I’m reading this book by Rob Bell, called “Velvet Elvis,” and I think it’s an amazing book. I’ve actually found myself reading it, and then scooting back in my chair, putting my head back, and putting the book down, because what he’s saying is articulating EXACTLY how I feel and what I’m thinking and learning and realizing about God. What he’s saying is making my heart literally want to jump out my chest because I *hear* what he’s saying. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know, God just is freaking me out, again, by everyday blowing my mind about who He is. Even I, who continually spout the idea that we put God in boxes without realizing it, keep finding my box blown apart. I love it. I love that God breaks the rules. I love it!

Anyway, I could write for a long time about it, but for now, I wanted to share a tidbit of this book, and more to come soon.

 pg 28ish -

“Questions.

A Christian doesn’t avoid the questions; a Christian embraces them. In fact, to truly pursue the living God, we have to see the need for questions.

Questions are not scary.

What is scary is when people don’t have any.

What is tragic is faith that has no room for them.

…A question by its very nature acknowledges that the person asking the question does not have all of the answers. And because the person does not have all of the answers, they are looking outside of themselves for guidance. Questions, no matter how shocking of blasphemous or arrogant or ignorant or raw, are rooted in humility. A humility that understands that I am not God. And there is more to know.

Questions bring freedom. Freedom that I don’t have to be God and I don’t have to pretend that I have it all figured out. I can let God be God.

…Abraham thinks God is in the wrong and the proposed action is not in line with who God is, and Abraham questions him about it…not only does God not get angry, but he seems to engage with Abraham all the more.

Maybe that is who God is looking for -people who don’t just sit there and mindlessly accept whatever comes their way…”

pg 69 -

“The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in and struggle with the text - the good parts, the hard to understand parts, the parts we wish weren’t there.

The rabbis even say a specific blessing when they don’t understand…’Thank you, God, that at some point in the future, the lights are going to come on for me.’

The rabbis have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: The story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32. He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping.

Because when you wrestled with the text, you walk away limping.

And some people have no limp, because they have not wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God.”

There is so much more to write and talk about, but I just want to challenge all of us, myself included…have we thrown everything aside in a desire to wrestle with God? I mean, really get down into it, throwing our hearts and souls into a vulnerable spin, willing to accept the outcome of letting go of comfort, prejudice, culture, presuppositions, and fear? Are you limping? Or are you afraid to be that vulnerable? To ask those questions you don’t want to admit exist, or to face the fear that the answer you find might be different than what you thought that answer was?

Think about it. People that are limping aren’t always the ones with a problem.