July 16, 2014
A NOTE FROM ME: This week I’m headed to the Rocky Mountains to take my son trout fishing for his 14th birthday. The Daily Text this week will come from entries in my book, CALLED?! Following a Life Filled with the Possible (which is how I got started writing the Daily Text in the first place). As a further gift to you, our Daily Text readers, I want to give you a Digital Edition of the entire book.
This gift will be available all week for anyone who visits the site. Take the opportunity to encourage and family and friends to come over for a visit. We can’t promise coffee, but we will give them a book to go with it. Get Your Book Here.
Genesis 12:7-9
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him. After that, Abram traveled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord. Then Abram continued traveling south by stages toward the Negev.
CONSIDER THIS
The call of God comes by crisis and through process. Abram travels “by stages;” yet, he builds altars. He readies himself for ever-unfolding Revelation. Note the ancient pattern: God reveals. Abram responds. Watch how he does it. In the short span of two verses Abram builds two altars. He makes visible representations of invisible realities. Listening for and responding to the voice of God can get confusing. What seemed so clear months ago can be easily doubted today. One asks, “Was that God or was that me? Did I hear right?” The tendency to rationalize and reinterpret tempts us all. Moments must be marked. It’s not so important to journal every thought process and feeling along the way. It is essential to capture the major moments. This calling can only be sorted out by walking in the way of stone-stacking, altar-building worship. Soren Kierkegaard once said something to this effect, “Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards.” Capturing crucial moments empowers the process of remembrance that unfolds the pathway of discernment.
This will not only help you process the calling of God, but it will leave a trail of wisdom for others to follow as they do the same. Where would we be without the altars of those who have gone before us? The movement-launching event we know as “Aldersgate” continues to guide millions because John Wesley captured the moment with paper and ink. The 34-year-old Anglican Priest took 88 words and formed them into an altar of remembrance that continues to fan the flames of worship to this very day.
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. —-The Journal of John Wesley. May 24, 1738.
JOURNAL: Do you have an “Aldersgate” like story in your life? Can you remember a particularly strong “break-through” of the grace of God? Try storyboarding it somewhere in the margins or at the bottom of the page.
Excerpts this week are taken from my book, CALLED: Following a Life Filled with the Possible. I’d like to give you a free copy — see the invitation at the top of today’s post.
J.D. Walt writes daily for Seedbed’s Daily Text. He serves as Seedbed’s Sower in Chief. Follow him @jdwalt on Twitter or email him at jd.walt@seedbed.com.
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