Day 5: "I Will Speak Your Language" - UNFINISHED

This week has been just sort of. . . eh. Nothing special, nothing horrible, and mostly me just feeling like I have a lot to do (so much so that I feel I really didn't get much accomplished at all. I always hate when that happens, but I know that I can't be operating at 150% all the time).

However, I did order some books Tuesday night, and one of them has already arrived. . . I'm looking forward into delving into those.

That being said, I should probably get to this chapter in "He Chose the Nails."

God's Promise Through the Sign. . . should be interesting.

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I gotta say, I love it when books make me laugh aloud. The chapter opens with a scene of younger Max, helping his wife "clean the house" by putting together a collage of photos that they had never unpacked. I realize that doesn't sound all that hilarious, but, well, you'll just have to read it for yourself.

The whole point of that (and the rest of the chapter) is that we have to get good at detecting the signs. God speaks to us through many different kinds of messages (rainbows, circumcision, stars, communion, baptism, etc.). But the original sign that spoke of Christ's position on earth?

"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." It was written in Hebrew (language of religion), Latin (language of law and government), and Greek (language of culture). Pilate, when asked to change the phrase written above, would not. I always thought it was because there was a chance that he might have believed at least part of the divinity of Christ. Lucado (and others I'm sure) paints a different picture: "This is what becomes of a Jewish king; this is what the Romans do with him. The king of this nation is a slave; a crucified criminal; and if such be the king, what must the nation be whose king he is?"

Maybe I give too much benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, Lucado gleans two ideas from this whole scenario: God uses everyone to reach the world, from non-believers to the devoutest of souls. Second, God speaks to everyone differently and individually. He speaks to each one of us in a language that we understand, be it the "language of abundance", "vernacular of want", "language of need", "language of affliction", or otherwise. He knows what will reach us, and in my experience, He will hit you over the head until you get it! And even then it's still a choice. But it's all about awareness. How many signs are we missing daily? What simple things are really more than that? Let me relate one story before I go off to bed.

A couple months back (December 3rd, to be exact) I was coming home after a particularly long and not great day of teaching, and as I pulled into my parking place, I asked God for some kind of comfort. It was pretty vague, but what happened next was pretty cool. I'll just quote myself from my livejournal:

"I've had this weird feeling in my head all week: call it depression, call it stress, call it whatever, but it's been bugging me, since for the most part I am truly happy with where I'm at in life and things are going well. I knew that I will end up having a very long night tonight with both things to do for work and things to do for my personal life (both of which are equally important in my eyes) and I just felt emotionally exhausted. Upon arriving from the store (I had to get challah stuff; low on sugar and flour), I just shot a quick prayer out asking that God would comfort me in some way, either giving me encouragment or just pushing me to cry it out. As I walk up to my door, a cat from the house down the street just comes up to me, so I start petting it, and it keeps staying by me. I ended up setting my groceries down on the ground and sitting, and the cat came into my lap and purred. I probably stayed out there about 10 minutes or so. It was perfect: the small amount of physicality and warmth coupled with kitty purrs."

You could argue with me and say the cat was not placed there by God, but I like my take on the story much better. I hope that I can always be sensitive to whatever He wants to say or do for me (and at the same time not try and force my will upon His plans, because that never works).





This has nothing to do with the entry, but I had put a status from "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" on the Facebook, and rediscovered the videos of OTP's production from about 4 years ago (I was playing piano and a couple good friends made up the rest of the combo). Although my status was the "Book Report" song, I'm going to put up "Happiness," because it gives warm fuzzies. This show will always have a special place in my heart, first of all because it was done with OTP (Our Town Players, my second family back in the mitten), and second because it was a very close knit cast, and third because the young man who played Linus (the actor with the blanket), died in a car accident the fall after that production.

Anyway, I'm not going to open up that can of worms. I hope you enjoy.