In the beginning God created...

In the beginning God created...

The heavens and the earth, the sun and moon, the seas that teem with living things, and the mammals with their furry pelt that feed upon grass and berries. Filling the atmosphere with every winged creature, and star-speckled space beyond our skies, gravity miraculously holding it all together.  He caused the moon to move a steady pathway around the globe, creating the tide pull and the ocean's yielding response, lapping upon the shoreline, caressing each grain of intentionally designed sand.

All this God created - And it was very good.

And yet more vast than creation is the creative nature of God Himself - The One who spoke everything into existence, including mankind in His image.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:27)

Halfway home my middle child confessed, "I didn't bring my spelling book home and I have a test tomorrow." We turned around and drove to school again.  Walking together toward his class we passed the art room with the door ajar, and I saw the sign hanging, pronouncing,

In the beginning God created...

That dear woman who teaches my children art saw me then, and I looked into her eyes and told her what I had just learned, what I'm now tell you: We were made in the image of this Creator God. She nodded back. "That's what I tell the children."

There is a movement abreast in the Christian community, specifically among women, where God's created people are opening up His Word and creatively responding back within the pages of their Bibles.  For years we've dared write within the margin spaces, like a conversation with the Holy Spirit.  But in recent months many have taken to doing something even riskier than write... they've dared create on those pages. With watercolors and pencils, creative women are reflecting God the creator as the moon reflects the sun. Light bouncing off light-bearers. And there's been no better time in history for paint to splatter thin Bible pages then right now, for Instagram and Facebook carry the images to the rest of us like a visual Bible Study.

Inspired, I decided to try my hand at it as well.

As I read again God's creation story, I thought of Aslan breathing green shrubs out of a naked orb in "The Magicians Nephew," the classic children's tale by C.S. Lewis that precedes his famous "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It's always been one of my favorite interpretations of creation, with the King of Creation singing it forth, and the whole planet responding to his hot breath.

Most people I know get hung-up on those first six days, wanting to understand each 24 hours and carbon dating and evolution and how literal we are supposed to read each word.  But that's not my bag.  I am fine with a literal interpretation, but I am equally all right if God, in His creative majesty, elongated the hours into millennia... At the core, God created - and down to my core, I believe.

Here is where I struggle: Each time I read those early chapters of Genesis I have deep groaning heartbreak over Eden. Witnessing perfection and fellowship, wishing I could go back to that place, wondering why God allowed us this natural bent toward sin, this gift we call free-will, when it goes and screws every beautiful thing up.  Then theology floods my reasoning mind; how it is a gift, free-will, and with it we choose to enter into a true relationship, the submission of will and comprehension of love. All of it rich because mankind gets to choose.

Still my heart cries, "Why God? I'd rather it be simpler, more beautiful, less stained, even if it requires a measure of ignorance." I long for a heart that has a natural bent towards obedience.  I wish we were all sheep that never wander.

But sheep that never wander... never need a Savior.  And it's all mashed up together, here "In the beginning..."

God knows I'd like to walk with Him in the cool of the day, amidst the pre-fallen garden state, and talk with Him of the vastness of His glory and the intimacy of His love and the tendencies of His sheep and the pursuing love of a Shepherd. What a conversation that would be, hand in hand.

Can't you hear Loretta Lyn's sweet voice singing:

I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.

Already my mind turns to Jesus, here in the earliest stories of Creation and the Fall.  Three days into my journey through the Bible and I see the thread that will weave us through, the theme that takes us from the fall to God's redemptive return.  Jesus.   Though He knew no human heart could earn it, be righteous enough to attain it, He found a way to restore us on the other side of sin and separation. Through Jesus - the good shepherd. Because He wants Eden too. That's the story from Cover to Cover, how Jesus will lead His flock back to the beginning again. That's how we look at Revelation here in the garden.

Jesus.

Over and over again, in the pages of this book. Jesus. Our need for Him and His passionate pursuit of us. Story after story. Image after image. From God's tender call, "Where are you," as Adam and Eve hid, to the moment they are cast out. Because, well... don't we all deserve that horrible separation? Then brother kills brother, the spilling of blood, followed by the cleansing of the earth through the flood.

"Never again," He promised with the artistry of a rainbow sign, for every generation to know He will never cleanse the earth that way again.  The next time He cleansed us from sin, it was a thorough cleansing with blood.  Jesus.  Again and again, Jesus. Blood for blood, our sin in exchange for a life that knew no sin. All of it... pointing to Jesus.

From the beginning... the stories all point to Jesus.

I am eager to hear what it is that God is teaching you in His Word.  Weather you are #ReadingthroughtheBible with us here, or simply abiding with Him in various chapters and pages as He leads.  What are you learning... and does it have anything or everything to do with Jesus?

Reading through the Bible - from the Beginning

After reading through the Action Bible two full times, and his favorite stories countless more, my eleven year old son ceremoniously passed down his worn, frayed-edged friend to his nine year old brother.  This morning I found that middle boy embarking on the journey "in the beginning..." as our firstborn read a more mature translation from his Bible App to the seven year old beside him on the couch.  Then I turned down the hall, and painted in my new ESV Journaling Bible with watercolors.  

Non-traditional, wouldn't you say?  A comic strip for a Bible, a phone with God's Words, and Old Testament pages splattered with paint?  Yet it is all alive - every bit of it growing and dividing, convicting and transforming hearts within our home.

And I'm inviting you to join the journey, however the Spirit prompts, beginning Monday, June 1st, 2015.  We will use this blog page to chronicle our Bible Reading posts.  Don't forget to print up your chronological reading plan here, or download this comprehensive Bible App that will help you check off each day's God-breathed assignment.  If you would like do this as a family at the dinner table, I absolutely adore The Jesus Story Book Bible for young families, and The Children's Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos for Elementary - Jr. High aged kids. Young boys all love The Action Bible or Adventure Bible for Early Readers, and the NIV Faithgirlz Bible is an engaging read for your daughters.  Looking to splatter a little paint into the pages of a Bible by yourself, or with the kids, along the way?  Try the ESV Journaling Bible. Or simply enjoy the ample margin space to communicate with God all you are learning from Eden to Cannon to Egypt to the Wilderness, to your own kitchen table.  What a journey it will be and I hope you are excited to begin!

I keep saying it, and I hope you receive this - I'm not going to be your Bible Study teacher.  I'm a sojourner, another woman, a mom, a wife, a creative personality who is actively pursuing God through the pages of His personal, passionate, and persistent love letter to the world.  I'm simply asking you to come along.  And so today, here we go!  I can't wait to hear what The Lord reveals to your heart, through the faithful guiding friend we call His Holy Spirit.

And so today, take a moment to talk to Him, to ask Him to lead you gently, to speak to you clearly, and to give you the ears to hear His voice, a mind to comprehend, and a heart to respond.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of Goda may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:14-17

 Away we go!

Why Summertime is the perfect time to begin reading through the Bible

I can feel the scratchy rub of Sunday school carpet on the bottom of my feet each time I think about reading through the bible again. That first time through, a small group of newly married women met together on Tuesday mornings in one of the empty classrooms at church.  A woman named Ann Bentley, 20 years our senior, had encouraged us to read it all.  "There's no better time than right now, before you have children.  Your lives will never again be as simple as they are today.  Read it together, do it in a year, and don't ask me to lead you.  All you need is a Bible and the Holy Spirit."  

So we read it! And the Bible came alive.

During those Tuesday mornings together, as we took turns sharing all that the Holy Spirit was speaking into our lives individually, I would slip off my sandals, plant my feet firmly on the rough floor, and inhale, thinking, "This is holy ground."

From Eden

to Canaan

to Egypt

through the Wilderness

to Plano, Texas...

all of it holy ground.

By the time we reached the end of that barefoot journey through thin pages, I wanted to go again.  Like a child at the end of a ride, a ride they had been too frighten to go on for years and years, then finally they threw their hands up into the atmosphere and begged to go again. So I decided then and there to read it every other year.  One year on, one year off.  One year on, one year off.  One year on, one year off. That was the plan... and then I had a baby.

A baby changes everything... but God's Word.

We brought him home from the hospital on December 19th, 2003, nearly one year after I had ended my first journey through the Bible.  Swaddled in blue I placed him on my lap in front of the Christmas tree, white lights twinkling, and opened the leather bound Word to Genesis.  Aloud, I read chapter one to my newborn son.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I walked the road a second time.

As I nursed and rested and learned to care for a baby, I'd read another chapter here and there, sometimes out loud, sometimes quietly as he napped. Four years later I completed that second trip from Genesis to Revelation.  Four years it took me!  By the time I was done, I had birthed three sons and moved three times.

I thought of Ann's words, "There's no better time than right now, before you have children. Your lives will never again be as simple as they are today."

One year off stretched into a couple of years.  When the boys were seven, five and three, I began again, determined to make a more consistent go of it this time through.  Three years later I finished that third journey.

Now here I am, and my firstborn is now eleven years old and determined to read it along with me this time, and I'm inviting you to grab your Bible and join us as well.  It doesn't matter to me which translation you use or the pace that you go at, if you read it straight through or follow a chronological reading plan, if you use a commentary or not, a Bible reading app or that old brown Bible your parents gave you on your wedding day... All I care about is that you begin.  Slip off your Summertime sandals and embark on the holy road that always winds us to Jesus.

Everyone is posting pictures of their deep stack of summertime reading - showcasing bindings lined up side by side, all the titles they'll be bringing on vacation this summer.  Why? Because there's no time like summertime for reading a good book... No early morning crazies, getting children off to school.  No afternoon hustle to soccer practice, so another chapter poolside is possible with a glass of lemonade.

[Tweet "Summertime is the perfect time to dive into the refreshing Living Water of God's transforming Word."]

It's as juicy as that harlequin romance novel, as engaging as your favorite historical drama, as transforming as... well... the Bible.

There's no better time to begin.

Reading through the Bible - an invitation

She sat it down between us, beside the rosebud on the white linen tablecloth, a small silver pitcher of hot fudge. Then the waitress gave us each our own scoop of ice cream.  This was our tradition, ever since Grandma had passed away, how I'd come for lunch and we'd end our time together with two bowls of chocolate mocha swirl and that ample portion of melted fudge to share. And he was so good at sharing it with me, before liberally applying it to his own bowl.

But Grandpa shared more than dessert. Passed down more than a sweet tooth. The stories he'd tell and the listening I'd do, then the dreams I'd confess and the prayers he'd pray. Back and forth, sharing this way.

This one afternoon, leaning back between bites, I told him how I'd just begun reading through the Bible with a small group of friends. "I can't believe I've never done this before," I confessed. "Twenty years a Christian and I've never read the whole thing.  It's a little embarrassing, because I say that I believe the Gospel message more than anything else, but I've never read the whole story."

Grandpa pushed his empty bowl aside then scraped his spoon along the inside cavity of the delicate pitcher.  "I read the Bible cover to cover four times before I was a Christian."  That's all he said, then licked his spoon clean.

I knew most of the story, that he was raised by a Christian woman and acted the part, then in college he only went to the church because that's where the pretty girls were. Even saved his money to buy a 1920 Model T, so that he could pick up the young ladies and take them to the local Christian gathering for the young adults. But this I didn't know, how he had read it all, from Genesis to Revelation, during those growing up years, never moved to believe until the preacher's daughter said that she wouldn't date him until he was an honest-to-goodness born-again believer... and suddenly something clicked.

Clicked so hard and so deep that the rest of his life was spent telling people about how they too might also know God in a real and intimate way.

During World War II, on carriers throughout the South Pacific, Grandpa preached to the Navy men. On trips ashore he brought his Bible, looking for island churches who needed a visiting pastor.  Then after the war, Grandpa took a job with Dr. Irwin Moon, founder of Moody Bible Institute of Science, putting on sensational evangelistic shows at the World's Fair each year.  Wowing audiences with scientific experiments Grandpa would then talk about the God of all creation; the One who had ordered all matter through the cosmos and then came down to earth to have an intimate relationship with His people.

All this from a man who had read through the Bible four times before he believed. Genesis four times.  Exodus four times.  Leviticus four times.  Judges four times.  Deuteronomy four times. Joshua four time.  Judges four times. Ruth four times. You get the picture.

All of it... four times.

I am my Grandfather's Granddaughter in many ways, but this isn't one them.  Unlike Grandpa, I believed with all my heart before I read one word from my Precious Moments Bible with my own eyes.  As a young child I knew God lived in my heart before I knew anything about that biological organ that beat there in my breast. And not once, since that childlike faith took root, have I doubted God's existence or His great big love for me.  And yet, I never knew the whole story.  And what a story it is!

The first time I read through the sweeping tale of God's redemptive love in its entirety, I was 27 years old.  Just a small band of newly married women at church, with no formal Bible study leader, simply the Holy Spirit guiding us individually.  Once a week we got together to share what we were learning. Insight, life application, and a healthy dose of awe were shared together week after week for 52 blessed weeks.  And the overarching theme, we all discovered, was how God used every story along the way to point us to Jesus.

By the time we finished the Old Testament and turned the page into Matthew's gospel account, we were primed like never before to experience the birth of a savior.  Our Savior!  And as we wrapped up Revelation we all celebrated John's prophetic vision of our passionate warrior God returning again to take His people home. Cover to cover - Genesis to Revelation - Creation to the fall to His triumphant return.

Do you know that whole story?

On Monday, June 1st, 2015, I am beginning another walk through the pages of God's Word.  Once a week I will blog about what I am learning and ask you to share what you have gleaned.  Leave your lessons in the comments below each week for our sister sojourners to learn from too.

Four times, Grandpa read through the Bible before He believed and was saved.  And I just realized that this is going to be my fourth time through.  Will you join me for your first, second, third, fourth... tenth time through God's Word? It is alive and active, and you will be changed if you come to it with a heart to receive, a heart purposed to find God.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 

Jeremiah 29:13

How I wish I could sit down with Grandpa today, over hot fudge sundaes, and ask him to join us this time around.  Cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation, Creation to the fall to His triumphant return... However, Grandpa is a little preoccupied these days, living the final outcome of this redemptive story on the other side of glory.

So that leaves you and me.  This is your formal invitation.  If you are a Christian, and you have believed all your life but only scraped the surface of God's Word, join us.  And this invitation is for you, my non-Christian friends. Would you read through the Bible with me? It's the #1 best selling book of all time!

Stay tuned... more information is coming.  In the meantime, print up this chronological reading schedule and ready yourself with a sturdy Bible.  I just ordered this ESV Journaling Bible, and am eager to fill the ample margins with notes and verses about what I'm learning as we sojourn together. Or do what my eleven year old does and download This Bible App on your phone. If you want to be sure to not miss a blog-post chronicling the journey, sign up to receive email updates. It's going to be an exciting ride.

Join me?

A special thank you to the women I walked barefoot with through every thin page, 13 years ago - that was holy ground we treaded upon, and I am forever changed because of it.  Kelli, April, Anne, Jana, Andrea, Alison, Julie, Bonni, Shannon...

And to the women in my midst today who have already reached out with a resounding yes, I have no doubt that we are in for a marvelous adventure together.  Jenni, Heather, Pamela, Suzanne, Jennifer, Cindey, Angie, Jenn, Christy, Jacqui, Jessica, Corona...

Who else?

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

James 4:8a

Born again

It must have been a very warm day, the afternoon of my 5th birthday party, for I clearly recall the smell of hot concrete as we stood in a circle in the back yard, singing, "a tisket a tasket, a green and yellow basket".  Passing a little plastic basket with some great prize inside, I had Matt Morgan on my right and Michael Welch on my left - my two best friends, plus half a dozen more.  After a couple games we moved inside for cake and presents.  It was the week before my birthday, a week and a day before Easter, so my mom planned an Easter themed party for me that year.  Every one of my childhood friends went home with a hand-sewn Velveteen Rabbit. This year, however, my birthday falls on Easter Sunday!  Not the day before, not the day after, Easter day, and I couldn't be happier.

There isn't a day in the calendar year I love more than Easter.  From my first waking breath, to my final exhale before succumbing to sleep again.  Easter.  With all the exclamations of "He is risen!" and the resounding responses, "He is risen, indeed." Easter.

No doubt Christmas is more popular, as favorite days go... but in my estimation, Christmas would simply be any other birthday if it were not for Resurrection Sunday.  One celebrates His birth, but the other invites us all to be born again.

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:3-5)

Truly, truly.

Two times he spoke these words just like a plea.

Truly, truly...

If only you would hear and then believe.

Truly, truly...

Still this whole concept of being "born again" eludes most skillful minds today; too esoteric, this faith-talk mumbo-jumbo.  But what if one of you reading this today truly, truly does want to understand this "born again" faith phenomenon?  Well, my dear friend, this post is my birthday gift to you.

Imagine with me the first birth, the one we're all aware of, the one each of us has known.  It begins with a baby confined inside a mother's womb; held captive, securely, until just the right time.  Then the water breaks, the contractions begin, and the mother pushes.  On the other side of labor, is the birth day of a miracle.  The miracle grows in wisdom and stature throughout their life.  Until suddenly, on another blessed day, the spirit breaks loose, and the heart contracts, and the pushing and the pulling there in the heart to believe and be saved births a new sort of miracle.  Faith. This is being born again.

Have you ever looked at an egg with life growing like a miracle inside?  Life confined behind the veil of a shell.  Suddenly, the predestined day dawns and the bird breaks the thin white crust that held her back from life. And the water flows.

Being born again is just like that. You there, held in the illusion of safety, there in your unbelief, a new day is dawning when the paper-thin enamel of this first life cannot contain your growing curiosity of the life to come.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

This birthday gift is not elusive, though it may have seemed so before today, it is simply your call to believe that Jesus was born to chase us down in our unbelief, and pay the price that our sinfulness deserves.  Death.  You see, God doesn't want us to be born so that we die in the end, he gave us life that we might live it with Him... forever.  Born, and then born again to forever life with Him, through faith in Christ.

Born, then born again through faith.

Truly, truly.  One for each birth.

This Sunday I celebrate both, my literal birth as well as the born again reality I freely received because of the gift Jesus gave me when He went to the cross to pay for my pride, for my selfishness. Jesus was killed for the sin we've all known, trying to keep ourselves back in the womb of unbelief.

If you have only been born one time, that literal birth through the breaking of water... but now your heart is breaking by the power of God's Spirit to believe and be born again... then do.  Share my birthday with me, friend. You don't need to have all the answers today to be saved, to be born again into eternal life, simply a humble, "Yes, I believe, Lord help my unbelief."

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31)

It is as simple as that.  So here is my party favor, not a hand-sewn Velveteen Rabbit, but a hands clasped, head bowed, humble prayer:

"Dear Lord, I believe that You sent Your Son to chase me down in my unbelief, and to die for my sins, so that I don't have to.  I believe.  I give in to Your Spirit.  Come fill my heart with Your love and Your life, eternal.  And teach me what it means to now truly, truly live...  born again.  Amen."

Happy Birthday!

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)