So here are a few familiar visions of what reality that I picked out from a scan of Galatians (just because it came to mind first):

• I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Gal 2:20 - I think that understanding this vision, of Christ living in me, is a life long journey, but its a vision that I want to keep at the forfront of my mind always.  I think that a lot of people sometimes wish they could live other people’s life and I believe that desire is partly rooted in our desire for self worth.  The fact that the reality of being a Christian is the that our self worth is rooted in Christ living in us, through us, and with us brings our focus back to what really matters.

• But now that you know God—or rather are known by God… Gal 4:9 - We always talk about wanting to get to know God more, when that is only half of the coin.  The reality is that maturing in faith is also about letting God know us more, about opening up the deepest part of ourselves so that God work, cleanup and restore us.

• For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Gal 5:6 [and] But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Gal 5:13-14 - Life, especially relationships to people, things, responsibilities, etc, gets complicated.  But the vision of the kingdom is that “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  Something I need to remember when I’m trying to figure out the best plan of action to fix this or fix that.

• But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 5:22-23 - Maybe the vision, the hope for life is that every one of my actions and responses to the circumstances and events of every day could be categorized into one of the these words.  Maybe not all actions and responses could be categorized in one of these words, but the world would significantly different if most did.

• Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Gal 6:2 - This vision is two fold, not only must I be more willing to carry others burdens in prayer, financially and through friendship, but I must also be willing to share my burdens in vulnerability, in humility and dependence.

I’ve been realizing that points of desolation are primed for points of consolation, if we decide to make them so.  For me personally, my weighty and tangled mess of stress, expectations, responsibilities and deadlines goes from desolation to consolation as I consciously acknowledge Gods presence in that very instant.  The circumstances do not change, but my perspective does in that I know God is with me.

The reality is that despite my feelings of desolation, God is present in my life and consolation is within reach.  I’m discovering that lately God is speaking most clearly in my moments of desolation.  At the very least he is saying, acknowledge me; and acknowledging God in your life is a beautiful and renewing experience.

We covered Psalm 121 last night at small group and I’m excited about the insights that were shared. Here are some of the ideas that I came away with.

The psalm begins with the visual of a traveler looking to the hills, the place where people would go to offer sacrifices to appease the god of this and the god of that to avoid hardship and trouble. The psalm immediately proceeds to talk of a God who is watching, even alongside, the traveler who is worthy of our love and worship and who will take care of us, who does not sleep. So to borrow some of words shared last night, “As we are on a journey of worship, there are many distractions and opportunities to love and to worship things along the way. We may feel alone at times, but God is always watching, never sleeping, and deeply caring about the smallest issues of our lives.”

So the attempt here was to realize what we worship today, because the visual of sacrificing this or that to appease the god of this or that in hopes of appeasing their wrath doesn’t really relate to us. Or does it? Aren’t we sacrificing parts of our lives in hopes of appeasing the god of success, god of wealth, god of job, god of security, god of time, etc? The problem is identifying these distractions on our journey of worship. What are the hills in our lives?  James provided a helpful way of discerning this…that the completion of this sentence… “Our Life would be better if ______” reveals what we worship. Our “preferred future” is what we are trusting in to make everything better and perfect in our lives.

Often times I wrestle with the truth that sometimes I feel, my life would be better if I had that job, or that my life would be better if I had the resources (time and money) to write and photograph more. It is those prerequisites to happiness, thankfulness and joy that often get in the way of worshiping God. I guess I’m starting to understand that, its not that God doesn’t want me to have a job I’m satisfied in, or that he doesn’t want me to write or photograph; the truth is that none of those things will truly leave me satisfied, happy, thankful, or truly joyful. The saying that the grass is always greener on the other side comes to mind, and I’m starting to realize that God has provided me with all that I need and all I need to do is realize the grass that is right below my feet.

From an email from Tim:

Column A:  Write down what touched you personally in a passage. How or why did it touch you? How do you relate to it?

Column B:  Write down what what i means to you. Paraphrase it in your own words, and relate it to yourself.

Column C:  What does it look like for you to apply it in your own life? What would it look like for you to apply it this week?  Maybe it’s a mentality change you ponder on this week, maybe it is an action of kindness to another, maybe you will pray it to God daily, be creative!  If people can’t think of anything, then their response/action can be to tell someone about what they learned.

The purpose of this is to move past intellectualizing the sharing/discussion time. Yes, making sense of the Word, discussing it theologically is great, but don’t spend more than half your time just talking about that.  Challenge each other how it relates to your own life. Speak only about yourself. How can you put what was discussed into action this coming week?  There may be no point to move on to another passage if the group does not move past putting into action and keep each other accountable for it. We respond in obedience to the Word because we love God.  Jesus says, he who loves God obeys Him.

Thanks for sharing this Tim.  I am excited about the emphasis of this approach to small group studies because it really levels the playing ground of interpretation as it increases dependence on the Spirit guiding us through the Word and decreases dependence on whoever had the best commentary or did the most research.

I believe that a lot of times, people end up being afraid or unsure of sharing their heart felt responses and interpretations of passages because they don’t want to be inaccurate or wrong, especially when they may lack the formal training that someone else in the group may possess.  I really appreciate the section devoted to paraphrasing the text in your own words because allows opportunity to personally contextualize the passage and allow it to speak more closely to your own situation.  I also really appreciate the emphasis that this model puts on application.  I know often times we spend just a little bit of time towards the end of studies for application, probably because it is the most difficult part and often times gets messy.  This is where this models idea of accountability gets to shine, in that the group supports not only brainstorming about how the passages moves them to act personally, but actually living it out.