Mystery’s walking on my head again
In a pattern figure eight
Round a turn cross a path again and again and again
Save communion for the holidays
And keep perception at a safe arms length
Does hallelujah wear the same old face
I’m okay yeah okay fine okay
What I really want is to wrap my arms around Your name
I just spent several minutes playing Yahtzee (oh, excuse me, “Yahdice”) on my palm pilot during my lunch break. I am not feeling all that well, not because I am sick but because I am stressed out. I don’t know why I chose Yahtzee to help me calm down . . . my Yahtzee skills are legendary. Legendarily bad. Right, Mike and Brian?
Today is one of those “okay yeah okay fine okay” kind of days. The weekend wasn’t bad, necessarily, but I did get an email this morning that put me on edge. And I’m still recovering from being exhausted all week last week for no discernable reason. The real kicker was the conference I went to on Friday and Saturday at my old church. Much of the conference centered on our identity in Christ. I decided to go because a lot of my friends have been before and just love the materials, and I figured it couldn’t hurt.
To break the cycle cynical
Keeping man inside his head
Wisdom offers up her best advice
And I’ll run to her side and ask why and ask why
Nothing that was taught was bad by any means, but I just couldn’t connect with it. At conferences like that, I get caught up in, “Well, how do I know what this guy is saying is true? Do I agree with his interpretation of this scripture? Should this scripture be read in light of this other passage?” and so on and so forth. I don’t respond well to lists of Bible verses taken out of context because my brain starts thinking about what they mean in context and who they were written for and why and I don’t seem to be able to accept that I can just apply these things to me, to my life. I don’t know how to read the Bible without getting caught going down all these paths and making all these connections . . . I like making connections and I like that the Bible is consistent, but it all gets so heavy. I don’t know how to read it and enjoy it anymore.
I am used to relying on my mind and my intellect, and I think it’s really causing me problems in this aspect of my life. But the only way I know how to approach things is intellectually. I don’t know a different way. I don’t know why I don’t make the heart connections that my friends are able to make, why I can’t just accept things. I have to overthink everything. I have to wring all meaning out of it before I allow it to be true. And there’s just not a lot of joy in that.
I’ll scrape the bottom ’til I’m good and ready old
And take the cup of kindness while searching for the gold
For the gold for the gold
Tomorrow’s filling up like yesterday
Something’s constant underneath this place
Shape this prayer to sing with such a grace
For today just today or someday
What I’d really like is to wrap my arms around Your name
I don’t know how to enjoy these things of faith like I used to. I want to be able to soak things in and see God’s faithfulness in the Bible. I want it to be a little simpler, like I think it’s supposed to be. Somehow I have made things really complicated.
What I’d really like is to wrap my arms around Your name
[And credit must go to Sarah Masen for her beautiful lyrics.]
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10 Comments
Well, I can’t relate to your malaise, but I do know how I deal with the lists of verses … I have MyBible for my Treo [it's a PalmOS product, so you could have it on your Palm], and I speed through and get to the verses the pastor’s using and skim the context. It helps me to evaluate the efficacy of the speaker’s argument. More than once, I’ve come back and confirmed my skepticism about using some verse or other …
Mike would love for me to have another way to overanalyze things, I am sure.
Oh, I don’t think that this qualifies as overanalysis. [I know what you mean, though.]
I wondered if that was Sarah Masen or not. She is a great writer indeed.
The Author loves you! He can explain all the mystery because He wrote it… Peace, mrsd
Wow. Kari. That is so where I am. I could have never said it that well. Thanks
I don’t think it’s bad to check the context speakers are using…
Well, neither do I, Roger, but I’m saying I keep going down different paths until I lose the whole point of the original discussion. We should question things, sure, but there should be a balance.
My faith isn’t very child-like at this point, it’s completely intellectual. It’s good to be informed, but I think I carry it too far.
There is, too, a difference (and should be) between a child-like faith toward God and a child-like faith (or and ‘accept everything as gospel’) toward a speaker.
Just to throw you off a little more.
When I referred to child-like faith, I was definitely speaking of faith in God. Not in humans. Sorry if that was unclear.