living here as a nanny for about 6 weeks. And, I decided to take one of the many challenges offered to me this year at Bible school... and that is, a challenge from John Allan.
He told us about a challenge someone gave him, many years ago, and that was to read the same book of the Bible every day for a month. He told us that he did it, and found something new in the book he read everyday... and that he learned a lot from just reading the same thing over and over again for a month. Naturally I kind of rolled my eyes and said to myself that he was crazy and that was certainly not for me. Yet, another indicator that I am young and have much to learn.
The other day, I was making some goals for my time here as a nanny... little goals like doing crunches every day (making an effort to lose some of the things I gained from Bible School!), approaching every task with joy... playing Polly pockets whenever my company is desired... but then I became distinctly aware that I needed a plan to stay in step with God. I've read through the whole Bible this year, so I can't just read the next chapter... since I finished. And that's when I felt like God was impressing it on my heart to read one book of the Bible every day while I'm here as a nanny. I was thinking the book of Jude was a prime candidate for this task, since you can read it in the time it takes to blink.... but instead, I prayed about what I've been struggling with, and that is the mouth. I remember being very young and my mom giving me a verse from James about the tongue... I often use it to wound people rather than encourage them and build them up. Therefore, this lead me to read the book of James every day for the next 6 weeks.
I will tell you about yesterday, my first day of reading and then I'll post a separate blog about today's reading... which I have yet to do, because I wanted to blog about what stuck out to me yesterday without today's thoughts merging with it.

June 22nd, 2010 Tuesday
Today chapter one, verses 5-8 stuck out to me.
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (6) But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. (7) That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; (8) he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."
1. If you don't have wisdom... ask.
2. Don't doubt.
The concept of wisdom confuses me. I think I have the mentality that if I ask God for wisdom, He will give me the answer to my question or current predicament. I feel like there's more to it, though. One thing is abundantly clear; if you ask God for wisdom or help DON'T DOUBT HIM. I guess that's like holding onto God's hand saying "sure you can lead me wherever you want..." but then trying to walk in a different direction. Unstable.
Thinking back to Tauernhof... this is what I've come up with:
Life is like a slack-line. It's stable as long as you're holding onto the tree (aka God) but once you let go and walk away, it's extremely hard to stay upright.

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