Wednesday thoughts on Tuesday
I shared here that I had been reading Emily P. Freeman’s
book Simply Tuesday and what I was discovering. I thought I’d share over here
in the living room some other thoughts this book and similar books have
inspired.
In about the first 45 pages of Simply Tuesday she quotes a number of authors I’ve never heard of
and this makes me nervous. I don’t find any fault with the quotes, they help
illuminate her point and settle into my biblical grid of soundness. After over
15 years in the ministry of pointing people to what is helpful and avoiding
things that are harmful, I am naturally inquisitive of the new; ministry,
author, church, movement, conference. I’m not looking for a problem, I’m just
naturally and vocationally curious.
I am also that person who comes across a quote and says, “I
wonder what the book is like?” Maybe you don’t follow those thoughts down the
rabbit trail to the bookshelf, but I often do. I worry that references might
point you were I wouldn’t want you to go. That however, is the job of the Holy
Spirit, because you probably go all sorts of places I wouldn’t want you to go
and I’m not there to say anything about it, and He is. Your job is to pay
attention to Him.
I’m sure I have places I go you wouldn’t want me to go, and
you, like me, have to rely on the Holy Spirit to do something about that if it’s
a bad place. And it’s my job to pay attention to Him.
I’ve been reading a number of books in the last couple years
where this has come up, and it’s a challenge. Most of the time I do a little
research on unfamiliar people, and while sometimes it provides what I’d call an
answer, a lot of times it doesn’t. Sometimes the answer is that I don’t have a
problem but now the question is-will someone else? How much of that is my
responsibility?
Don’t email me and answer that, because I’ve learned that
book by book God unfolds what I’m supposed to do.
Some books I have really liked in my personal reading time
have included things that I think might make other people uncomfortable in the
least and make their hair fall out at worst. They are never doctrinal things,
although the use of certain terminology might produce a knee jerk reaction from
people particularly sensitive to some extreme doctrinal errors that are always
with us. That is a post for another day. I’m thinking of things that I consider
to be personal convictions, not scriptural directives, and the things that make
us different people with the same God. Unique, but made in His image. Set
apart, but still in the world.
Now you know a secret about me: I read and like a lot of
stuff I’d never sell. Not because it’s bad, it’s because it’s not my store and
it’s because my greatest concern is that what I recommend will truly be
After a long season of thoughts that crash into my head and
demand a response to a to-do list, it’s lovely to be in a season of thinking. And,
I’m okay waiting for answers. I hope when you read, you really think. It takes
time, it takes discipline, it takes actions, but, like the Lord’s commands, those
things are not burdensome, I think. They are the ingredients that make the
fertilizer that produces growth.
Read well, friends.
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