I’m not up to a daily reading yet, but I have been reading most days of the week, especially when I go int othe office at church. The whole goal of Powerd by 4 is to get people to read the Bible 4 times a week. Of course, the ideal is daily, but it gives us who struggle with maintaining a consistency in Bible reading a starting point. If you find yourself struggling in the discipling of Bible reading, I encourage you to check out their plan. They send out a daily e-mail. It’s great for me, because there is not a day that goes by that I don’t check my e-mail. Why I can be so faithful with checking e-mail and reading blogs but not sitting down for even 10 minutes to read and reflect on Scripture without a gimmick I cannot explain.

Anyway, after reading through Genesis 12-50, the daily readings have moved on to Psalms. We read the first ten Psalms before diving into Genesis, and we picked up with Psalm 11 after finishing the story of Joseph. Today’s reading is Psalm 17.

What a psalm! David is praying to God, and tells God that he knows that God can examine him and find nothing to fault David for. There is absolutely no way that I could say such a thing, and that is painful to admit. Old struggles rear their heads, things that I have fought in the past and am tired of fighting, so I just give in. And I justify them as “normal,” because I see so much of it around me, so many people who condone the things that I know are wrong. I look out and find comfort that I am not alone in my struggle. I find comfort by those who would find value in what in my heart of hearts I know is wrong. And I rely on the blood of Jesus to recover old sins that I succumb to again.

Not quite an example of Christian virtue.

David goes on in the psalm to ask God to save him from his enemies, and David speaks of his enemies as those who have looked to the world for their wealth and riches. They spend all of their energy in the here and now, looking to the next generation to “carry their legacy.” Do we not do the same thing?

David calls us to a higher standard: “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.” (Psalm 17:15)

I love the hymn “Face to Face,” where we sing about that day when we shall meet Jesus face to face after this world is through and we are part of the new creation. It will be a glorious day. I should be living for that, not for the good of the next generation. Not dwelling on the pleasures of the here and now that are fleeting. Eternity looms. God awaits.

And I’m too busy succumbing to old passions.

One of the appendices in Being Leaders is a personal core values audit. It’s actually the same audit he gives for churches to use in both books. So I took it, and here’s what I discovered about myself, in the order of priority that I established for them:

1. Worship and Prayer
2. Bible Knowledge
3. Evangelism/Lost People/Missions
4. Community/Relevance
5. Mobilized Laity

The order is significant, as I perceive this is a process that someone would walk through. First, people should worship God and engage Him in prayer. This would be naturally followed by a desire to know Him more, which would happen through Bible study. While I don’t think Bible knowledge is necessarily a prerequisite for evangelism, I believe we become better evangelists the more we know about God, which is why I have it third. As we pursue evangelism, we will likely realize that we need to understand the people we are trying to reach: the people of our community (either where we were born or where we have chosen to live for work, family, or ministry). We will need to understand the community and make our message relevant, that is in the vernacular of the community so that the message can be heard and understood.  And I firmly believe that this is a task of everyone in the church, not just the lead pastor, the staff, or the church leaders (be they deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers, or some other unnamed group).

In any event, the thought went on to ask the question about the reader’s own first encounter with God. What was it like? Jacob set up conditions (“If God does this, then I will do this”), but also set up the altar that he called Bethel (“House or Dwelling Place of God”).

I don’t know if I remember my first encounter with God. In fact, I’m sure that I do not. I remember when a tropical storm (or minimal hurricane, not sure which) went over the house we were living in on the Gulf Coast, and Mom gathered us in her bedroom and prayed to God to protect us. I was young then, maybe four or five. We were fine, as was our house. Is that an encounter with God? I remember flickers of what I call my salvation experience…being in my parents’ bedroom, talking with our church’s pastor, being baptized. Is that my first encounter? I can look back and clearly see places and times where God guided me, protected me, steered me, put me in the precisely right place at the precisely right time. Are any of these my first encounter? I remember as a senior in high school, ten years after that time in my parents’ bedroom, pacing up and down the street in front of our house, trying to figure out what to do with my life (so that I could finish my college application – singular – by writing down a major), and having the assurance that I would be in full time ministry. Without a doubt. Though I had no clue what that looked like (pastor? missionary? professor?). Just that ministry was it. Because I was 18, it’s probably the most vivid encounter with God that I can remember. But I wouldn’t call it my first encounter.

I guess my first encounter came before memories started sticking in my brain. Probably my mother singing to me or praying over me (or for me, in another room). I do know that my life is different from the lives of others in the world who have not encountered God in a significant way. While I often take detours down the paths of consumerism and commercialism and materialism, I’m always drawn back. Jacob was a conniving liar who stole from his twin brother and spent the remainder of his life cowering from him, but God still chose him and always drew him back into His plan.

Sometimes I wish I had a dramatic instant-change testimony like I sometimes hear at meetings or conferences or read about in books. But then I count myself lucky that my encounter with God is lifelong, ever present. I have, at times, flirted with doubts about God’s existence or providence, but never for long. He is always with me. Just like God promised to always be with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with their descendants. He is always with me.

That’s my Bethel.

Today’s Powered by 4 reading was Jonah 4. Jonah and Whale is a familiar to story to most anyone who grew up with any kind of a connection to the church. It’s a classic kids story. I haven’t been so faithful this week with the daily readings, mostly because I believed the four chapters of Jonah to be very familiar – tired and well worn. Not something that I need to read again, at least not this week.

I know. I should know better.

I am struck by the last two verses of the book. Jonah has been nudged not-so-gently into Nineveh. He walked three days into the city, proclaiming his message. The word gets to the king, and he declares that the whole city should repent, both man and beast. What evangelist today would not rejoice at such a turn in a city of 120,000 people – especially one with the reputation of Nineveh! Yet chapter 4 finds Jonah sulking over God’s grace towards Nineveh. He declares that this was the very reason he did not want to go to Nineveh and fled west in the first place – so God would NOT spare the city.

Jonah, sulking, goes out into the desert and sits down, waiting for the destruction of the city. God raises a vine overnight to shade him, and Jonah rejoices at the provision of shade. The next night, however, the vine is eaten away by worms, and it withers and no longer provides shade to Jonah. So he becomes even more bitter and angry. And God asks him if he has reason to be so bitter about the plant. Jonah responds that he does. And God asks, “Why the vine and not the 120,000 people of Nineveh? What makes the vine so much more worthwhile than they?”

How often have we fallen into the same trap, caring more for the fleeting things of life – the iPod or iPhone or dinner out or seeing the movie that’s getting all of the buzz or not missing an episode of our favorite show or cleaning out the dirt under our nails rather than the world that is dying around us? Are the people around us not of more worth than those other things?

It is a trap into which I easily fall. I pray that I will become more attuned to the world around me. To see more with God’s eyes. To place my time, effort, and energy into things that are lasting and worthwhile rather than fleeting.

I like the premise. Every good Evangelical Christian (okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but at least the ones I’ve been connected with) knows that you’re supposed to read your Bible every day. How many of us do it? Powered by 4 sets a goal that readers follow through at least 4 times per week (hence the “by 4″ part). And it is really simple: they send an e-mail with a passage to read (so far, it’s been one chapter), then there are several questions at the bottom to help the reader think on the passage.

My problem with devotions is this: after so much Greek, Hebrew, theology, and the like as both an undergraduate and a graduate student, I find a lot of devotionals unhelpful. I recognize that they are helpful to a lot of people, so I don’t want to discount them. But they don’t help me for whatever reason. I’m too cerebral, possibly. But many of the books or guides I’ve found come across to me as trite and shallow. In all likelihood, they aren’t really. I’m sure my own biases prevent me from seeing the gold that is in them to be mined. But I never find gold.

And as much as I would like to commit to reading through the Bible every year (I have one plan fed to me daily in Google Reader), that doesn’t happen either. So Powered by 4 works well for me. I don’t have to figure out where to go next to read – it’s decided for me. It’s not an overwhelming length of text to consider like the Bible in a year plans typically are. There is enough to get context and find something to chew on for the day. So I encourage you to check it out if you have been looking for a plan of your own to follow. Maybe we can work up to 4 days a week (or more!) together.

Let me know how it goes.

The conference is called the Pastors Consultation on World Evangelism. One of the speakers at the conference has been talking to us pastors about our spiritual walk, and especially the pitfalls we can fall into as we go about ministry. One of the big ideas he has promoted is the journaling our quiet or devotional times. It is something that I have done with some success in the past. The speaker mentioned the benefit he gets from rereading where he was. The only time I have been consistent with a devotional time I was also consistent with journaling. It was the summer of 1999, when I was working as a summer missionary with the North American Mission Board in Oregon. I actually kept it up for a little while after the summer was finished, back at college. But it didn’t last. Papers and exams and the social trials of college days interfered. Life after graduation didn’t get any easier! But I can affirm how helpful it is for me to go back and reread my entries during those days. So it is something that I would like to start doing again.

I’m not sure that a blog is the best way to do that. But this is what I have available to me at this particular moment, so it’ll do for now. Besides, I might as well use this space for something!

At the opening session this morning the speaker asked the pastor’s what they had been reading in their devotional times. That was easy for me: nothing. Yes, I’m a minister. Yes, I encourage my congregation to keep up with devotions. I just don’t do so hot myself. And when I do, it’s not through a particular book. I use other sources, like the Jesuit broadcast out of London, Pray As You Go, or the Irish monk site Sacred Space. They are more prayer oriented, but with a reading from the Scripture. If I’m really excited, I’ll try to follow along with one of the yearly Bible reading plans from Back to the Bible. After all, I have that printed in our church bulletin every week. I even found a site that sends the reading straight to my RSS aggregator. But I must confess that I rarely keep up with it.

But with the fresh encouragement of the conference, I opened my Bible this evening to 2 Corinthians (no particular reason, just where I opened), and started reading the greeting and first full paragraph. At the conference, we have been talking about missions (it is a missions agency, after all, and the conference is on world evangelism). The topics have been varied, from the emergent church and postmodern theory to reports from The Gambia and working through strategizing around potential scenarios (our table’s scenario involved biological and nuclear terrorism that shut borders by 2010, providing for an interesting view of missions).

The general background question has been what are we willing to do to see God’s kingdom expanded on earth, as we have been commissioned and commanded to do? Some of the speakers have talked about how we have cheapened the gospel to “pie in the sky” and a “benefits package.” We have forgotten that we have been joined to Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings.

The first full paragraph of 2 Corinthians after the letter’s greeting (2 Cor 1:3-7) speaks of comfort, and how God extends it to those who suffer, just as He has extended Christ’s sufferings to us. Verse 5 says that we “Share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t really experience that. And I don’t want to experience that. I comfortable in my First World socio-economic middle-class status. I don’t need or (on my best days) want more than I have. But I do enjoy what I have. My wife and I certainly have our own share of personal struggles and issues, but I wouldn’t call them “suffering” in a Job sense, definitely not in a “sharing with Christ” sense. We had a dark period just before arriving at our present ministry, but even that (from this vantage point) I would not call suffering. I’m sure that the Corinthians were suffering. I’m absolutely positive that Paul’s situation classified as suffering. I’m just not sure that I have experienced it.

So when Paul says that we have shared in such a great comfort because we have shared in such great affliction and suffering, I’m not sure what he means, or if I can include myself in that. When he talks about our being comforted so that we can pass that comfort onto others who are similarly afflicted, I can mostly understand that. I have participated in that.  Paul’s assurance for the Corinthians was the comfort of Christ being poured out on them as they endured the sufferings that Paul was enduring (and receiving comfort for).

What comfort do I receive that I can pour out on others? What comfort do you receive that you can pour out on others? How do we participate in that giving and receiving?