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.