Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Simple Prayer.

The opening quote on this chapter is by Dom John Chapman and is says: "pray as you can, not as you can't" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1). I will admit that at first, and even now, I am not too sure I know what this is saying. But when I think about it, I think it is saying  that we should pray the way that we know how, the way that works best for us, instead of trying to 'fit in" with everyone else in terms of how to pray. If praying is about being with God, spending time with Him, then each of us will have a different way of being with Him; a different way in which we can spend time with God. Maybe there is not just one way to spend time with God.

One of the things that stuck out to me in this book is when Foster wrote: "it is the notion-almost universal among us modern high achievers- that we have to have everything 'just right 'in order to pray. That is, before we can really pray, our lives need some fine tuning, or we need to know more about how to pray, or we need to study the philosophical questions surrounding prayer, or we need to have a better grasp of the great traditions of prayer"(Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1). I felt that I could relate to this a little. I want to pray daily and have it be an important part of my life, yet I also feel like I need to learn how to pray. So I am reading books about praying, and talking to my friends about it, etc. Foster goes on to say that it is almost like we think of praying as something we can master. And the thing is, we can never master praying. Praying is spending time with God, and how can we master that? In this section, foster quotes Emilie Griffin in saying "to pray means to be willing to be naïve" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1). I loved this quote for some reason. Maybe because I tend to be a little bit naïve sometimes.

This part stuck out to me maybe the most, mainly because it is freaky to be how close it is to my own feelings. I won't quote the entire paragraph, but I will quote enough to give a basic idea of what it is talking about. "I used to think that I needed to get all my motives straightened out before I could pray, really pray" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   Then further down he writes: "you understand I did not want to be a hypocrite" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   I can relate to this so much! I not want to be a fake Christian. I do not want to fake anything aspect of my life with God, and so if I do not know why something is being done or if I not feel it, then I won't do it. like taking the wine at communion(or taking communion at all for a long while). And my reasoning, as you can see is very similar to Foster's: I don't want to be a hypocrite.  But Foster says that when it comes to praying, none of us have or will ever have totally pure motives. He writes: "but what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive is with all out mixture. We do not have be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   What I got from this is that we should not let the fact that we are not feeling loving, or that we don't know how to pray, or out motives are not 100% pure and altruistic, and holy, etc. we will never not have a mixture of motivations, because we don't live in a perfect world, so we should just come to prayer, come to God. He knows it all already, and He can handle all of it. Foster wrote that it is kind of like when children come to their parents, and sometimes their requests are selfish or their manners are mean, and the parents cringe, but the parents are also glad that their child came to them. It reminded me of something I wrote in an email to my friend Brent a day or so ago, that praying is kind of like a friendship: you don't just talk to your friend when you are happy and pleased with them you know?  Foster ended this section of the chapter with this: "we will never have pure enough motives, or be good enough, or know enough in order to pray rightly. We simply must set all these things aside and begin praying" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).  

In the next prayer, Foster introduces the concept of Simple Prayer. He writes: "simple prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. There is no pretense in Simple Prayer. We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. We do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God-or ourselves" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).  To put it simply,  I love this idea. I love the idea that I don't have to have prayer all figured out, or be a certain way when I pray, or feel a certain way, or have a certain emotion, etc.  I came just…be with God. No matter the method, no matter the location, no matter the words, no matter the motive, no matter the intension, no matter the words, no matter the actions, etc. I can just…be with God. I just have to come. God will do the rest.

"There is a temptation, especially by the 'sophisticated' to despise this most elementary way of praying. They seek to skip over Simple Prayer in the hopes of advancing to more 'mature' expressions of prayer" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   I really believe in this, because I kind of am guilty of doing this in a way. I did not grow up in any kind of religious environment, and  also, I have met some truly great and awesome Christians at ACU who are my friends. Due to these reasons, I always feel like…like a Christian baby while my friends are Christian teenagers. Like they are all so much more ahead of me, so much more advanced. Sometimes, I feel like the annoying little sister who always want to speak to her big siblings about trivial and basic things at great length while they are all wanting me to leave them be so they can concentrate on the more serious things. But reading this, it made me feel like maybe basic is not always a bad thing. And if Simple Prayer means praying by coming just as you are, no requirements, etc. then maybe, that is the way we should all be striving to pray like.

At the beginning of the next section, entitled "Beginning Where We Are", Foster Wrote: "to believe that God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life is the stuff of prayer" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   I really loved this! It kind of speaks for itself so I won't comment on it, but I loved it a lot!

One thing that foster wrote is that we should not be afraid to yell or scream at God, to argue with Him, etc. he wrote: "God is perfectly capable of handling our anger and frustration and dissapoiment. CS Lewis counsels us to 'lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).  This struck me because it seems like I know this, but I always…feel bad, when I complain to God, or when I am angry at Him. I want to trust Him 100%, but that is hard and maybe a little unrealistic, so maybe I should not feel bad for being totally honest with God. 

Foster ended this section with this: "and so I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life, a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. For now, do not worry about 'proper' praying, just talk to God" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).   This encouraged me to just…talk to God and not worry about doing it right, or doing it seriously enough, or mature enough, etc.

"We must never be discouraged by our lack of prayer. Even in our prayerlessness we can hunger for God. If so, the hunger is itself prayer" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).I was really struck by this because I always worry about how little I pray, and yet I so long and like to think I'm working towards changing that. So this gives me hope that maybe, longing for prayer and for God is a prayer in of itself.

"An opposite but equally important counsel is to let go of trying too hard to pray" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).  I love this  because he is reminding us that while we should work at praying, it is also not something that we should force upon ourselves, at least not in a "I won't stop until I get this right" sorta way. We should work at praying, but we should also remember that it is not something that should be forced upon ourselves, or others.

"Finally, I would suggest that in the beginning it is wise to strive for uneventful prayer experiences" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Chapter 1).  When I read this, I thought of it like if you are in a romantic relationship, and you expect that every time you talk or hang out, it will be this beautiful, romantic, deeply intense and significant thing, etc. if you had those expectations, then it won't work. It cannot always be like that. Trying to always make it romantic and significant would take your attention away from the small, every day details that make up a relationship.

Basically, what I got from this chapter is pray by simply talking to God, despite your mood. Don't worry about getting it right or your motives. Just pray. Just come to God. He will do the rest.

 

 

 

 

Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction

     hey, let me know how wacky and crazy my thoughts are. lol.

 

 

 In the section "The Key and the Door", Foster writes: "perhaps prayer is the delight of your life. You have lived in the divine milieu for a long time and can attest to its goodness. But you long for more: more power, more love, more of God in your life" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction) I will admit that I cannot really relate to the first part of this, but the second part, about longing for more, I can. I want praying to be more than what we do at the end of a Study, or when someone is really upset or going through a hard time. I want it to mean more than just presenting God with a list of requests and thank yous.  So I can relate to at least part of this. The part about it being the delight of my life, etc. not very much. At least not yet, but I want it to be the delight of my life.

                The last section of this "introduction" chapter  is entitled "The Syntax of Prayer" and a passage in it really leaped out at me: "This book is written to help you explore this 'many-splendored' heart of God. It is not about definitions of prayer or terminology for prayer or arguments about prayer, though all of these have tjeir place.nor is it about methods and techniques of prayer, though I am sure we will discuss both. No, this book is about a love relationship: an enduring, continuing, growing love relationship with the great God of the universe.and overwhelming love invites a response. Loving is the syntax of prayer. To be effective pray-ers, we need to be effective lovers"(Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction). I love this passage!  I love that this book won't be about how to pray, or the right words to say when praying, or a doctrine book about prayer, but instead, it will be the heart of the matter: what prayer is truly and really about: love. God. A relationship. A relationship of love with God.  Maybe at some point I will want to read a prayer book that does address those things, but for now, I just need to focus on what it truly and really is about. I feel like we have turned praying into a time where we put a list of requests to God, throw in Thank Yous, and that's it. Do we listen to Him? Does this sound like a love relationship, truly spending time with God, going to Him? I am not sure it does. I feel like it should be more. I want it to be more than just that. Have we turned praying into something that requires methods, doctrine, specific body positions, and technique? So I am excited that Foster will be focusing on the heart of praying, what God wants praying to Him to be like. I know this sounds weird, but again, I am not arguing doctrine here. I am just writing about my opinions and views and observations.  I love where he says that in order to be effective pray-ers, we have to be effective lovers. In order for our praying life to be…effective for lack of a better word….we need to be love. Love sounds it's God's language doesn't it? anyways, I loved that part. I love that fosters seems to be saying that we don't need to have fancy words or the right position or the right words or be holding hands or have taken a class on praying but we just need…to love. To be good lovers.   I feel like we forget that a lot, in many areas other than just praying.  He also writes: "real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love"(Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction) that pretty much sums it up I think J

That is the end of the "introduction section. I am now about to start Part I, Moving inward: seeking the transformation we need. I am very much excited and ready to read this part. I think it will really hit home with me.

Prayer by Richard Foster, Preface and Intro

so i am reading prayer by richard foster, and these are some of my thoughts so far. hoping to get some feedback.

Preface

I downloaded Richard Foster's books to my kindle, and I am starting to read his book entitled "Prayer." I am only on preface, but already it is so good!  Normally when I do a post on this blog about a book I put the page down after all the quotes I use, however, since this book is on my kindle, I won't do that. However, I will write down the title and the author and the chapter.

   I have only read the preface of this book, but already I can tell it is going to be a good book. I was first introduced to this book junior year at ACU, during all girls' life group, when melody, one of the girls read it for one of her classes on study abroad to Oxford, and she really enjoyed it. However, I have never read it. I really think that it is going to be a good book. I am very much looking forward to reading it.

    In the preface, Foster wrote: "countless people, you see, pray far more than they know. Often they have such a 'stained glass' image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer and so condemn themselves for not praying" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Preface).  This was one of the first things that caught my eye and I can safely say that I think I am one of these people that he is talking about. I do not think I pray enough. I do not consider prayer to be a part of my daily life, and I hate that. I am working on it, hence I am reading this book, but what if my idea of prayer is…limited. What if praying is more than just closing your eyes, holding hands, and having someone ask God for prayer requests and think Him for praises. Or doing the same thing by yourself? What if that is just one way to pray? What if there is more to it than that, and we just don't know it? I just don't know it. I know that this might sound…selfish, but I so want to experience something amazing when I'm praying. I want to experience something without explanation, that defies logic and common sense and everything we know and everything I know…I said it might sound selfish because I know that praying is about God, letting Him into our hearts and our souls. It's not about us, but there you go. It made me think that maybe this book is going to be something that is really going to hit home with me and inspire me.

                "Healthy prayer necessitates frequent experiences of the common, earthy, run-of-the-mill variety. Like walks, and talks, and good wholesome laughter like work in the yard, and chitchat with the neighbors, and washing windows. Like loving out spouse, and playing with our kids, and working with colleagues to be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life"(Prayer by Richard Foster, Preface).  Foster wrote this at the end of the Preface, and I love it!  I love the idea that you can't pray unless you are living, that it does not work unless you are living. Maybe spending all day, 24/7 in prayer is not the best way to pray, because you are not living life.  Now, I am not a theologian, and I am not debating or contradicting, etc. doctrine or life of devoted to prayer, I am merely stating my opinions here. I really loved this, and again, it makes me excited and eager to read the rest of this book. I hear nothing but good things about Richard Foster, and so far, I agree with the good things I hear. This makes me think. Maybe prayer is supposed to be about spending time with God, connecting with God, making God a part of your life, every aspect of your life. and it seems to me that what Foster is saying here, or what I am getting out of it anyway, is that you can't do that unless you are living life. you can't make God an aspect of every part of your life if you are not living your life.

Coming Home: An Invitation to Prayer

       This section comes before the first section; it's kind of an…introduction to the book.  The quote that opens this section is "True, whole prayer is nothing but love" by St. Augustine (Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction. I really liked this quote, and I think it's fitting. Makes me think that maybe we make praying so complicated and such a big mysterious thing when in reality, maybe it is just spending time with God and going to Him and letting Him touch and change our hearts.

       One of the first things that caught my eye in this section (so far, I have not finished reading it)is this passage(it's at the end of the first part of this introduction section: " we do not need to be shy. He invites us into the living room of his heart, where we can put on old slippers and share freely. He invites us into the kitchen of his friendship, where chatter and batter mix in good fun. He invites us into the dining room of his strength, where we can feast to our heart's delight. He invites us into the study of his wisdom, where we can learn and grow and stretch…and ask all the questions we want. He invites us into the workshop of his creativity, where we can be co-laborers with him, working together to determine the outcomes of events. He invites us into the bedroom of his rest, where new peace is found and where we can be naked and vulnerable and free. It is also the place of deepest intimacy, where we know and are known to the fullest" (Prayer by Richard Foster, Introduction). i love this passage. I love the imagery of it. Of God being like a house, like Home, and praying can take us into various different parts of this Home, not just one.  Sometimes when I think of praying, I think of prayer requests or praises, one of the other. But maybe those are just two parts of it, two rooms in the house. Maybe there are more rooms. Maybe praying is simply being in the house. I know that makes no sense, but it's hard to describe. I just love the imagery. Praying is spending time with God. In various rooms, in various ways and for different ways, but spending time with God .

Fast Food Nation, part 1

Author: Eric Schlosser
             I am still in the process of reading this book. I bought it on my kindle, and I am a little less than halfway through it. however, I want to write a short post on my thoughts on it so far.  
             To start off with, this book is not what I thought it was going to be. I thought it would about why fast food is bad for you, and why you shouldn't eat it, etc. and I suppose it is about that, but the author talks about the fast food industry as a whole. I liked the chapter where he talks about how the growth of cars is what really started the fast food craze. I suppose it makes sense when you think about it. before cars became affordable for everyone, most people didn't have the means to go out to eat at restaurants every day. once cars came along, people now could go out to eat. hence the growth of restaurants. as they became more and more popular, people started driving cross country, driving everywhere really, and boom! drive- throughs were born, McDonald's, Wendy's...I do like that all the founders for these fast food restaurants were people who took a risk, they thought outside of the box. as the author says, it is ironic because today fast food restaurants are not known for individuality. 
      I must admit the chapter that...weirded me out(so far) was the chapter where he talks about the flavor and taste of fast food. apparently, the taste and the flavor are created by plants! the flavor and the taste are killed by the process of freezing and refreezing that fast food restaurants use, so the flavor and the taste has to be created elsewhere. in a factory. the flavors and the tastes are fake, created in a test tube somewhere. not only are the flavor and the taste created by companies, but these same companies also create the fragance of deoraoranys, cleaners, detergenet, etc. the same companies that create how deororatants smell, use the same building and the same machines and science and process to create how your food smells and tastes. that is just WRONG!!!!
so far reading this has made me think, but I am also finding that you have to do more than just tell people how unhealthy it is. we all know that it's bad for us. but there's almost no other choice when you don't have time or energy to cook every day, or who have a job that only gives you an hour for lunch. people go to fast food places where you get your food quick and it tastes good. to get people to stop going, you have to give them other options to be able to get their food quickly you know? 
so far it's an interesting book and I'm enjoying it.

Eat Pray Love: Beads 6-11

In the 6th bead of her book Elizabeth Gilbert talks about when things started to get better. she was still going through a painful divorce and her relationship(the one she started after she left her husband)to David was over, she moved out of his apartment in 2002.

    one of the things she talks about at the start of this bead is how after she moved out of David's apartment she moved into her own apartment and lived by herself for the first time in her life. she says that it was so important to her to live in a "one bedroom." I found this interesting because she talks about how she saw her apartment as a "..sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery"(22). I haven't gone through a painful divorce, or in been in any relationship at all let alone a serious one, never even been on a date, but I can relate a little to how she viewed her apartment. because I went potluck at U.P, I did not have a housemate for the first year that I lived there(the one I got this year has moved out, so am by myself until they find me a new one) I had the place to myself though I did not have access to the second room. but I loved having the place to myself because I got to decorate it,it became my place, where I knew no one else was going to be there, I didnt have to worry about other people being around,etc.sure sometimes it gets sad coming home to an empty place but there's something very...freeing about it too. in china, am going to have my own one bedroom apartment, and am looking forward to that. sure, its scary because of the stories I hear about rats and is CHINA!! am going to be living by myself in a country that's on the other side of the world! lol so I can relate to how she viewed her apartment: a place to heal, to be yourself, where you're free to just feel what your feeling and not have to sensor it because of others.

  something else I can relate to is when she talks about how she and David kept breaking up then coming back together. she writes "because how could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after?it had to work didn't it?"(22). I want to be in a romantic relationship with the right guy, to know that he loves me and that I love him, and we are good for each other. am also a hopeless romantic, so for me, love is all you need. since most of my love is unrequited love, in my mind if the two people love each other, all's good. perfect sailing. but maybe that's not always true. maybe you do need more than love. maybe just because two people love each other, really and truly, doesnt mean they'll end up together, that it'll work. maybe there are other things that have to be there as well. Brent tells me all the time to focus on what I have being single, what that frees me to do that married people/people in relationshisps arent free to do, and I never really can. to me what they have is so much more...valuable. at least to me. in my mind, if the guy loves you back, all's good. maybe i have an unrealistic perception that I need to work on.

"i was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the compartments of time and space that werw appearing in my days,during which I could ask myself the radical new question:'what do you want to do,Liz?'"(23). I liked this because like I stated earlier, am told all the time that being single frees me to travel, to think about what I want to do and not have to factor in someone else,etc. and i always say that's not worth it to me. yet, this statement makes me think about that. i've never been on a date or in a relationship, so am used to just being able to go where i want(money issues aside, parents aside,etc). i can think about what i want, why i want it, if i can do it,etc. and i never have to factor in someone else. the idea of not being able to do something because of a guy in my life, is...alien to me. its SO hard for me to picture. all these "freedoms"that single life has that people tell me about, that I know it brings, I do have them. and while i may say that they are not worth it to me, sometimes you don't know what in your life you need until its not there. liking moving to a foreign country: you might not even think about how much you want a detached house because detached houses are the standard in america. in places like England and the Continent, they are not standard so until you get there you don;t realize that you do want a detached house. so maybe right now, freedoms of single life are the standard for me, so i dont even notice them. yet maybe if I were all of a sudden in a relationship, i would notice those freedoms and how i do actually like them and need to have them for awhile. if i were in a relationship right now, I would be seriously worrying about how my going to China to teach for a year is going to affect my relationshipa and that would be a MAJOR factor in whether I would even go or not. I would be having to think that i want to come back to live in Abilene for a few years, at least for graduate school and a litlle longer but my boyfriend is planning to move to the metroplex,etc. putting it in that perspective, it makes me see that maybe...maybe I like my single freedoms more than I realize. not that I WANT to stay single forever, and not that I now don't want to date or meet a guy or have a boyfriend, etc but it does...put things into perspective and makes me think about...starting to be glad that am single and realizing that maybe...(this is VERY hard and scary for me to write)...maybe...maybe at this point in my life, I need/want to be single, to not have to factor in someone else in my life choices. i want to live in a city that i want to live in, that i choose to live in because it feels right to me, i want to choose a graduate school(if any accept me which I doubt)that is right for me,etc. i want to go to China for a year and teach english, then come back and do my master's, live in Abilene so either go to hardin simmons for my master's in Reading Education or do the Southern New Hampshire University Master's in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and maybe go back to China once I have my master's(and qualify for higher salary)or get a job teaching english at a community college,etc. and those plans mean a lot to me, and they feel right to me, and I think God approves of them(i write that very hesingtantly because I don't know the mind/Will of God) so maybe having a relationship right now would just...idk. not be...idk. but maybe you get what I'm saying. and that quote made me think about all of this because she talks about thinking about what she wants is a radical idea for her, and to me it isnt.

I also like that she writes "But why must everything always gave a practical application?"(23). i like that and i think its a something our society needs to learn. graduate programs ask you why you want that degree, what you want to do with it,etc and sometimes I wonder why the people who want a master's for the heck of it, because its somethign they want, who want to do something but dont have a specific "reasonable" reason for  it,etc, get treated like they're wrong, like they're not serious. this quote is when she was talking about how she was learning Italian and she was saying to herself there wasn't a good practical reason for it.

in the 7th bead, she talks about how she got an Indian Guru. this is a short bead, actually all of these are pretty short chapters, not long at all which I like. each bead does feel like a story, a small snaphot of something and the true story is how they all fit into the greater story, each is a tiny part of the greater whole. something that she wrote that I loved was she whe she said that she wanted a spiritual teacher she wrote: "I literly mean that it was my heart who said this,speaking through my mouth"(25). this happens to me a lot, I feel a strong desire for something, a strong love of something, and i dont have the words for it or the reason for it. maybe its the things that we feel but don't have a reason for that are the most...true.i also like the ancient Sankskirt mantra that her Guru gave all her students that she would mediate every morning  that means "I honor the divinity that resides within me"(25). I love it because that's what we as Jesus followers should be doing.

the 8th bead was about she got this assighment (she was a journalist)in Indonesia and she ended up talking to this 9th generation mediciene man. they could bring one question or proble to him and he would try to help them. she said :" i want to have a lasting experience of God...sometimes I feel like I understand the divinity of this world,but then i lose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears.i want to be with God all the time. but i don;t want to be a monk,or totally give up worldly pleasures. i guess what i want is to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights,but also devote myself to God"(27). simply put, I love this because I want the exact same thing. I want to...feel God. experience Him . yet I also don't want to shut myself off to the world or from people to do it. the medicine man told her that she would come back to Bali.

in the 9th bead is where she gets the idea that we know is coming, the idea to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia. at first she couldn't decide which one to go. she wanted to go to Italy so she could practive her italian in context and because "...i was drawn to the idea of living for a while in a culture where pleasure abd beauty are revered"(29). i have been having the same feeling a bit lately, its actually one of my  new year's resolusions, to experience something beautiful. i also have this desire to go to the Grand Canyon, and i will!! anyway, she also wanted to go to her Guru's Ashram in India, and go to Indonesia again. all three countries were so different and her reasons for each of them were opposites almost: pleasure in italy and devotion in India. so wrote: "what if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could syncrhonize seemingly incongrous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?"(29). i love this because the idea appeaks to me: what if we did not limit ourselves, what if we simply expanded our lives, our hearts, our minds, so we can experience it all?love everything and everyone? interesting thought. at least, I think so. it reminds me of my England and China thing. I have this STRONG love of England, I love it, am in love with it and I want to live there, i love the country, the people, its history, its culture...i fell in love with it. its in my heart. England is what I want, where I want to go, what i love...China is where GOD is sending me and where GOD is putting this strong passionate love and dedication  and desire in me for this country, and obviously what God wants is more important, but He didn;t just take away my love of England. its still there, He's just adding a love of China there. it makes me look forward to loving China just as much as i do England, and whateve else God puts in my heart for me to love. i want to love the whole world like this. not an exact paralle, but a slight similarity. lol.

the 9th bead is where she decides to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, art of devotion in India, and art of balancing the two in Indonesia. she says her friends were mysterified and often mocked her for it.she talks about how she was not free to leave because of her divorce, since her soon to be ex husband was still being  difficult.

she said that she and David had broken up again. she wrote something that I can definely relate to, on a smaller scale: "often I was still overcome with a desire to sacrifice everything for the love of him. other times, i had the quite opposite instict-to put as many continents and oceans as possible between me and this guy, in the hope of finding peace and happiness"(31). i can relate to it because there is a part of me that  believes it would give up all the freedom of being single, or my going to China, or my graduate school or staying in Abilene for awhile, for a guy, yet there is another part of me, strong and bigger actually but that am...scared of so I hide it, that is NOT willing to give those things up right now. not that it wants to be single forever, but those things mean a lot to me and am going to do them and it knows a relationship would make those things...impossible and/or hard to do. i can also relate to it because I currently feel this way about Brent. sometimes am sad that aftwr graduation its doubtful i'll see him again, that we wont be the same kind of friends we are now, that our friendship will dim,etc. other times, I cannot wait to get on that plane to China  and put an entire PLANET between us. lol.

at the end of this bead her ex-husband signs the divorce papes and she's free to do on her trip. there is a cool story of when she finds out, but this is long enough already.lol.

the 10th bead is really short, two paragraphs or so. she talks about she was in Italy a few weeks later. she quit her job, put her things in storage, paid off her bills and her divorce setttlement, and she was off.

the 11th bead was also short, though a bit longer than the 10th bead. in the 11th bead she describes the first meal she ate in Italy, and how when she got into bed that night and turned off the light,she waited to start crying, to get depressed, because that's what usually happened to her with the lights off but she didn't. she felt okay and fine:"early symptons of contentment"(36).

I love this book! the main thing I got from these beads was how pleasure/beauty and devotion to God do not have to cancel each other out. maybe you can find a balance of both. often times we feel like we have to choose pleasure in Italy or devotion in India, but maybe we can have both in our lives, with balance.

Life With God: Chapter 1

The first part of this book is called "catching the vision." the first chapter is called "seeing the bible afresh." pretty self explanatory I think. The topic of this book is to discuss(for lack of a better word)what life with God truly means and how we can work towards it. this first section, as far as i can tell, is about explaining that life, what it is about, etc. this first chapter is about the bible. the bible is one of the main ways that God uses to explain to us what life with Him is like, what He calls us to. in the first page Richard Foster says that publishing research tells us that the average bible consumer owns 9 bibles and is looking for more. he says that this shows a sense of "lack-a sense that we have not really achieved a grasp of the bible that is adequate to our needs"(3). I feel this way! I feel like I don't really know what the bible says, what its teachings are. I have a vague understanding of it, but I don't really know what its saying you know? I love it when I see something in a book that describes how I feel, that I can relate to. especially when its a book like this one, it made me feel that it was a good start to the book for me.

another thing that really stuck out to me was a bit later on when he talked about the source of the problem. the problem being how we read the bible, why we dont seem to be getting meaninful things out of the bible, thus why we keep makign different versions, buying different versions, because we feel like we're not having out needs met, our desires fulfileld. that's how i feel anyway. like I WANT to get something out of it that am just not getting, like there's something there that am missing. he says that the source of the problem is in the 2 most common reasons people study the bible: for information and to ..."find some formula that will solve the pressing need of the moment"(5)). he wrote that these are "...ways of trying to control what comes out of the bible rather than entering the process of the transformation of our whole person and our whole life into christlikeness"(5). this stuck out to me because I had never thought of this before. but it really fits into what he's saying. we read the bible for information, to learn, to find comfort, to find solace, to find inspiration,etc and these all are things we are...taking out of it instead of letting it come to us. we go into studying the bible we a specific game plan, somethign specific we want are looking for, or with the idea that we want to learn,and there;s nothign wrong with that but...there's more. there HAS to be more. by reading this, I cant help but feel that we also have to come to the bible with wanting to be changed, to go into it and letting God use the bible to change us. letting ourselves be changed is hard, because we want control and we want choices. technology today is all about chocies and control. i got a new blackberry phone for christmas, and its amazing all the chocies it lets me make: what sound its going to make when a specific person texts me, what background i want, what applications i want, what font and size i want,etc. same thing at restaurants, at coffee shops,etc. we want choices, we want control and its hard to give it up. make me wonder if part of the not so positive view on communism and centralized goverments like in China are due to the fact that as americans, we are used to having all these choices, all this control. this section made me wonder if we are turning the bible into  a "how-to" book or a "self help' book for comfort, for inspiration,etc.

somethign that he wrote in this chapter that I LOVED was on page 6, and its this line: "suppose, then, we simply agreed that the proper outcome of studying the bible is growth in the supernatural power of love: love of God and of all people?"(6). no deep reason for loving this, I just loved it. sometimes things are made more complicated than they are. i think i do that all the time: make things harder, more intricate than they really are or should be. i love the simplicity of it: that studying the bible should be about growing in love, a way for God to helps us to love like He does. what if that's the whole point of everything? what if that is the point of all of what we as Jesus-followers, Christians,etc live for? love. to love like God does.  Richard Foster actually wrote something similar at the bottom of page 6. in one sentence he summarized what i've been explaining in a paragraph:"when we turn to scripture in this way,our reason for 'knowing' the bible and everything it teaches would be that we might love more and know more of love"(6). as you can see, what i wrote has been inspired by Richard Foster, but I loved this and that's what I want. I love loving my friends: am always trying my best to show my friends how much I love them and care about them, and I want to...love the way Jesus does. no matter what they do or say or feel, I want my love for them to be a rock, a steadfast never changing amount. steady. like God's love for us is steady. or on a way smaller scale, like my friend Brent loves. as much as I say and worry, I know that I could do just about anything,and he would still love/care about me just the same. hopefully he wouldnt disagree with me or anything, but i freak out on him for the smallest thing, am always getting upset/hurt by things that I know must sound crazy and iditotic to him and the guy still...is my friend! it never changes how he cares about me. I think that's pretty  awesome.

"the unity of the bible is discovered  in the development of live with God as a reality on earth, centered in the person of Jesus"(7).   I loved this! I love what he says about live with God being a reality on earth. i love it because i feel like often we talk about going to Heaven, or when Jesus comes back and makes all things right,etc. but what if while those things are true, life with God is also HERE. NOW. on earth. in this moment. it makes me view things differently, and it makes me want to live the life that God wants me to right now. after all, the best decisions in my life, the choices that i've made that have been the best, that have been good for me and that have brought me the most happy, have been the ones that i've made on a whim, for no specific reason, that just felt right, like wanting to go to college in Texas, choosing ACU, choosing to go on a semester long study abroad, the car that I bought, switching my major to International Studies while I was on study abroad,etc. in hindsight, these chocies have had the hand of God in it, God led me to those choices, I know it. so it seems as if God does a much better job in bringing me to things that are good for me and make me happy than I do, so He should be the one in charge, I should do things His way not mine. live the life He calls us to instead of the one I want. easier said and written than done I know.

"...but as in its authorship,so in its presentation to the world,God uses human action"(9). This is something Richard Foster wrote in this chapter that really struck me. we teach the bible to people, we explain it to them,etc. but maybe we're meant to also...live it out for them. this got me thinking that maybe our lives as the best explantion of the bible to people. the bible is one of God's ways of showing us what life with Him is like, what it should be and what it is, and it seems that living that life is what we called to, and people will learn about the bible, about God, Jesus,etc through US. through our love, our lives,the way we live. Foster also wrote about we can "...gather regularly in little groups of two or more to encourage one another to discover the footprints of God in our daily existance and to walk out with God into areas where we have previously walked alone or not all all"(9). I really need and want to do this, but I don't know how. I want to find God's footprints in my life, but am not show how to look. and the place where I walk alone is my extreme unhappiness at my single status, at my never having had a boyfriend or had a guy like me as more than a friend. its one of my new year's resolution actually, inspired by this, to bring God into this area, to walk with Him in this. but I don't know how. any ideas?suggestions?

this is getting WAY long and its because there are so many things in this chapter that stuck out to me. but ill try to fit as many as possible, just not do a lot of describing. he quoted 2 Cor 4:16 and  LOVED it! its a verse that expresses what I want, to be changed on the inside,to have love and wisom in my secret heart and to change the inside into Christlikeness and fill it with so much love that it just spills out into the world.

he had a small section about reading with the heart and he talked about lecto divina, or spiritual reading. it sounded really good and I LOVE the idea of bringing my heart to my study of the bible and not just my head.

"we see such Spiritual Disciplines cropping up repeadtly in the bible as the way God's people trained themselves and were trained by God toward godliness"(14). I want to be trained by God to be like Him, to love like Him, to see people the way He does.

He quoted Psalm 1:2, and when I read it, it reminded me a lot of Brent. in my mind, it sounded like a good descrition of Brent. I know, dorky but its what I thought and I love it when things like that happen.

there are lots and lots of other things in this chapter that I loved and that struck out to me, made me think,etc. but the main thing I got from this chapter is feeling this crazy need to want to study the bible and let God use it to teach me about the life He wants me to live, and also a need/desire to want to live that life. when I read the bible, and its a new year's resolution(inspired by this chapter because Foster reccomends it) to read the bible cover to cover. foster writes that it gives a clear picture of the entire story, instead of just the different separate stories. am kinda excited about that. I also took away that reading the bible, studying it, should be about more than just learnign the facts or using it for inspiration, for comfort,etc. nothing wrong with those things but its also important to let God use it to change us and help  us grow, instead of just taking what we want and/or need from it. also, that its important to bring our hearts as well as our heads to it and remenber to live it out.