dar334

As I’m sitting in My Quiet Room this morning, my view includes new fallen snow (wash me and I shall be whiter than snow) and a little sparrow plucking sunflower seeds from the head of the little sunflower I neglected to dispose of this fall (look at the birds, they do not plant or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them). The things on the table that surround me include my Bible in front of me, opened to the map of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires; my Kindle version of the NIV Bible on my iPad opened to 2 Samuel 6, between me and my hard copy Bible; the study book for 1 and 2 Samuel between me and my iPad; a card from Dr Anthony and Debra Meder (still cracks me up when I hear “Dr. Meder”), my small ring binder of things I feel the need to write down with alphabetical order indexes, The United Methodist Hymnal (the old blue one) I purchased on Amazon, and my iPhone, are in my left; on my right is my spiral bound notebook that I use in study because the books never have enough room to answer the questions they ask, assorted items, and my coffee.

The current task that plopped me in this spot this morning was to finish the study book for class tomorrow morning. Needless to say, I didn’t need the card from Dr. Anthony (hahahahaha) and Debra but it got gathered up off the kitchen table with my iPad and iPhone because it could be used as a marker for something, when I headed down here. The alphabetical ordered, ringed binder, the spiral bound note book, the iPad and iPhone, the hard copy Bible, my study book, my coffee, and the assorted items, were all necessary to achieve the final goal of ‘being ready’. Now is where you will find where that hymnal becomes a ‘need’.

On page 115 of the study book, in the outside column, is the ‘For Further Study’ part. At this point I pondered the fact that this is the hardest I have ever worked on any study in my entire 13 years of school. (No, I wasn’t held back, I counted kindergarten). And then I pondered that this is, after all, the most important study, because failure here would mean a pretty hot fire for eternity and I’m not a fan of the heat. I also had to move some items on my table around to find a spot to put my laptop that would allow it to be easier accessed so I could also work on this blog, which was an epic fail, and I had to put everything back in the original spot. Anyways, the ‘For Further Study’ was this: How is the God we meet in 2 Samuel 6:5-10 shown to be the same God we meet in the New Testament? It then gives us some verses in the New Testament (now a cough cough that only Tonya and Erin will understand) to look up. One of the NT verses it sent me to was 1 Corinthians 11:30-31. I struggled with tying these verses in so I, once again, headed to the study note that included 21-34. The study note talks about eating the bread and drinking of the cup of the Lord ….. hence “Communion”. I was then led to ponder this part of the study note: ‘Awareness of your sin should not keep you away from Communion but drive you to participate in it.’ Now this led Satan to taunt me to ponder why I’m not allowed to take Communion in a Catholic Church when clearly I need it …. and then the angel on my right said “Drop it!” and I obeyed. Score one for dar. I sat here for a minute thinking about Communion and the reason behind it. I then grabbed the Hymnal and turned to page 15 where the guide is located that leads up to the bread and grape juice. (Grape juice is just unfermented wine right?). I then realized that I need to work a little harder on the things I should be doing before taking Communion.

This, my friends, is how the Ark lead me to Communion.

Now my study is done, I have given the Lord three hours of my morning, and I am ready to work on Christmas gifts.

Always pondering,

dar