Sunday Devotional: Scribbles Part 1

Lately I've been thinking about the Bible.


I find it pretty sad how a lot of Christians, particularly in the first world, don't take time to read it. Maybe it's because they disagree with parts of it. Or parts of it are boring. Or they just simply "don't have the time."

I can relate to all of those excuses. There was a time when I stopped reading my bible for those reasons. It was the beginning of 2012, and I thought I knew all there was to know about my faith. Or at least enough to get by. I'd read the bible my whole life, and had just completed reading it cover to cover. Admittedly it was only a chapter a day, and it did take me 2-3 years. But I figured by that achievement alone I was doing a lot better than most people.
So I stopped.

For about three or four months I didn't really read my bible that much. Yeah sure there was the occasional time I picked it up, and I'd read the scripture references at church. That was good enough wasn't it?

If by now you're expecting some massive tale of how I went off the rails, ended up in jail and then decided to pick up the Holy Book again, you're going to be a bit disappointed by the next part of the story. After those three or four average months where pretty much nothing happened, I just decided to take reading the bible again. I'm not really quite sure why. Maybe it was because I was going to a Life Group at this time and thought it was a good idea. Or something like that.

Interestingly enough, I found out really quickly that I had missed a lot. And with bible-reading I had kind of been missing the point. Previously I did it because I thought as a Christian it was something you were "supposed" to do. That it made you look super-holy or something like that. Now that I was actually reading it because I wanted to, I found I was taking it in from a completely different angle.

I began finding all these verses which related to me. Which sought out the dark corners of my heart and shed some light on them. These weren't just words on paper, they actually meant something. I began to see why the Bible was called the living word. When you read it like this, it really does come alive and speak to you.

I found after a while that I was sort of addicted. Night after night, I'd take my bible out and then have to go scrambling in the dark for a pen to underline a particular verse. I'm sure I've never scribbled in another book more than I have my bible...


About a month ago I got this strange idea.
It was to flip through my bible, find an underlined verse, and then write a blog post about it.

My first thought was "That's a great idea!". Then my second was "Hang on, that's a bit weird..."
So I left it for a bit. Got busy with uni and life. But the idea kept sticking in my brain. You should really write about that! It'd be cool! At the same time I had my doubts. Even though the subtitle for my blog is "Life. Faith. Music. Writing" I've figured out I don't actually talk about my faith all that much. What a misleading title.

I have no idea how this is going to work, or even if it'll be a regular thing. Knowing my work ethic it's highly unlikely. But I do truly think it's worth doing.

So with that in mind, I invite you to join me. Open your bible if you have one, and if you don't you should really seriously think about getting one. Or you can try out this hand website I found: https://www.bible.com/ . See, even if you don't believe in Jesus, I honestly still think there's stuff in there which relates to you wherever you are in your spiritual journey.
And you never know, you might just find salvation hidden in it's pages.

Enjoy the journey!

Devotional - Exodus 4:11-12 on Confidence.

"And the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? or who makes the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing or the blind? have not I the Lord?
Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what to say."
 - Exodus 4: 11-12

This is the first verse underlined in my bible. In context it's about a man called Moses who had to undertake a super hard task. He was told to go and set an entire nation free from slavery. Sounds like Mission Impossible right? That's what Moses seemed to think and he told God so plainly. To which he got this reply.

When I read over this verse, it really speaks to me, because I feel like Moses so many times. Like nothing I say is good enough or is going to matter to anyone. Self-confidence can be hard to muster at times, especially after a bad day, or just when stuffs getting you down. Sometimes it just seems best not to say anything at all, right?

This verse gives me confidence that it doesn't always have to be like that. Who has made man's mouth? It wasn't me, so why should I feel like I have to control it, or be so afraid of speaking up? When there's something that needs to be said, it is best to just say it and trust God will give you the words. There's been so many times when this has happened to me and I'm actually almost shocked with what has came out of my mouth. Did I really just say that? I think God uses us to speak his words when we open our hearts to him, and let him teach us what to say. Exodus 4:11-12 reminds me of those times, and to not be so self-conscious about everything, but rather to put my trust in the God who created it all and knows words infinitely better than I ever will.


I guess this post is one of these times....

Names

Rachel.
John.
Hannah.
Matt.
Beka.
Jesus.
Stephen.
Sarah.
Clive.
David.
Bono.

Eleven names. Eleven people. Eleven different viewpoints on life. Some of them I have met. Some of them I know intimately. Others not so well. Some have sadly left this earth. Others are just beginning their journey. Yet this list of people - my friends, my influences, my inspirations, and right there in the middle, my all - could very well mean absolutely nothing to you.

Chances are you're reading this after you just clicked a link which lead you to this page. The first thing you saw (after the rather large title & photograph) was a picture of a signature and then a list of names. All of which (saving the all-important middle one and the well-known end one) you probably didn't recognize. They were just names.
Just names.

But...

To me, these names have faces. They have writings, songs, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, ideals and dreams much more than any odd combination of letters would have. A name is something we give or we receive. And like it or not, it marks us for life. It defines us in a sense, so that people can say our name and then list our achievements. Or possibly our shortcomings. It is the sole title given to any work that we alone produce. We own that. And our name owns us.
So then a name is a lot more than just "a name".

I've been thinking about names a lot lately. Mostly because I'm terrible with them. Yeah sure, I can spout off a list of them like the above one as quick as a wink (although I did have to Google CS Lewis' first name). But those are people I know: either who's writings and work I've followed or someone who I've held a decent conversation with. Or in the case of Jesus far more than all that. But when it comes to remembering names of people I don't routinely talk to or read of, I'm pretty hopeless. In a tutorial I had at Massey in the last week we had to introduce ourselves to the rest of our classmates, however I found that within the space of about five minutes I'd forgotten everyone's name. Then there was the even more embarrassing situation when I was talking to a girl from Lifegroup at church and had to refer to as "this girl" because her name had completely slipped my mind. I don't know what it was, but for some reason names seemed to stick in my memory a lot less than faces and situations.


This week I have been challenged to take people a lot more seriously than I do.
A lot of the time for me it's just small talk and recognition and then I consider I "know" a person. And yet sometimes I can't even remember a simple thing such as their name! Have things really got that bad that I consider a friend to be just someone I know, when really it ought to be far more than just that?

Thanks to various people speaking into my life in different ways I realize that if I ever want to be fully real with people and with myself, I need to be intentional about things. I need to be intentional about my writings, my music, my everyday conversations. Sometimes we just say things for the sake of saying things. I've experienced enough of that lifestyle to know that in the end it is about as meaningless and empty as your going to get.

In a world full of different people with different stories, different hopes, dreams and fears there is so much that could be said. And it seems like such a awful waste to have all this time on the planet, all these words at our disposal and to not be doing anything with them! You never know what a person is going through and what something you might say could mean to them. Words are a lot more powerful than we give them credit, and music is almost more so (kind of what I was hinting at when I wrote the line "Why can't the songs tell our stories...?"). So what are we doing with them?

I know what I want to be doing.
Letting people know that they mean much more to me than I sometimes let on. Whether that's in a blog list, or in some other way I want to take time to say thanks.
Then I want to do make an effort to be intentional about things. About my relationships with people and with God. It's not going to be the easiest thing to do - there are going to be times when I slip up and find myself back in the uncaring stage. But I mean this when I say I firmly believe it is something worth doing.
To start conversations which go a lot further than small talk. To really pray from my heart rather than just my head. Maybe tell friends things I haven't before. Maybe open up a bit and leave space for people to do the same. To start stepping up to the mark in life and in faith instead of letting myself slip behind.

Or even to just remember a name...

Sincerely (for once),

Jordan Andrew Gowan.
Jaguar Falls.
Jord, Jaws, J-dog.

And in everything, Christ's. 

Life is amazing!

Had the bestest of days today!
For class today, we had to travel to Wanganui and play a gig. Just casual as! It went really well, we set up everything pretty much all by ourselves, and in double-quick time too! And everyone played super well too! All the songs I was playing in were first on the setlist, which was pretty cool cos I got to watch everyone else. The weather was actually really nice, and we were playing on a sweet outdoor stage in the square with awesome acoustics. I love playing outdoors!
Oh and a few of us walked around taking heaps of pictures, so once I get hold of a them, I might put a few up.....
Apart from a bit of study, that was pretty much my afternoon. Then tonight we had Lifegroup, which was SO awesome! I actually missed it heaps over the holidays.... it was great to see everyone again! And when we got into it, things got even better! Had some super deep conversations - but it was so good! I came away feeling super encouraged and MEGA excited about what God's doing in me, in our group, in Palmerston North, and just LIFE itself!!!
Plus, me and my friend Nathan had this great idea of helping each other out with reading the Bible, which is something I've been getting into heaps lately. And I'm SO EXCITED for it! It'll be great to get another opinion on some of the more confusing chapters in there, as well as general encouragement from the Bible's awesome pages.
YUSS! Stoking over everything right now! Life is awesome! God is awesome! Things are just awesome!
Hope you've had just as good a day as me. Because you're pretty awesome too!

Catch you on the flipside!