Your God is Too Safe - Week 3
I can’t believe how quickly this month is going by. As I have said I am really enjoying Your God is Too Safe. Each chapter seems to give me something new to think about. Your comments have also helped me to see things that I missed in my reading. That is why I enjoy reading books like this in a Christian Book Club setting.
This week we will be reading and discussing Chapters 13 - 17. We are moving into “The Holy Wild”. I just did a quick preview scan and I think we are in for some very interesting reading. I look forward to reading your comments. Don’t forget that you can comment on each others comments. If you get a chance this week, try to do that for one another. Just use the Reply to This Comment tab. If you are new to the site your first comment has to be moderated by me. That is done so that spammers can’t get in and put garbage on the site. After I approve your first comment, your following comments will just pop right up.
It is time to get ready for June’s book which is Hope 3:16 by Max Lucado. I am looking forward to the book. I haven’t read it yet, but Max Lucado is an excellent writer and speaker. If you ever get to go to a conference where he is speaking you will enjoy it. If you need to order the book I will give you a link to do that here.
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3:16: The Numbers of Hope By Max Lucado |
Thank you all for your participation. I hope you are enjoying this club as much as I am.
I wanted to thank all of you for your comments. It seems as though most of us really enjoyed ...
This book is quite profound! I've heard some of the controversy, but I felt drawn toward this book. ...
I thought the book was great. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to read about the ...
Hello everyone.
What I am taking from the story of Shack is the importance of tempering anger in our ...
as i went through the book many times i felt the presents of God through the trees , mountains, water ...
I am so glad I found this website! What a blessing!
Comment by Wendy on 19 May 2008:
Holy Habits- do I have any? That is the question I had at the end of chapter 13. I told myself no and then my husband commented to me about how disciplined I am with my time (I looked around the room to see who he was talking to actually). I don’t feel as if I budget my time well at all. I am a list person. I HAVE to write things down and cross them off to feel like I’ve done something. My new habit is to put GOD, PRAYER, BIBLE STUDY on the list. I never did that because I felt like I was making God something I could check off…now I believe He has told me to put Him first on the list and enjoy the journey of making Him my habit.
Page 133 You can only work out what you already have.
What a beautiful statement. If I lived my life every second knowing that God Almight loves me and wants the very best for me I know my attitude would be alot different at times.
Page 142
I talked about this just yesterday in Sunday School. The passage refers to the men walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize Him at all. We do the very same. We miss Jesus in the little because we are always wanting BIG. I have a journal that I have kept for years now. It is called “Blessings”. I have no idea now where I got this idea (I didn’t make it up)but I’ve enjoyed doing it. The rules are…every day you write down one blessing that has happened to you that day. But, you can never repeat yourself. It makes you stop and think at the end of the day what really mattered to you and what brought a smile to your face. (Try it). Seeing Jesus in the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the friends you have, your spouse, your children, your job, your church, your health, whatever causes you to be a little more content with your world and gives Him the glory for it all.
Page 144 Buchanan talks about how people used to take their faith seriously. Some of the actions due to that were wrong but nonetheless they had a strong conviction about something. Our world has a strong conviction about one thing…THEMSELVES. We have become the society of what is in it for ME. It is all about ME. Yes there are exceptions but for the most part we don’t help like we should and unfortunately I am guilty of this too.
Page 146 I believe this is my favorite page of the whole book so far.
The Bible makes no room for the idea of the secular.
But there is something deeper still. When we remove the false distinction between sacred and secular, see all things existing by Him, for Him and through Him, we are then free to redeem many so-called secular activities for the kingdom of God.
I love this!!! We often spend too much time figuring out whether something is Christian or secular. What a waste of time. As page 146 points out things are either SACRED or PROFANE. That’s the difference. As long as my activity is not profane to God and has not taken the place in my life of God then why must I explain my delight in them?
Page 149 Expectancy vs. Expectation
I never really took notice of the difference but it is quite clear once explained. If I expect you to do something for me I’ve already formulated how I want it done. If you don’t do it right I either get upset or just push you out of the way and do it myself. I will have to remember this difference. May all those living with expectations of God have their eyes open and learn to live KNOWING He will do something but on His terms.
Chapter 15 causes you to squirm a bit. We don’t like to share our wounds. I am a very strong willed person and I’m not the typical emotional female (I apologize to any that I might have offended with that). My point is I keep alot inside but I’ve learned to give it to God, just not share it with other people. I don’t harbor fears and I don’t worry very much. My husband is amazed by my lack of worry but this is my verse for that. (Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.)
What amazes me about Jesus (well one thing that does) is the fact that He kept His wounds and He shared them. I can hardly wait to touch those nail-scarred hands!
Confession….that is probably no ones favorite word or action!
The extremes of the Roman Catholic practice and the Protestants “practice” is worth examining. My husband grew up Catholic and has told me several times that he “confessed” just because. No repentance just something he was supposed to do. Now of course being raised as a Baptist I have been a part of the “smiling, laughing, savvy people who are dying inside and too afraid to let anyone know”. We are shocked when their lives fall apart because they seemed so “with it”. We have fooled ourselves on both extremes and God is heart broken about it.
Being honest with ourselves is often the hardest thing to do. Just the other day a friend of mine wrote on her blog a quote.
If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‘em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. ~Douglas Adams
The point being we love to deceive ourselves. We would rather hold onto a lie than come clean. We can’t do this and truly confess. We all want to believe that we are great people with great motives and we love everyone. Yeah right. Satan’s greatest tool is blinding us to who we really are and making us believe that God isn’t really going to hold us accountable for all that we have done.
And once again the same train of thought shows up on page 173 that was on page 133. We already have God’s love and confession is done knowing this fact. I knew my mom loved me and my greatest fear growing up was that I would disappoint her and make her ashamed of me. I confessed to her one day things I had done and her response? “I love you, I already knew about it and I was waiting for you to come tell me”. I have never felt better in my life than after that moment. Our relationship was more solid and the love I felt from her that day was immeasurable. That is what God wants from me.
Chapter 17
Solitude, Silence, Secrecy
Gotta work on these. Our world is so noisy. When I’m home by myself I have nothing on. If there was no such thing as college basketball I probably wouldn’t own a tv :). I love to listen to music but often times I want nothing. My job is very noisy and my head just hurts at the end of a work day. I enjoy my solitude when I get it. I need to spend more of that solitude with God and not my computer (yeah good thing to say as I’m typing this huh?). Secrecy is probably what I need to work on the most. Being quiet and being bold at the right times is not a gift of mine.
Look forward to reading the other posts.
~Wendy~
Comment by Carol on 20 May 2008:
I really enjoyed your comments this week, Wendy.
I am glad that you are in this bookclub, and are
so willing to be open with us about your Christian
walk.
Chapter 13 is a great lesson because it reminds
us that if you form holy habits bit by bit and step by step, you can get your basic things in place for
when you face bigger trials and tribulations. In the secular world, this reminded me alot of dieting, where sometimes we wish that the pounds could disappear right away instead of having to discipline ourselves day by day to eat right. Or about the practice of saving money for the future. God knew exactly what He was doing when He instructs
us in several places about His daily mercies and
provisions. He gives them to us on a DAILY basis,
not in one lump sum.
Wendy, what you said about Chapter 15 causing you to squirm a bit can be said for how I felt about Chapter 16 - confessing your sins to one good
person. The problem for me is finding that good
person. Oh sure, you can find many people to talk
to, but finding that one who, as Buchanan says,
is wise, mature in the faith, aware of their own
frailty, honest about their own sin and weakness,
earthy and able to laugh, can weep with those who
weep, rejoice with those who rejoice, and is not
shocked by sin but frequently grieved by it in
themselves as much as in others. They need to
be trustworthy, not given to gossip, truly pursuing
God, and above all needs to love. Where do you
find persons such as these? And then, would someone
consider me that person they could confess to, and
what would I have to do to become that person?
You naturally think of your spouse as being this
person for you, but I feel that sometimes you need
a person of the same sex as you to be accountable
to. Like, for example, if a man is having sexual temptation issues, he can be accountable to his wife, but he needs to confess to another
Christian godly man who is able to understand his
manhood.
As far as Chapter 17 and the solitude, silence and secrecy issue, I was taken by surprise by the
examples of Jesus’ slowness. Jesus knew what He
was doing, and responded by taking His time, even when Lazarus was dying. Big lesson for us all to follow His example instead of reacting to every situation that comes upon us. I don’t recall ever hearing it quite put this way as I did in reading this book, and I found it very enlightening.
I can’t wait to read the last section of this book to see how he ties everything together.
Comment by Wendy on 21 May 2008:
Thanks Carol.
I actually am blessed to have the one person I can confess to and it is very interesting how it happened. Her name is Angela and we went to school together. We did not hang out together but I grew up in a town where everyone went to the same schools from Middle to High School. Everyone “knew” everyone else and of course we knew what everyone else did in their lives. So therefore years later when I started attending church and getting my life on the right track I met Angela again. We quickly become very good friends and have been now for 13 years. We are aware of each other’s past and we know how far God has brought us. We can talk about anything and we do! We often joke that if we don’t have at least 2 hours to spare then we can’t call each other on the phone. I pray that you find that someone if you don’t have one now. I agree about your spouse but what happens when it is your spouse you want to talk about (LOL).
Comment by stephenlawes on 21 May 2008:
Thank you both for your insightful comments. I am responding more thoroughly in my next post. Your comments are really adding to my experience with this book. Thank you for your input. It has been a real blessing!