Learning

I am tired today but not discouraged.



Challenged yet still adoring.



As with the call to discipline myself in other areas, I am being trained again in waking up before the children do. I have always felt the morning to be a special time but long winter days have not been conducive to waking. In The Genesse Diary, Nouwen talks to John Eudes(one of Nouwen's spiritual mentors) about his fatigue, which is something I battle every day. John tells him that it is a "proven fact that those who meditate regularly need less sleep." I am hoping to find this to be so.



Studying and meditating has been enlightening and exhilarating but also wearing. I have felt spent and fulfilled, both, in the same moment. I have to remember that anything God calls me into, He will complete. I aid in the work but the finished product is His.



Romans, The Gospels, 1 Peter; these were my Bible readings today. I've always joked that new Christians ought to start with the New Testament because Jesus is nicer than God. A lot of people seem to hold this view - that the Old Testament is hard to read but the New Testament is easy. I may have to amend my thinking on that. Jesus' words can sound downright harsh at times: "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?"(Matthew 12:48-50). And Peter can make me squirm as much as Oswald Chambers does.



Today as I was reading Jesus' words in Matthew I wished that I could have been there to hear His tone, His inflections. Does my mind add an inflection which was not there? Were these words delivered with gentleness, were they said in a straightforward, unapologetic manner, or in some other way I won't know in this life time?



I'm currently taking a Christian Worldview class for school. Many of the students are believers and many are not but I notice that even among the believers, our perception of Jesus differs.




But Jesus is the I AM. Which means He IS. He is the truth. But how does each of us accept that? Can He manifest Himself differently to each of us?



Words like debate and legalism and literal and stir the pot are coming out on the discussion forums in my classroom. And we are all questioning ourselves and each other and our preconceived notions and our heartfelt beliefs and our knowledge of the Christ.



I am seeing the need to be childlike in my faith and wise not in my own eyes.



And I am learning that learning never ends. But I must be taught Truth. And I believe in an absolute Truth.



However, though God is unchanging, He reveals Himself endlessly and perhaps our convictions change as we are daily convicted.