A Brilliant Idea

I had this brilliant idea the other day.

Ok, maybe not so brilliant, but I'm excited about it and "know in my knower" that this is something meant for a bigger purpose. Yeah, whatever that means. I just really believe in this idea and I feel it in my heart that some bigger good will come of this. I'm psyched to be using my blog to do this.

I'm going to start blogging about my personal bible studies. That's really the point of this post so if you don't want to be bored with my thought process behind the decision, you can stop reading here. :-P

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I read all the time and enjoy all kinds of books. Put anything in print in front of me and I will read it, including labels and other random things. :-) I go in spurts when it comes to reading. If I really like a topic I'll read anything and everything about it for weeks. My recent interests were autobiographical stories, and now I'm starting a round of Christian-themed books. Yeah, that doesn't come as a surprise to some of you, I'm sure. LOL.

I first thought of writing a weekly entry about the current book I'm reading and where I'm at with it, but that seemed very journalistic. I didn't like the potential for that approach to just end up being just like a book review. I really would rather have this blog capture true thoughts, true feelings, true perspective of my life in it's current moment, and to capture the mental and emotional processing of my life as I am living it.

Then I thought about the fact that I enjoy bible study time with friends, but sometimes I either find myself not really wanting to do a particular study, or I just don't really want to share *all* of my personal thoughts and feelings with the group, or I just really find myself growing in ways that my home group is not fully nurturing at a particular period of time. I also find that I am often quite hesitant to write in depth about faith-matters because previous posts had a tendency to draw unappreciated comments/emails/IM's. But I figure hey, this is where I'm at in life and this blog is not about who I offend or how many faithful readers I can get.

I thought about starting another blog solely dedicated to the book study(ies), but in the end decided not to compartmentalize my blog life like that. I've done that for too long in too many ways and decided I'll just continue as is. My life is one continuous journey and one continuous story, and this book study will be reflected as such.

So, moving ahead with the blog bible study idea, my next question was, "what to study?" I had a couple of books in mind, and then today I went to the Christian bookstore to pick up a book I requested and decided to spend some time browsing.

Originally I thought about studying "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. I studied it a few years ago and it was during this reading that I came to accept Christ. My faith story started months before I got this book, but that's another post for another day. Perhaps soon I'll add that story to blogger. :-)

Then I thought, I'd love to study a couple of Christian-focused dating books, one that I've been wanting to read for a while now, the other that I still consult from time to time (:-P). And then I realized something.

Remember how recently I was revisiting the grief from my father's death? Something "clicked" one day. The past couple of months I've been experiencing God working in my life in ways that have me wanting nothing more than to seek Him as intimately and as personally as I have never before. Deep down somewhere I knew (know) that there was something still hindering me from surrendering fully to His Will and that was keeping me from trusting him more fully. I had been praying for weeks for him to search my heart and to bring up anything that needed to be dealt with so that I could move on and move forward towards Him. I realized that the randomness of revisiting my dad's death was not random at all.

That week of deep sorrow was the answer to my prayer. I never would have connected my dad's death to hindering my ability to live life fully, and I still don't get how my prayer, those circumstances, or what the message really is. I just know that the entire picture has led me to this point in time.

Regarding my dad's death, I don't have a huge distrust of men, I don't have an unhealthy understanding that death is just one part in the cycle of life, and I don't believe it's hindered my ability to relate to men. But perhaps, just perhaps, the Lord searched deep enough in the recesses of my heart to know that my soul has constantly been yearning for my dad over the years, whether or not it's been a constant and persistant knowing. And, in the bigger picture, perhaps the Lord was bringing up the grief to make me realize that the yearning for my dad was related to the ultimate lesson of all. That I was grieving the lack of relationship I had with the ultimate father of all: God the Father and creator of the universe.

Are you all still with me here?

Through other circumstances that are just too many to write here, I can see where He's leading me. The the current books I had been studying were all about learning how God speaks personally to me and fine-tuning my "hearing". Going forward, this bible study is not about finding my purpose in life (I think I already sort of 'get' that part), and it's not about approaching dating from a biblical perspective (I know what I want and I truly know God is still preparing me and my future mate for each other). It's all about my relationship with the Father. How coincidental that all of this is happening around Father's Day, huh? Hmmm...?? Kidding. Sort of... :-)

I'm going to prayerfully consider which of the books I've got that I want to study here, so stay tuned!

Love ya,
RM