Sunday, June 22, 2008

Summer skies



I have been reading the book The Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldredge and am amazed at how much God speaks to me through what I am reading. The book is a sequel to Wild at Heart and is intended to be a guide for parents/caregivers of boys and men to understand how God fathers boys and men. It describes the stages boys and men go through in their lives and how God uses those stages to speak to the needs of their hearts.

Even though the book is essentially for men, it also proves valuable for women as a tool for understanding the boys and men in their lives and themselves, too, because of how all our relationships connect. God has revealed to me so much about my own heart that I could never understand without him. Yesterday while I was reading on the boat, this passage stood out to me.

"This, I confess, has been the hardest part for me in raising my sons. How do we help them not just know, but love the Word of God? Rote memorization won't do it, and I've counseled too many young men whose souls grew numb to the Scriptures because of Bible class. It ought to sober us that the Scribes and Pharisees knew more Bible than you or I ever will, and yet they couldn't recognize Jesus. The greatest enemy of true faith has always been religion (notice who Jesus reserves his harshest words for), and a religious attitude is not what we are after. Let them see your love for the Scriptures. Let them see the Word of God dwell in you richly. Talk about it naturally, as you bring it into daily life. Teach the young man to have time wtih God that is real and meaningful."

Sometime during college is when I first realized the difference between religion and relationship. And that has truly served me more than anything else I learned in college. Even today at church it was so obvious. Matt and I went to church and when we came out and got in the car, I said I really got a lot out of church, but I couldn't tell you a word they actually said. He felt the same way. The most important part of being there was being focused on God and listening to him. Some of the details of the mass guided our thinking, sure, but the individual message was where we really saw God.



I took this picture out the window of the car this weekend. The clouds just looked so beautiful and bright. I couldn't resist. And thankfully the camera didn't fly out of my hand as we cruised down the road at 60 mph.



I took this picture of Matt when he wasn't looking. Doesn't he look handsome? :)



The lake was absolutely glass! Matt floated away from the boat on the tube to take this picture. Our friends Russ and Diana were with us on this day. It's too bad none of us were looking, but it's nice that you can see the boat's reflection in the water.



Here is the ski pylon in daylight.



This is Matt's favorite new toy and already has him thinking about other toys he can get like a vintage wooden water ski and so on...

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