Midweek in Paradise

It's Wednesday in the tropics, and that must mean "We Sweat Here" - the humidity and sunshine are back after the nice relaxing hurricane breezes. Yesterday was long and fairly boring - time passes faster when you're busy, not when you're cramped up in the hotel all afternoon. But I slept well, and I'm looking forward to a productive day today, hopefully wrapping up tomorrow to fly home ahead of the hurricane's arrival in the States. And then a long weekend... aaahh.

I mentioned a few posts back that there's a way to read the Bible "conversationally", and that's what I am striving for when I read right now (helps to pass the time having my Bible to "talk to" - but I'm not going nutty, honest!). Compare it to a chat between two old friends. When we come together, we have some knowledge of the other person's likes and dislikes, mannerisms and sense of humor. But usually while we talk, we're open to whatever they say - we don't hold it against them if they don't say what we want or what we thought they would. There's a leeway given to the conversation, a flow that allows both parties to come with presuppositions but also to be open to changing the topic, to chasing tangents, to saying things that might be surprising, to challenging those presuppostions, etc. There's a mutual understanding that either party isn't going to try to lead the other astray, that you're not trying to hurt each other, so that the flow is allowed the freedom to just evolve as the conversation continues.

But when we come to the Bible - I'm guilty of this, I know - we come into the "conversation" already knowing what the text is saying. We've read that before, or heard that sermon before, and we know what it means to the nth degree. There's not a newness and freshness like a good conversation would have. We tend to read the Bible with a stubbornness - unless we pray and release ourselves to see something new and exciting and fresh in the Spirit every time we open its pages. There's no room for untouchable presuppositions in reading the Word of God - it should break us and re-make us everytime we read it.

More like a good conversation.
[idea built upon from someone else - but I can't find the blog/article right now - aarrgghh!... something like this article from Eugene Peterson]