A few notes from my Old Testament Reading.
I know what you’re thinking – no I did not steal these from Billy Graham
Aug 052010
“Inspiration without action is just escapism.”
I took this line from a guy I follow on Twitter – I don’t know him, but he travels around the world and blogs about it. Seems like a pretty nice situation.
I went through a range of perspectives as I initially read the line until it finally settled itself into me. I liked it at first, then I hated it, and now I just accept it as truth. But I’m good at inspiration is the problem, – I always have been. It’s not hard for me to get carried into the deep dreams of better schools and better jobs and new lives and blank slates. “What if?” is probably my favorite record to spin.
I wrote about this awhile ago in another blog. It was some kind of heady manifesto about knowledge being useless – I even used a rock-climbing metaphor. I meant it then, and I still do – but as I’m writing my own story, I see that knowledge is actually becoming a villain. It’s true, knowledge without action is useless, but I’m starting to see that it might also be damning.
The problem with knowledge is the same problem with inspiration. Neither are inherently bad, actually, they’re inherently beautiful – but they’re beautiful because they’re designed for action. I don’t believe that we’re meant to experience the rising action of inspiration without the payout of actual change. So many times, I’ve let inspiration eclipse action.
The trouble is, we’ve taken the story and splayed the whole thing on the autopsy table and (in the name of knowledge, actually) dissected them, analyzed them, and somewhere along the line, we’ve reasoned that one can be had without the other. So then, inspiration feels something like the finish line, when really, it’s just the sign-up sheet. We’re swollen with the stuff of inspiration after meetings and midnight conversations with best friends- ready to change the world – or at least ready to change our own worlds. And then, we go home and spend the night on Facebook.
Because it’s so easy to get swept into the excitement of inspiration and think that it’s the whole of the story. But that’s a small story, a regrettable one. A shameful one, to be honest. Good stories can’t end before the climax, and they never end before the conflict.
Inspiration can change our moods, action can change our lives. Even better, it can change someone else’s. Here’s to inspiraction.
(In full disclosure, I looked up inspiraction.com and found that it was taken. There goes my dreams of being the next Tony Robbins.)
More than a specific challenge, God gave me a theme for this month. “Risk” He said – I heard it clearly. “But how?” I replied, He was silent. So I kept the idea in my pocket until I read a quote a few days ago.
I don’t remember where I’d read it, but it was something to the effect of our “dreams being be so big that they aren’t reachable without God.” – This flies in the face of the ethos of safety I’ve adopted. I like small dreams, not because they’re easy to realize, but because they’re easy to abandon. If I have only a tenuous relationship with a dream and it never realizes, I’m not brokenhearted when I walk away from them – or they from me.
But oh, if I really want something – worse, if God’s compelling me toward something, then it’s scary – then, it’s weighty, then it’s risky. But I know a God who calls us towards danger – not with the promise of being there when we arrive, but of being with us as we run to it.
So this month, I’m going to be reading the Old Testament.
I know what you’re thinking and I agree. The truth is, I went to bed a few nights ago with the idea of reading the entire bible this month. I was terrified but determined (It was late). The reading plans I’d researched called for about 2.5 hours of reading a day – which is fine, that’s about what I’d been spending on blogs for the past month. But, thing is – I have to keep writing. And honestly, it might be too overwhelming to keep a regular blogging schedule while committing to probably 3 hours of reading a day (I get distracted).
But, the Old Testament isn’t short. My Bible puts Genesis to Malachi at a solid 799 pages – if I’m honest, that’s already the longest book I’ve ever read. Divided by 31 days, my reading is about 26 pages a day. It’s daunting, and I’m scared and I honestly don’t know if I’ll make it. But I know that’s why I have to run towards it.
This has been the first month where I’ve been legitimately scared about failing. No meat was easy – boring, but easy. Pancakes, no bacon. No caffeine was largely a bad idea, but it proved discipline where I needed it. Even blogging everyday was a beautiful burden. But this? The Old Testament? This guy who begat this guy who begat this guy who had this wife and was sold for this many shekels? Two days in, and the Old Testament has already been some kind of desert. But I’m going to do it, well – I’m going to try, and if I can, it will only be testament to a faithfulness I can’t understand.
I can’t tell you enough how these small Chapters have already changed my year. A few of us are determined to remembering our stories – I hope you read about them, but more than that I hope you’ll come too.