last night we started a teaching series on the life of david. we will spend the entire school year entering in to david's story. (the image above can serve as our logo...and if you missed it...sorry...but let me just say a russian david is awesome!)
i am incredibly excited about this journey. i think it has so much to teach us...so much potential to mold and shape us.
last night was all about setting the stage for the journey. we spoke to three specific questions:
why one story for the entire year?
who is David?
why the story of David?
much of what was said came from and was inspired by Eugene Peterson's book on the life of david entitled...Leap Over A Wall. if you were at dig last night, you know that i read a number of quotes directly from the first chapter of his book. and as promised, below are those quotes:
"Story is the primary way in which the revelation of God is given to us. The Holy Spirit's literary genre of choice is story."
"The biblical way is not so much to present us with a moral code and tell us, 'Live up to this', nor is it to set out a system of doctrine and say, 'Think like this and you will live well.' The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, 'Live into this. This is what it looks like to be human; this is what is involved in entering and maturing as human beings."
"I see so many things in him I wish I had - and so many others I'm scared to death I do have. All you need to relate to David is a membership to the human race." -Beth Moore
"David's importance isn't in his morality or his military prowess but in his experience of and witness to God. Every event in his life was a confrontation with God."
"The David story is the most complete, detailed rendering of God-dimensioned humanity that we have, the common life that God uses to shape humanity to his glory. As the story develops, we see everything about us interpenetrated with God; our imaginations expand and we see what it means to live largely, aware of God's grace and beauty in every detail of which we're invited to participate."
"The David story serves to train us in the, normative, in seeing, accepting, participating in the miracle hidden in the ordinary, the supernatural suffusing the natural. Thoroughly trained by David, we're not apt to impulsively discard our lifejackets and abandon daily meal preparation - supposing that this is the way to 'deeper' and 'higher' spiritual life - when Jesus walks on the water and feeds the five thousand."
"David's is a most exuberant story. Earthy spirituality characterizes his life and accounts for the exuberance.
Earthy: down-to-earth, dealing with everydayness, praying while doing laundry, singing in the
snarl of traffic.
Spiritual: moved and animated by the Spirit of God and therefore alive to God."
i am excited for this journey because i know it will change me...i know i will not be the same on the other side.
why are you excited? what part of the david story do you latch on to? what intrigues you?
6 comments:
I'm most excited to delve into the meaning behind David being a man after God's own heart. Psalm 139 says that God saw our substance even when we weren't formed yet, which means He knew David as a man after His own heart before David's life even played out. I like to hope that He saw that in my substance and that someday I will live it out to its fullest extent.
those words of psalm 139 are excellent. they tie incredibly well with what we will look at this coming week. no doubt God has seen the same substance in you. and i think one of the biggest things we must realize is that for us to live it out someday, we must make the very most out of today.
i LOVE the quote that acknowledges david's 'earthy spirituality'. this characteristic is what makes david a man after God's own heart. i desire so much to have the same sort of earthy spirituality that characterizes david's life. one that is awake to God's presence and power, leading me to pray while scrubbing the toilet and sing while doing a hill workout. i know something is wrong when my first reactions are a complaint, a worry, or a negative comment; when they should be a praise, rejoicing, or a hopeful comment! an earthy spirituality transforms your reactions and outlook on everyday life, always pointing up.
Jenna-
i love your last sentence.
"an earthy spirituality transforms your reactions and outlook on everyday life, always pointing up."
i hope and pray that is a transformation that happens in me through this journey!
haha...i was just reading the comment and realized a very important disclaimer: we mustn't get our quest for 'earthy spirituality' mixed up with 'earthly spirituality'!
I really liked Beth Moore's quote where she said all we have to have to relate to David is a membership to the human race, because sometimes it seems as if we have David on this elevated platform. I mean he was, after all, "a man after God's own heart". The key thing I know I often forget is that he was just that, a MAN. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, yet God still held him close to his heart and if that's not super encouraging for us in our walk, I don't know what is! :)
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