Priorities? What priorities?

Monday was the ides of March. Sunday was National Pi Day. Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day. Guess which one of those I forgot?

I reminded my family about National Pi Day ("What happens on National Pi Day?" they asked. "I dunno, we make... pies?"), reminded them about the Ides of March ("I look my Graduation Test math test on the ides of March," I mused pensively), and come Wednesday, I showed up at work, and lo and behold, I wasn't wearing green. It's not as if I usually do, but this year my excuse was simple: the thought hadn't so much as crossed my mind.

So I guess it goes to show where my priorities are. Namely, sweet holidays v. boring and typical ones. Adventure strikes again!

How great Thou art!

I like to stop and think sometimes about how great God is, and how much we don't understand Him. His ways are higher than ours, He clothes the lilies, He watches the sparrows. He upholdeth all things with His power, He stands in the great divide between us and everlasting punishment.

He also does/is many billions of other things.

And... He's my Father. I love that.

Rich with details

The next time someone tells you that the Bible is a dry book best meant for church, tell them to read the story of Joseph. Every time I read the story of Joseph I just marvel, because it is so incredibly full of texture and fabric and everything that makes for an amazing story.

The story trails back to even before Joseph was born, of course, but even just consider Joseph's childhood--surrounded by three mom-ish things, plus a real mother, and 10 older brothers who didn't think too keenly of Joseph. Consider the account of Rachel dying while bearing Benjamin. Do we ever stop to think that Joseph was motherless? I think his motherlessness must have had at least some effect on the way he turned out.

I mean, consider Reuben's sin with Bilhah (clearly didn't get the thou-shalt-not memo in regards to thy father's wife), and then contrast that with Joseph's clear refusal of Potiphar's wife. Clearly their moral standards were not on the same level.

Then consider the interesting emphasis there is, in Joseph's story, on his various coats. His coat of many colours, the coat that Potiphar's wife stole from his back, the coat he donned to go meet with Pharaoh, and the coat that Pharaoh put on him after making him second-in-command. No "dry book" would spend time talking about someone's various outfits.

I could go on and on, but I think you all know the story. I just love to read it, and see all those little things that make the story seem so much more real. For instance, after Joseph cried when he saw Benjamin for the first time, he washed his face before coming back in. The Bible doesn't have to record that, but it makes it so much more remarkable when it does!

Plus, since Joseph is a type of Christ, that brings a whole new level of meaning to the story. Honestly, it's truly incredible!

Be still

I don't spend enough time in prayer. I don't spend enough time in the Word. While my relationship with the Lord is fine, I can't help but thinking how much more amazing it could be. I Think that a relationship with the Lord is one of the few things in life that we can actually continually cultivate, and it can just go up and up and not have to come down. Now, we're humans, mind you, so there's that whole thing where we're just foolish sometimes, but in general, the Lord is always willing to grow closer to us, it's just a matter of us allowing Him into every corner of our lives.

Which is why I say that I don't spend enough time with Him. Because truth be told, usually when I read the Bible in the morning, it's not really very long, and just when I'm thinking something new and wonderful about whatever it is that I'm reading, I realize that I have to go have breakfast, or finish doing my hair, or some other trivial thing.

And why is it, that whenever I start to pray, I suddenly think of half a dozen things that I need to do? That's awful! I should be so focused on the Lord that I don't even remember about the vague things that fill my thoughts on a regular basis.

And especially the Bible reading thing. The Bible says, "Thy Word have I hid in my heart." It doesn't say brain, because, while memorization and knowledge are important, it's really the fact that we allow the Word of God to melt through us and saturate our life.

Which is why I need to be still. Still enough to finally listen when He talks, still enough to focus on Him.

Evidence

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

I love that. The evidence of things not seen? I just like how it's worded. I've talked about faith before, we're all familiar with it, but somethings I just realize how incredible it is that we humans have the capacity to trust in things we don't see.

Everybody seems to think that believing in God is such a difficult task, because we can't see him. But we believe in wind. I can't see wind. We believe in cancer, and the natural eye can't typically see cancer. We believe in the far reaches of space, which we can't seem to find, no matter how hard we try. What makes God so different?

On a less-related note, a funny story.

My brother sneezed the other day at dinner and proceeded to tell us all that he liked to try and hold in his sneezes. I then informed him that when you hold in a sneeze you kill a bunch of brain cells. My family looked at me like I was crazy, at which point I spluttered, "No really, I read it in a science book or something!"

That's when my sister replied, "So you believe in evolution?"

Well spoken, sister mine.

Purchased

On the topic of parables, here's a good one. The story of the guy who found the pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought the field--what did he sell? And from whom did he buy?

I guess I should have capitalized all of that, because the "he" in the story represents Christ. Actually, are we supposed to capitalize pronouns that don't actually entirely refer to the Lord? I'm not sure.

Moving on.

We all talk about how we were purchased with the blood of Christ, bought with a price, etc. And that's good, that's from the Bible (1 Corinthians 6:20, for example), but from whom were we purchased? Was the transaction with the Father? Were we purchased by the Son from the Father? Because I certainly don't think that Jesus was transacting with Satan or anything like that. So we were purchased, saved from the clutches of sin, but from whom?

And in the parable, the merchant sold all that he had, and purchased the field with the pearl in it. What did Jesus have to give up in coming to Earth to save us? He didn't give up His Deity, nor did He give up His place at the right hand of God. I guess it's one of those things that I won't know until Glory.

And once again, if we were smart enough to understand God, well, that just wouldn't make sense, would it? =)

100

I was already planning on writing about the number 100 this morning before I logged on and realized that this is my hundredth post. Nice.

I was thinking about the parable of the hundred sheep. We all understand that the one lost sheep is you or I, or anyone in need of a Saviour, who was sought out/is being sought out by the Lord. We all know about how the angels in Heaven rejoice over that one sinner that repents.

But... what about the 99? Who are they? Do they represent the pharisees from the Bible, or regular-type people who aren't saved (yet)?

And I know it's "just" a parable. As my dad consistently has to remind me, shadows and pictures in the Bible are just that--shadows. Pictures. Not entirely matching up to the reality of the situation. There's no way to have a perfect picture of Christ, because Christ is perfect. Nothing else compares. So that leaves us with fragments of the story, which is fine, because if we could understand the whole story, then God wouldn't be... God.

But I still don't understand who those 99 are. So if you have an inkling of who they represent, please let me know.