What’s been on my mind lately…

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is to “fear” God is wisdom itself.

My primary take-away from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 29-30  – Details about the consecration of priests and offerings, the alter, taxes, and anointing oil and incense. 
• Mark 12 – Loving our neighbor as ourselves is how we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. 
• Psalms 40 – Don’t keep the great things God does for us a secret. They are a testimony to his goodness and faithfulness to us. 
• Proverbs 9 – To “fear” God is wisdom itself. 

It’s not very fashionable in the twenty-first century to believe in God. Even though 84% of the human population professes belief in some higher power, and even though this article in the Guardian suggests that faith is becoming more popular, it doesn’t seem that it is very popular. While there is a loud evangelical branch of Christianity that has no problem proclaiming its beliefs to everyone everywhere whether they want to hear about it or not, there are a lot of us who have responded to the backlash against outspoken religious groups like that by largely keeping quiet about our beliefs. There is also an outspoken group of prominent atheists who like to belittle people of faith for believing in a higher power because their world view is too narrow to allow for both faith and science to share space. They see faith and science as being in complete and total conflict, despite the fact that nearly as many scientists believe in a higher power as do the general public. Clearly, not all scientists think as Richard Dawkins does. Regardless, that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.

In my own experience, I see evidence of God everywhere in the physical, and natural world. This ability is facilitated by spending a lot of time in the natural world, reading widely and deeply about a lot of things, and reading the Bible every day. Because I regularly spend time in those activities, I have a lot of opportunities to see the overlap of what the minority of atheist scientists assert are competing realities. I don’t see them that way at all. On the contrary. Literature, art, science, math, and religion all complement one another, and it’s not even a stretch to see that if you immerse yourself in those things with great regularity.

There’s a joke in academia that goes like this: As you move through your education from bachelor’s degree to master’s degree to doctoral degree, you know more and more about less and less.

I will suggest that one of the reasons there are more atheists and fewer people of faith in the scientific fields (which can include every academic discipline, not just hard science) is that the ones who don’t believe are the ones who limit their intellectual intake to strictly their field of academia. I’ll qualify that statement by making it clear it’s just a theory I have, but it’s a theory that makes a lot of sense. Most of the academics I know or have ever found interesting, and frankly most of the ones who go so far in their academic careers as to share their knowledge with the wider world and not just that of the proverbial ivory tower, are those who have a wide range of interests and can make connections between seemingly disparate fields of study. I would offer another theory that those are likely not atheists.

Regardless of theories, I would offer this: Where is the wisdom in trying to tear down the faith of other people? Why would anyone want to spend their life and career trying to convince the majority of the people on the planet that the thing that helps them make those connections, find meaning in the universe, helps them see the wonder in the natural world, and provides them with hope for themselves and for humanity, that they are wrong and should come around to their way of thinking?

I think it may be rooted in their errant idea that religion is at the root of all human misery throughout history–wars, famine, genocide, etc. They are wrong. Religion is not at the root of those things; human greed, avarice, selfishness, and hatred are at the root of those things. Not all wars (not even most wars) have been caused by religion; they have been caused by a desire for power, wealth, and control. Those are all things that Jesus and Christianity teach us we should avoid. Yes, there have been wars waged in the name of Christianity (the Crusades, for example); but that’s not because they were actually motivated by Christian principles. They were motivated by greed, power, and lust for colonization and control. I will concede that some wars are waged in the name of religion because that is what gets people whipped up to support wars; but it’s not the real reason for the war.

I digress…

The point I’m trying to make is that having faith in God does not mean that you are stupid. According to the Bible, it actually makes you wise. However, just being a believer and professing your beliefs isn’t what makes you wise. Having a healthy fear of a higher power that was powerful enough to create everything in existence, and then behaving according to that knowledge about our place in the big scheme of things, seems pretty wise. Knowing that we are subject to creation and not the creators ourselves seems not only appropriately humble but also wise.

To not have a healthy “fear of God” seems very unwise, and it demonstrates hubris. “Fear of God,” within the context of these passages, simply means respect.

Be wise. Be humble. Fear (respect) the Mystery that created the universe, everything in it, including us.

But the truth is that most of us do believe in a higher power (that some of us will even call God–you call it/him/her/they whatever you want). According to the passage in Proverbs today this belief (which Proverbs calls fear) is wisdom itself.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can download it here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is wisdom is available to all who seek it.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 27-28  – More details about the construction of the sanctuary. Keeping the lamp burning at all times symbolizes God saying, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”
• Mark 11 – “I tell you, therefore, everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. And when you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your failings, too.” v.24-25
• Psalms 39 – When things are going badly and life itself feels like punishment, cry out to God and ask for mercy. It will be granted every single time.
• Proverbs 8 – Wisdom is not only available to all who seek it, but it is also always crying out to us, trying to get our attention. The evidence of the wisdom available to us is written in the laws of nature and physics. All we have to do is respond to the world around us in a healthy and responsible way and its secrets will be revealed to us.

When I find myself in a long old testament passage like the one we’re reading today in Exodus, about a lot of details about things that seem awfully old and far away, I try to consider what symbolic intent was built into all the minutiae of something like designing and building the sanctuary and the consecration of its priests. Today what stuck with me was the fact that the lamp had to be burning at all times, 24×7, 365.

I believe the intention of that at the time was to indicate “God is in the house.” For us today, about 3200 years removed from the time of Moses and the Exodus, I think the symbolism is much simpler: keep the light burning within us to keep us close to God.

Reading the Bible every day is the way I do that. I find something in it every day that is relevant to my life at the moment. When I pray, I talk to God. When I read the Bible, God talks to me through the experiences of those who followed him long before I was a twinkle in anyone’s eye. It’s wisdom for the ages.

With that in mind, it’s important to understand that the wisdom of the lived experiences of the people is in what they learned, not in what they actually did. There’s a lot of warfare, murder, adultery, and deception in the Bible, in both the old and new testaments. Those stories are not in there as examples for us to follow. They are stories that show us how God changed each of the individuals featured in the stories over the course of their lifetimes. They show us how God can change us if we are willing.

In Proverbs 8 we read that wisdom is calling out to us incessantly. It was calling out to the people of the Bible as well. The stories that we read show us that they didn’t always listen, or when they did they had doubts, and that it wasn’t always easy to follow the course laid out for them, or to grasp and act upon that wisdom. On the rare occasions they did, amazing things happened for their good and the good of all of those around them.

When we respond to the call of wisdom, we know what to pray for. In Mark 11 Jesus tells us that if we have faith we will receive whatever we ask for and believe that we already have it. Anyone who has prayed to win the lottery and didn’t would argue that that’s pie in the sky. However, centering ourselves in the Bible every day, keeping that lamp burning, changes us and our desires. Over time we may change our minds about what we think is important and in doing so change our focus in prayer. As C.S. Lewis said, “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.” When we keep the light burning inside us, we begin to align our thinking and our desires with God’s. When that happens we do, indeed, receive everything we ask for.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is I commit my distress to God and leave it in his hands.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 25-26  – Though God requires no physical house, it is good to maintain a space of worship that reminds us we are in the presence of God. The space and symbols in the space help us to focus on God and make us reverent.
• Mark 10 – Leaders must be servants to all. Those who serve shall lead. Faith will heal you of your infirmities. Also, when I need God’s help, I should be bold, cry out and not be shy about asking for it, and not let others keep me from approaching God with my requests. God responds to our persistence and our urgency.
• Psalms 38 – I commit my distress to God and leave it in his hands. I trust him not to lay more on me than I can bear and to thwart my enemies for me.
• Proverbs 7 – Keep the precepts of God and wisdom close. Internalize them so recalling them in every situation is as easy as breathing.

The message that spoke to me the loudest this morning was the story of Bartimaeus crying out for Jesus to heal him of his blindness. While he had an actual visual impairment, I frequently read this passage in terms of all of the ways that I, myself, can be metaphorically blind to the spiritual world, the goodness of God, and what I ought to be doing.

Bartimaeus is a great example of someone who has such a great need for healing that he foregoes all sense of decorum and cries out loudly to Jesus as he is passing by, even though his friends are telling him to be quiet and respectful. His need is greater than any social norms in this situation, and he cries out even louder. This gets Jesus’ attention and Jesus asks him what he wants. Bartimaeus asks Jesus to give him his sight back, and Jesus heals him, saying his faith has saved him. Once again, someone asks for healing, and Jesus not only heals him but gives him salvation.

In Psalms 38 we see someone crying out to God in much the same way Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus. He is desperate, disabled by the weight of his sins. He describes the misery he is in as a disease, disabling to the point of spiritual deafness and having lost the ability to speak. People have shunned him because of his infirmity, and he has accumulated many enemies. And yet he cries out from deep within himself for God to heal him and rescue him.

Both readings in Psalms and Mark today are about the same thing: being so miserable and desperate in a situation that one has nothing to lose by crying out loudly and boldly to God for healing and restoration. The message in Mark is that when we do this Jesus will heal us every single time. When it feels like we have been forever in a miserable situation (usually of our own making but, as in Bartimaeus’ case, perhaps simply as a result of an illness, injury, or genetics–the luck of the draw), all we need to do is cry out to God. I can speak from my own experience when I say that when we do we often wonder why we waited so long.

In Proverbs 7 we see the remedy for staying out of such miserable spiritual darkness: keep God’s precepts close and honor them. This is the primary reason I read the Bible every day. It reminds me who I am and who God is, and it helps me keep those precepts close. It keeps me from becoming spiritually blind. It “combs out my tangled up brain.” (Danny Daniels)

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can  join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is to beware of the temptation to gossip.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 23-24  – “You will not spread false rumors. You will not lend support to the wicked by giving untrue evidence.” Lying seems to be at the root of all evil, we are reminded that even gossip is a form of lying, and is also a form of evil. Additionally, “…do not acquit the guilty.” Never was there a more apt word for our times!
• Mark 9 – When in God’s presence, stay present and have faith. All things are possible for those who have faith. “I believe! Help my unbelief.” When faith is lacking, ask God for more faith!
• Psalms 37 – Take refuge in God and he will save you.
• Proverbs 6 – Work hard. Be humble.

A constant battle I fight in my small town and in my classroom is the battle against gossip. One of the most frequently uttered phrases I hear in my town and at my school is, “Well, I heard….” When I hear that in my classroom I immediately stop the conversation in its tracks and ask my students these questions: “Is the person you are talking about here right now? Does what you are saying adhere to the T.H.I.N.K. rule? If not, change the subject immediately.”

If you’re not familiar with the T.H.I.N.K.* rule, it goes like this:

If what you are saying is not…

• True
• Helpful
• Important or Inspiring
• Necessary
• Kind

…then it is gossip and it is forbidden in my classroom.

Invariably, I’ll have some students try to hang all of their hopes of continuing the gossip on the “Important” item in the list. I remind them that it must adhere to every item on the list in order to not be considered gossip. I also remind them that even if I only required their conversation to adhere to only one item on the list, what they consider important is often just a desire to know the gossip.

My students are not the only ones guilty of this. Adults do it all the time. Gossiping adults are harder to silence, so after saying, “Clearly this doesn’t concern me,” I just walk away.

I challenge you to see how much of your daily conversation, and the conversations you are privy to, pass the T.H.I.N.K. test.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

* I did not invent the T.H.I.N.K. rule. That has been floating around on the Internet in various forms for many years now. I’d love to give credit to whoever came up with it because it is so useful. I you know who originated it, please let me know.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is be grateful in all things, acknowledge the help we receive, and give back.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 21-22  – Detailed examples of ways to break the Ten Commandments. The “eye for an eye” law that Jesus overturns later with his instruction to “turn the other cheek.”The recourse to be taken for specific offenses. The law of “first fruits.”
• Mark 8 – Even when miraculous evidence of God occurs, it is so easy to forget once the event passes and the wonder subsides. Faith is a constant struggle and continuous recommitment.
• Psalms 36 – God sees our struggles and those who maliciously plot against us. When he comes through for us we should acknowledge his help and show gratitude.
• Proverbs 5 – The allure and temptation of extramarital affairs may be tempting to some, but they are never worth it.

The law of “first fruits” always gets my attention. We humans can be really arrogant and behave as if we invented and created the world. But the truth is that we are the offspring of this world, not its creators. We sprang from the Earth just like all the other plants and animals. All we need comes from the Earth. So often (most often) when we are successful we behave as if we created that success, too. We forget that we didn’t do it by ourselves. Even if we are sole proprietors in a self-employment situation, our livelihood depends on customers and service providers. And if we are people of faith we know that connection between what we offer and the people who are willing to pay for it did not happen by coincidence. The energy to persevere until we succeed didn’t just come from nowhere.

The law of “first fruits” reminds us that we are to give back the first part of what we create in success as a way of acknowledging that our success is a gift from God. It’s pretty simple, really. Even if you don’t believe in God, you could honor the law of “first fruits” as a way of acknowledging that a lot of other people helped you get where you are.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join the discussion in the comments, below; or you can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is seek wisdom, trust God, and be vigilant in prayer.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 19-20  – There was no short takeaway from this passage because it was loaded. See the expanded commentary, below.
• Mark 7 – This passage is directly related to the passage from Exodus today (you can call this a coincidence, or you can remember that coincidence is God winking at us). When we honor human traditions over the natural laws (commandments) of God, we “take the name of the Lord in vain,” or misuse the name of God. Our behavior, not our beliefs, indicates whether we are actually following God and abiding by his commandments. When we submit all of our thoughts and actions to the scrutiny of the commandments at the level of the heart, we must behave differently than if we go with the flow of the crowd. Selfishness and lawlessness do not enter into our behavior if we align ourselves with God’s commandments.
• Psalms 35 – Pray for your enemies and do not resort to revenge. Trust God to be your champion when people maliciously speak and work against you. God sees all and will ultimately reward everyone according to their merits. Our job in such situations is to submit all of our concerns and troubles to God and remain in prayer, always. Then we should give credit and our gratitude to God when he delivers us because he will.
• Proverbs 4 – Seek wisdom and align with the natural laws of God. This is the way to protect ourselves and prosper.

This passage was loaded with significance. The Ten Commandments are frequently seen as a checklist of behavioral minimums to be skimmed and…well…checked. However, there’s a lot more to them than that, and they’re also brilliant in their simplicity. For example, although the list is (strictly speaking) ten items, I make an argument that there are really only four, with the last six being a sub-list of item four.  Here’s what I mean:

1. No other gods.
   1. What do you worship? Yourself? Money? Possessions? Status? Proper  worship–putting your priorities in order–mean acknowledging something greater than ourselves in all its mysterious incomprehensibility and subordinating ourselves to that force.
   2. “No graven images” is a reminder o not forget that although we can see evidence of God manifested in all living things, and it is sometimes useful to represent the qualities and various aspects of God’s intrinsic nature through metaphors and symbols, focusing on those metaphors and symbols as God is to confuse the symbol with the Reality.
2. Don’t misuse the name of God. To misuse the name of God–to “take the Lord’s name in vain”–is to say you are a servant of God while doing things in violation of his basic natural laws (which, at the level of ethics and morals can be drilled down to the Ten Commandments).
3. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Resting one day each week is a way we symbolically express our faith in God as a provider for all of our needs. To work excessively is to worship ourselves and our own ability to provide. In truth, we are merely harvesting the resources of the planet God gave us, a planet not of our creation. We are the offspring of the planet, not the other way around.
4. These are the ways we keep from breaking the third commandment (item II: don’t misuse the name of God). If we violate any of these directives we are “taking the name of the Lord in vain,” or misusing the name of God.
   1. Honor your father and mother.
   2. You shall not kill.
   3. You shall not commit adultery.
   4. You shall not steal.
   5. You shall not give false evidence against your neighbor.
   6. You shall not covet your neighbor’s possessions.

In Matthew 22:35-40, someone asks Jesus which is the most important commandment. Jesus says this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus was saying what I just told you, only I used more words to say it. A pastor I knew in the United Methodist Church preached frequently on this passage from Matthew and said that he firmly believed that Jesus was saying that in the end there is really only one commandment (the first thing he said), and the second commandment is just the way to keep the first one.

If you are not honoring your father and mother, you are murdering, you are committing adultery, you are stealing, you are lying, and you are never satisfied with what you have and always wanting what other people have, then you are not worshipping God because you are worshipping yourself and just taking whatever you want. You can call yourself a servant of God, but if you are doing all those things you are misusing the name of God and serving yourself.

Most of us can get through life without committing murder or committing adultery, but no one can get through life without making any mistakes. The good news is that God is a gracious, merciful, forgiving God who always wipes our slate clean when we cry out to him for help. There may be consequences for our actions, but there is always forgiveness and redemption. If the Ten Commandments were just a checklist we’d all be doomed. Thank God they aren’t.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is God calms our fears, is with us in our distress, and provides us with all we need to get through difficult times.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 17-18  – No one is an island in the kingdom of God. The body of Christ is a community. Leaders must delegate and respond to feedback from the community, and the community must contribute and share the load.
• Mark 6 – When we are on “stormy seas” and are feeling afraid, God sees our distress and not only calms the seas but gets right in the boat with us to comfort us and calm our fears. He also provides us with all that we need to get through difficult times.
• Psalms 34– “Though hardships without number beset the upright, Yahweh brings rescue from them all. Yahweh takes care of all their bones, not one of them will be broken.” v. 19-20
• Proverbs 3 – Trust God and acknowledge all of the ways that he assists us and he will make our paths smooth and free of obstacles.

The best leaders are the ones who do not do everything by themselves. They recognized the intelligence in the community around them, choose the most capable of those, invite them to share the responsibilities of leadership, and all on the leadership team then do the same with those portions of the community that they lead. However, there are many people who think, “If you want a something done well you have to do it yourself.” Moses was apparently one of those people.

My favorite part of these passages in Exodus is the part where Moses is being taught how to lead by his father-in-law. Moses has been struggling with how to lead, feels burdened with how to do it effectively, and is stressed by all the complaints and concerns of the people in his care. Even though he has just accomplished what seemed impossible by facing down Pharoah, getting the Israelites released from bondage, and then leading them out of Egypt, he finds the burden of leadership to be a great one. Then his father-in-law comes for a visit, sees what is going on, and gives Moses some advice. The best part of this story is that Moses demonstrates to us that he is teachable.

So many people in leadership are not teachable. They arrive at the top of the mountain and they think they have learned all there is to know about everything and they don’t need advice from others. They are the worst kind of leaders, and they don’t last very long. If they do last, they burn through people really fast and find themselves alone on that mountaintop. Mountaintops are generally devoid of life and sustenance, and eventually the people who find themselves reveling in that position are driven back down to the valley to do some learning.

None of us are islands and all of us have so much to learn. In my own case, I have learned as I’ve progressed in my journey that the more I learn, the more I know that I don’t know. I believe that is what was plaguing Moses. He had met face to face with the great I AM and was confronted with the fact that he didn’t have all the answers.

That is what it is to walk in faith. We are confronted by God. We realize that in the big scheme of things we know very little. But we have to keep moving forward on a path that God only builds in front of us a few steps in advance. When we take our eyes off of God and focus on the unbuilt roadway beyond where we’re standing, that can cause deep anxiety and stress. The key is to remember that God is in control, not us. We just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We also rely on our fellow travelers.

In today’s reading in Mark we once again find Jesus calming the seas. This time he does it by walking on the water and getting right in the boat with the disciples who are terrified that they are going to sink and drown in the great storm that this is swirling around them. This is very likely how Moses felt in today’s chapters in Exodus. In both chapters the message is clear: with God in the center of our lives, stormy seas are inconsequential because God calms the storm. Stay calm and keep God close.

Today’s Psalm underscores that message. Not only will God calm the storms but he will protect us from harm.

And in today’s Proverb we are given the method of God’s assistance in storms and for protection: trust God and acknowledge all of the ways that he assists us and he will make our paths smooth and free of obstacles.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is trust God to have a good plan for our part in his story.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 15-16  – God protects us and provides for us. The appropriate response is gratitude, satisfaction, and generosity, not hoarding. When we hoard possessions, they become a curse rather than a blessing. We should take only what we need and disperse the rest to those who don’t have enough.
• Mark 5 – Healing is a gift from God, facilitated by our faith in his ability and willingness to heal us. But ultimately our healing (or lack thereof) is a matter of God’s plan for us. Healing is ultimately a mystery of God.
• Psalms 33 – God is always on our side, but it’s important to remember that we are part of God’s story, not the other way around. God knows the story from beginning to end. We only know the tiny little part we play, and most of the time we don’t even understand that. We must learn to trust God to have a good plan for our part of his story.
• Proverbs 2 – Watch your step and stay on the good path.

Healing is a touchy subject. People sometimes are not healed. Children sometimes die very young. People we love are sometimes taken from us by disease, illness, or physical accidents. There are a lot of people in the world who have lost their faith and/or hold on to anger because someone they love dearly was not healed, and possibly even died. There are religious traditions that actually teach that if you have faith you will be healed, if you do not have faith you will not be healed, and that you can tell if a person is really a Christian or not by whether they received miraculous healing as a result of faithfully seeking God in prayer. My husband’s first wife (who died in 1998 from the complications of diabetes and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) was actually told by a fundamentalist pastor that she must have sinned terribly to be afflicted by God with her ailments and then not be healed.

Personally, although I try very hard to be a forgiving person and to remember that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” I secretly hope that God has a special Hell for people who go around saying things like that, especially if they are in positions of spiritual leadership and influence over others. I don’t even believe in the kind of Hell that most people who believe in Hell seem to, but in cases like the one I just described I have a tendency to change my position–a special Hell seems called for in those situations. (God have mercy on my soul for saying so, please forgive my unforgiveness, and please save me from whatever karma might boomerang back on me for that attitude. I’ll say some extra Hail Marys, or do some other kind of penance if it will save me from the special Hell for people like me with judgmental attitudes towards people who sin differently than I do. I digress…)

The most important part of healing (or lack of healing) is what we learn about ourselves as we seek God in our infirmities or on behalf of others, and how we respond to being healed or not.

Shortly before I first moved to the very small town that I used to live in, a two-year-old in our community was suddenly afflicted with a rare and deadly cancerous tumor on her spine. Our entire community rallied around her and her family, all of whom we are well acquainted with because it is a very small town. Every organization in our town, at our school, and many individuals had fundraiser after fundraiser after fundraiser to help that little girl get the medical treatment that she needed, and to support her parents while they sought the treatment. They had to go to Portland, Oregon (769 miles from here) to a Children’s Hospital specializing in that treatment. They were gone for ten months and all the while our community kept up the fundraisers. The little girl improved. The tumor shrank. She regained her ability to walk. She had her third birthday. We were all so encouraged and hopeful. Then she took a sudden turn for the worse after all of that upward improvement, they flew her home, and she died in her parents’ arms at the age of three.

Her parents were heartbroken. Her extended family was heartbroken. Our community was heartbroken. We raised thousands upon thousands of dollars, sent up thousands upon thousands of prayers, and to some it may have seemed that we had done it for nothing.

Not to me. Yes, I was heartbroken, too. In fact, I broke my leg riding my bike for the Great Cycle Challenge team I started to raise money for cancer research for children. I put my prayers, my money, and my body on the line for that little girl, and ended up sacrificing my summer off for that little girl. (which is a hard sacrifice for a teacher; if you’re a public school teacher you’ll understand). I could very well have gotten angry at God for not only not healing that little girl but for breaking my leg in the process (file that under “no good deed goes unpunished”).

But I didn’t. What I chose to focus on in all of that was this: through that little girl’s illness, medical treatment, and death, our entire community came together and did a good thing. We supported her family, we prayed for her and them, and we grieved with them when she passed away. That little girl taught us a valuable lesson about the importance of community, coming together to support one of the families in our community, and putting aside differences for a common cause. That’s no small lesson.

Was it worth it? That’s something we will never know the answer to in this life. I’m sure her parents probably don’t think so (nor should they be expected to). There is no one big picture lesson–no single “takeaway–surrounding her death. There was very likely (most probably) a different lesson for each person whose life she touched.

A lot of people would say “she died too young.” There’s an old saying that people sometimes reference when a child dies: “Only the good die young.” Most people don’t even consider what that might mean, or if there is any truth to it. I have. My take on why small children are taken from us and die “too young” is this: they completed the work they were sent here to do. It bothers me that some people are only given such a short time with us. However, when I consider the impact that little girl had on our entire community it is hard to believe she could have had more impact if she had been with us for longer. Honestly, we all would have loved to have had the opportunity to find out. I know we would have preferred to have never learned the lessons she taught us if it would mean that we could have kept her here with us for a good, long lifetime into her old age. Since it didn’t play out that way it gives me some small comfort to think in those terms. But that’s just me, and this is not an effort to convince people who may be harboring a grudge against God to see it my way–that’s between them and God.

My point is this: There is a lesson in everything we experience in this life, even the hard things; especially the hard things. Healing, or lack thereof, is one of those experiences that seems to be one of the greatest teachers. The story of Jesus is intertwined with multiple stories of healing. Apparently, it’s something we’re supposed to contemplate; but I don’t think the conclusion we’re supposed to come to is one that requires us to believe that believers and the faithful get healed while those who don’t believe and aren’t faithful do not. According to the Psalms and the Proverbs, God sends the rain and the sun down on us all. Some are healed. Some are not. We may never know why. For answers (which we may never receive) it is incumbent upon us to seek God and stay faithful. That’s the lesson.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is to keep calm and pray on.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 13-14  – When God delivers us, the first thing we should do is to worship and give thanks. That is also what we should do when we face battles in our lives, because God will fight the battle for us when we do.
• Mark 4  – We are the seeds and the crop. We are expected to place ourselves in fertile soil and yield a great and bountiful harvest. This parable means exactly the same thing as the parable of the talents. (Revisit the blog entry for Day 6: How does one create rich soil? How do we prepare ourselves for the mission God gives us?)
• Psalms 32 – God hears my cry for help, even when I have failed and made mistakes. He rescues me and has mercy on me when I admit I am wrong and ask for his help.
• Proverbs 1 – Wisdom and intelligence come from God, and all anyone needs to know about how to live with integrity, make wise choices, be prosperous, respond to adversity or the harm done to us by others, can be found in the book of Proverbs. When we seek to learn, God gives us guidance.

When I face difficulties, I tend to worry and stew about it. Most of us do. In today’s readings in Exodus, we see an “out of the frying pan and into the fire” situation for the Israelites. Pharoah has finally let them go, but once again he has changed his mind and sends his whole army after them to prevent them from leaving. They lament and cry out and wonder why they didn’t just stay in in Egypt where suddenly they seem to think they didn’t have it so bad.

There are two things that stand out to me from these passages. The first is that once they have been released by Pharoah, God tells them to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving and remembrance. The second is that God always finishes his work and never leaves us hanging. When they find themselves being chased by Pharoah’s army, they also find themselves surrounded by “the angel of God,” who hides them.

So much personal distress can be avoided if we simply pray, give thanks, and trust God.

I used to read the passage in Mark and think that we are one of these planting conditions, and what we are supposed to do is figure out which one and rectify the situation. However, after years of reading this passage I now understand that throughout our lives we experience all of these conditions in various cycles. Our job is to figure out which one we are in at the moment and do what we need to do to shift into the “fertile soil” condition.

The “lamp stand” passage that follows is the remedy. When we are not in the “fertile soil” condition, it’s usually because our lamp is is hidden and our light is dim or burned out.

Then Jesus goes back to a seed-sowing parable and describes the frustration we can feel when we are actually doing what we’re supposed to be doing but it doesn’t seem to be producing results. When that happens, we can find ourselves going into prevention and protection mode, attempting to keep the enemy out of our garden. However, that’s not our job. Our job is to do all we can to keep our lamp lit and sow our seeds. The rest is up to God. We have no control over the harvest, only our part in the sowing.

Just lately, I keep seeing a meme pop up all over the Internet that says, “Don’t Judge Each Day by the Harvest You Reap but by the Seeds that you Plant.” That is the subtitle from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Admiral Guinea. That’s good advice for us as we seek to be light and hope in a dark world, and sow seeds of kindness and goodwill wherever we go.

The last part of this chapter in Mark gives us the same message as the one from Exodus today. Jesus calms a storm that has all of his disciples terrified. The message for us in all storms and troubles is always the same: do not be afraid, pray, and put your faith in God.

That message is underscored a third time today in the reading from Psalms.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join the discussion in the comments, below; or you can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.

Get the FREE worksheet for this program here.

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is be brave, take heart–our lives are in God’s hands.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Exodus 11-12 – People in positions of leadership should be mindful that their stubbornness will cause all the people subject to their decisions to suffer.
• Mark 3 – When we take a bold stance to do the right thing and speak the truth, people are likely to think we’re crazy.
• Psalms 31 – “Be brave. Take heart.” My life is in God’s hands.
• Proverbs 31 – Women have an important role to play in the affairs of the world.

These chapters in Exodus always resonate with me. I’m a public school teacher and subject to frequent changes in local, state, and federal education policy. With great regularity, those in authority make decisions that affect my students and myself, which I have no control over, and which often have negative or unintended consequences for all of us, without ever considering the potential fallout of those decisions. In Exodus 11 and 12, Pharoah is making big decisions out of his own pride and stubbornness that will affect all of the people in his country. We don’t know what the Egyptian citizens do to protect themselves from the negative effects of Pharoah’s decisions, but Moses tells the Hebrews how to protect themselves from the devastation to come. Although Jesus does not appear for thousands of years, this entire chapter foreshadows his emergence as the savior of humanity. The solution for the Hebrews is to paint the blood of sacrificed lamb on their door posts which will cause the Angel of Death to pass by them and all in their household. That is precisely what Jesus did for us, later.

The message of these passages is clear: when I find myself subject to circumstances beyond my control and in a negative situation created by the bad decisions of others, I am to put my faith and trust in God, and lay low until the danger passes by. I imagine there was a lot of prayer going on in those houses back in Egypt while the entire country endured the suffering of every family losing their first born child. We are to pray also when going through dark times.

That’s the life-application lesson I get out of these chapters, but it’s also from these chapters that we get the Jewish tradition of Passover and the Seder meal. To this day, Jews celebrate Passover with a meal of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and prayer, and so do many Christian churches such as my own. It is a reminder not only of God remembering his people, providing for them, and leading them out of bondage, but also a reminder of the foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus who does that for all who call on him.

In todays reading in Mark, we see Jesus continuing to perform healing miracles for people who stubbornly refuse to believe what they see with their own eyes; and if they do believe what they see they are so stuck in their traditions and the status quo that they reject what Jesus has to offer so they can go on clinging to their old, limiting beliefs without being disturbed by the wonderful things God is doing. Instead of rejoicing in the healing of people who have been suffering but are now no longer suffering, they turn away. How often do we do that? Meanwhile, Jesus just keeps on doing what he was sent to do, and moves on. He continues to accumulate disciples, heal people, and spread the good news of God’s forgiveness.

When we choose to ignore what God is trying to do in our lives, he moves on. Then we complain that he abandoned us when we are the ones who refused to accept his healing and forgiveness. Fortunately for us, he is always ready to receive us whenever we are ready to change our minds and accept what he has to offer.

In today’s reading in Psalms, we find a prayer of refuge and protection that (had it not been written long after the events that occurred in Egypt) could have been an apt prayer for the people experiencing the first Passover. When things are dark and we find ourselves in evil times, Psalms 31 is an appropriate prayer to get us through.

The final chapter of Proverbs speaks to two things: an admonition to take heed of all the lessons that Proverbs taught us in the previous 30 chapters, and a portrait of the perfect “housewife.” I’ve heard many sermons on what the role of “Godly women” ought to be, based on the teachings of Paul in the New Testament, and they usually center on subservience and being second class citizens with no voice. However, Proverbs 31 paints an entirely different picture. The kinds of things the woman in Proverbs 31 is doing portray her as an equal partner with her husband. She is strong, wise, industrious, talented, charitable, and substantial. There is no subservience here. Any suggestions or admonitions to women to be quiet, invisible, and stay in the background always arise from cultural traditions of oppressing women and have nothing to do with God. The Bible is full of strong women who lead and provide us with great examples of what it actually means to be a Godly woman. God loves women and empowers us to be all that he made us to be, regardless of how uncomfortable it may make men in power. Jesus’ ministry was fueled by all the women who followed him and provided money, food, and other means of support. Women have a great role to play in God’s eternal plan.

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

You can join us in our private Facebook group that I set up specifically for sharing what we take-away from the readings each day.

If you haven’t gotten the FREE “Read the Bible in a Year” worksheet yet, you can Get the FREE worksheet for this program here. It is not necessary for you to start on January 1st–you can start from the beginning on whatever date you get the worksheet. Join us!

Learn more about why I read the Bible all the way through every year, and feel free to share with anyone you think could benefit.

This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.