Meeting My Wife 3 Years Ago Today

Today is my wife and I's three year anniversary of our first date. I gotta say, it seems like much longer than that (in a good way!). So much has happened since that night I roamed Yahoo Personals curious to see what I would find. We married almost a year and a half later on June 16, 2007. Now by the time that anniversary arrives this year we will have a baby girl added into the mix. I must say these last three years have been great! I've been blown away by what God gave me in a mate. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into this night 3 years ago. But not too long after it seemed apparent that we were made for each other. Honey, I love you! And for those of you who are curious about how that night went 3 years ago, here's a poem I wrote 2 years ago on the 1-year anniversary of our first date. I really don't feel like I can say things much better than I did then. Just substitute 3-years in for everywhere it refers to 1-year. Enjoy!

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I sat down to eat,
At Brann’s Steakhouse and ordered some meat
The woman across the table had only desert
Strange for a first date, but nothing did it hurt

I can remember staring and not knowing what to say
That happens on first dates, but even more so this day
This woman and me had only met about 3 weeks prior
She answered an e-mail I had sent to her to inquire

We met through the Internet and soon were typing up a storm
So much she wanted to know, I just hoped I wouldn’t make her squirm
This way of meeting and relating felt so strange at first
But ever since seeing her picture I developed a thirst

So many good qualities and cuteness she had
The more messages I received, the more my heart became glad
Not a subject seemed missed on her end
So thankful my deep history didn’t make her bend

I waited and waited for this nighttime occasion.
Didn’t want to rush into it, but she was out exploring the nation.
I walked up her walkway, approached the door
As she opened it, her beauty made me think ‘score!’

We hopped in my car
Didn’t have to go very far
While at the restaurant,
Both of us cautious not to daunt

I am not sure either of us knew quite how things were going
As I dropped her back at home, not too much emotion either of us were showing
I personally wasn’t satisfied and hoped to see her again
I had to move fast for in five days she’d be on a plane to Arizona from Michigan

The Lord blessed me with yet another night
Valentine’s Day was 4 days in sight
I quickly mustered up a plan and found some great gifts
Thankful she let me come over after my work shift
This night was much better; the nerves seemed to be down
By nights end in her I saw a princess in crown

Hence is the story of how two lovebirds met
Now a year later and I’ve been snatched in her net
Oh the joys of uniting with your one true love
Lord I am so amazed by your plans from above!

Credo, latin for "I believe"

I just finished writing a draft of the first chapter of my own Credo. A Credo is a document encompassing all that you believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, theology, salvation, creation, and so on and so on. As I am finding out firsthand, this task is immensely difficult. However, the practice is also a good one as it forces me to critically think about all that I believe and put in on paper. So often we say that we believe in God and are Christians, but have a hard time formulating what that means in its entirety.

Have you ever thought about that yourself? Are you aware of what you believe and why? If you're curious, take a look at how others have expressed their beliefs and what they think to be the essentials of Christianity. Go to http://www.rca.org/ (the homepage of the Reformed Church in America, the denomination I happen to be a part of), hover your cursor over the "about us" option, and click on "beliefs." There you will find a brief description of the RCA's basic beliefs. Follow the links to the confessions and creeds mentioned there (my favorite happens to be the heidelberg catechism) and you will catch a glimpse of what I am talking about when I say "Credo." See where you may agree or disagree.

Ultimately, the Bible is the main source given to us to help shape what we believ . See my blog post just prior to this one for notes on how one might go about reading it. Goodnight to all. I've sat in front of my computer long enough for one day!

Ways to Read the Bible

Here are some notes from one of my classes I had this morning. It gives you a glimpse into how rabbi's used to study, read, interpret, etc. Scripture.

The Reading Methodology of the Rabbi’s – “PARDES,” the Hebrew word for “a cultivated garden.” The Rabbi’s believed that the Bible comes to us on a fourfold level. Reading at all these levels can give us multiple meanings of a text. This isn't to say that a text has no limits to its meaning, but there is more than only one meaning that can be drawn from any text. As you go further down the line, the deeper and deeper reading you achieve.

• Peshat – refers to the obvious/clearest, or historical meaning of the text. This is what the garden looks like at a distance.
• Remez – the hidden/inner/diagnostic meaning of the text. This is the fence around the garden. It’s what keeps you away from the garden. What is the fence you have to cross over to get into the garden? The fence can be one of two things – 1) either a moral limitation in you, or 2) an intellectual inability to connect it from one thing to another. There is a gateway in, and that gateway is to struggle with the text alone.
• Drash – the moral/applied meaning of the text. Reading the Bible for personal instruction. Its when the text tells you, “you better do this!” This is the fruit on the vine in the garden.
• Sot – “anagogical” meaning of the text. “ago” (lead) & “ana” (up) in Greek, meaning the reading that leads you up. It’s the heavenly/mystical reading of the text. This is the seed in/from the fruit. Its what’s going to come from the seed that you can’t see right now. It’s the mustard seed that is the smallest of them all, but will grow to be the biggest tree/vine in the garden.

Here's another way of thinking of how to read the Bible stemming from two Hebrew terms:

• Hagadah – A Hebrew word from the root haga meaning to “masticate,” or “to chew.” The image is a farm animal chewing cud, or a lion devouring prey. We translate it as meditate (Psalm 1).
• Halachah – A Hebrew word meaning “to walk.” These two go hand in hand because that which we meditate on we must walk in. It is knowing and doing. “The first without the second is to be irrelevant. The second without the first is to be a fanatic” (Abraham Heschel). Both together is mitzvah, which is the “fulfillment of command.”

Lastly, what I want to say is, Anyone can do this! It doesn't just take me being a seminary student (soon to be graduate), a pastor, or a Biblical scholar to take this on. Granted, I have some more tools in my tool chest than many other people when it comes to Biblical study and interpretation due to my education. However, all that's really needed is the Holy Spirit and anyone else can glean many things from the Bible. One doesn't even really need to be able to read even. How do you think the ancients learned about God, His ways, and the gospel? For centuries God's Word was carried around orally. They weren't like many of us today who have multiple Bibles on our shelves. They were hears of the Word before they were doers of the Word, or even readers of the Word. They didn't have the luxury of the many tools we have today that help with study and interpretation.

What I am trying to get across here is that you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, have what it takes to study, interpret, and meditate on (chew) God's Word. Don't just leave it up to the pastors, priests, scholars, etc out there. Even Jesus' disciples were everyday people like many of us before Jesus came around and said, "Follow me!" I just want to encourage those of you out there to read the Bible. Dive in! Seek the Lord! Don't just leave it up to us "learned" folk.

One last example, How do you read a love letter? Sure you read it with much care and attention. But you don't read it with a dictionary or a commentary (or two or three). You hold it close to your heart and peer deeply into the words and phrases on the page(s). You may read it over and over again, but all it takes to resonate deep personal meaning is to know the words on the page and to know the author. The Bible works in the same fashion.

Now, I am not trying to discredit the education I have gone through along with many others. I think it has its importance too. I just want to empower the people to read God's Word and seek God. God desires for you to know Him. He desires a deeper relationship with you. God wants you to know His love for you, your neighbor, and all creation.

As a final touch, read Isaiah 55.