It's been a while...

Since I blogged last, a considerable amount of change has happened in my family. I won't go in to the details, but let's just say prayer has been a major part of my week...which has me thinking...I want to be the sort of person who depends on prayer as much as my breath.

I am also reminded of my 2010 goals to memorize scripture...someone in my life this week who needed to hear scripture for encouragement handed me a Bible, asking me to read whatever I felt appropriate...and I stopped dead in my tracks. I wish I had made my 2010 goals in 2009 so I would have had much more memorized than I do. I started falling back in to my old way of thinking...more on that later...Luckily, God walked me through it and I found some decent scripture to bring comfort.

Prior to coming to APU in 2004 (gosh has it been that long?) I always approached scripture, prayer, quiet times, etc. etc. etc. with an amount of legalism. I was completely unaware of this until my very first class at APU. I remember sitting in Introduction to Youth Ministry with the Dr. Steve Gerali. As I sat in that class, he continued to explain how, for one year, he put down his Bible. He did not read it, he did not reference it, he did not crack it open...my immediate thought (which tipped me off to my legalism) was "What? I am taking a class from a man who put his bible away for a year?! What is he trying to teach?! Heresy!"  He clarified himself, explaining that he approached scripture with a pressure on his shoulders to squeeze time in, discipline himself, chastise himself if he ever missed, etc. and he finally had enough.
So, for a year, he devoted to finding God in things outside scripture, and refused to allow himself to feel guilty. He wanted to free God up to show Himself outside of scripture, and he also wanted to yearn to read scripture, which he never had up to that point in his life. 
I sat in my seat...breathless..."you mean, I can actually yearn for scripture on my own? I can hunger and thirst for it with out feeling this overwhelming sense of duty? What a freeing thought...".

I walked out of that class feeling convicted. Convicted, not in the sense that I needed to read more, pray more, trust more, etc. But convicted in a sense that I came to scripture with the same lenses as Dr. Gerali had so many years before. I felt refreshed, renewed and freed. I never realized the oppression I was functioning under when approaching my walk with Christ. But that's how Satan wanted me to feel...He wanted me to feel no sense of joy, refreshment, or freedom through reading the scriptures. He wanted me to feel guilty, ashamed, and shamed in to reading scriptures.


Since then, I have try to fight the urge to read the Bible because it checks an item off my 'to do' list and strive to read scripture because of my love, passion, and devotion for my God. Why would I ever want to feel but these things when I read the Bible?

Anyways, those are just some of my thoughts ...

Here are some of the verses I have memorized (in case you are looking for some, yourself)

Philippians 1:27
Micah 6:8
John 16:33
Acts 20:24
John 14:6
Romans 1:20
John 8:24
John 1:12
Philippians 4:4-7
Hebrews 10:23-25
2 Timothy 2:15
Matthew 28:18-19
2 Timothy 3:16

This is a list of verses yet to come that is on a stickie note on my desktop...

Verses To Memorize:
Malachi 3
Colossians 2:9
1 Peter 4:10
2 Peter 3:15
Acts 2              
1 Corinthians 12  
Ephesians 4
Romans 6:3-5
1 Corinthians 11
Matthew 25
Ezekiel 33:11