So I'm at the beach and it's beautiful outside and I'm staying at this house that is two story and it's overlooking the whole coastline. I'm sure you're sitting there thinking, wow I'm at my computer at home, sounds great (unless you live in Jamaica)! I wish I was there! Ha Ha I would be thinking that same thing and I probably will in a week or so when I'm back...But for now I will sit here with my sunburn and gloat!
It's nice to clear out my schedule and come here to get away. You just need to get away sometimes and hear God speak. I've been reading books, writing songs, thinking, trying not to watch T.V. Here at the house we're staying there is a T.V. with like 500 channels. Still for some reason I just love reading more. I'm reading a lot of Donald Miller. He's the author of "Blue Like Jazz". I like his style. I like how it's funny, straightforward, and random. He's a thinker. It takes time for someone like me to just sit down and think. I want more than ever to experience the deepness and realness of God. I want the religious actions and attitudes to be stripped away. I want to think about Scripture in a way that is applicable, not some knowegable thing that I surprise people with. Like "hey wow, you sure know your Bible", or "Casey, you know the Bible, where do you find the genealogy of Christ." I want people to know me as someone who knows God. Not knows about Him, but knows Him.
I used to be a religious freak. I used to think everyone was wrong and I was right. Kind of like the verse in the Message translation that says something about thinking everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group. Well, that was me a few years ago. When I came back to Bend, OR a few years ago, I met a lot of people who weren't very spiritual, but they knew God. They didn't pray like I thought they should, or read the Bible like I thought they should, they just knew God. They knew His ways, they knew His power, they knew His love.
I started thinking, "why does my life with God have to be so systematic." Donald Miller calls this a sort of "formula Christianity." Where if you do A (pray) + B (read Bible) = WOW YOUR A GOOD CHRISTIAN! I never could actually sit down in one place at one specific time constistently and read my Bible. I thought I was a bad Christian for years because this wasn't working out for me. After my move back to Bend I realized something, God is more concerned with my meeting with Him than where and how it's done. It's relationship.
Take relationship with a great friend. You do things together. You eat, you laugh, you dance freely, you can be yourself (this is huge for me, I value just being me, I shut down when I feel I have to be something else). So back to being friends...You mix it up, you go snowboarding, camping, you talk over coffee, donuts, Costco hot dogs, burritos, whatever. You just do stuff. That's how my life with God ought to be. Once I let go of this idea that in order to be a good Christian I had to wake up every morning at 5:00 AM sit down and read my bible at my desk in my office and then go on with my day, I felt such FREEDOM! This Freedom was found in Relationship and not some religious formula. Now I just want to go to coffee in the afternoon with Jesus, or walk through Drake Park and pray and hang out. It's such freedom. It's the type of relationship that I think God wants with us as well. I life lived out in joy, together learning awesome things from an awesome God.
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