You read it like a work email
Grace and peace to you this week. Sunday we opened week two of Reconnect, online and live at the same time. If you were there, thank you. If you missed it, keep reading, because this one is about the way you read. One church, two campuses, one family. Life Groups Are LiveReconnect Life Groups began meeting October 18. Around tables and on video calls, people are saying out loud what they used to keep to themselves. Thank you to every leader who said yes and every member who showed up. Not in a group yet? It is not too late, and you are not behind. Pick in person, virtual, or self guided, and start where the group is. ⓵ Text LIFEGROUP to 33777. 👉 Join a Reconnect Life Group RECONNECT, Week 2: STATIC ON THE LINEYour mom texts three words. "Call me. Please." You read it twice. You are dialing before you put your coffee down. Three words, and you heard her voice. Then you open your Bible app and read it at the same speed as 47 unread work emails. Skim. Check the box. Close. The streak says 212 days, and you could not tell me one sentence it said to you last Tuesday. Here is the lie most of us carry into every reading: "I already know what it says." You know the stories. So your brain finishes the line before your eyes do. That is not reading. That is autocomplete. Write this down: Knowing what it says is not the same as hearing what He's saying. The man who wrote Psalm 119 sat with God's word long enough to build a 176 verse song around it, one Hebrew letter at a time. He was not skimming. He was walking a dark road with traps on it, and the word was how he kept his foot out of them. "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path." (Psalm 119:105, NLT) A lamp in his day was a clay bowl of oil small enough to sit in your palm. It lit a few feet of ground. God's word is not a map of your whole life. It is a lamp for the road you are on tonight. And God is not checking your reading log. He is waiting for you to listen. Your practice this week: read the same short passage every day and write one sentence about what you notice. Start with Psalm 119:105 to 112. Eight verses, Monday through Sunday. Read them out loud, low, under your breath. Then write one line that starts with "Today I noticed." Around day four it will feel boring. Stay. Boredom is the static. Miss a day? Pick it back up the next morning. Watch the ReplayMissed Sunday, or want to hear it a second time? The full message is up. 👉 Watch "Static on the Line" on YouTube Go deeper: This Week's ReadSeparate from Sunday's message, I wrote something for anyone who carries more than their share. It is called "You're Doing Three Jobs. Nobody Budgeted for Two of Them." It is about the unpaid work leaders quietly absorb, and one task you can hand off this week. 👉 Read it on Substack This Sunday: InterferenceRECONNECT, Week 3. You are the most reliable person in every room you walk into, and you are exhausted in ways nobody in those rooms knows about. Someone asks how you are doing and you say, "Fine. Busy." Busy ends the conversation. It is also the word that keeps the real thing buried. Sunday we open Psalm 139:23 to 24 and find out what you are carrying and calling fine. Sunday, October 25, 10:30 AM Central, online. Pick your screen: 👉 Website: marshillchicago.org Thank you for holding this house upThis is a hybrid church with two campuses: the room in McCook and the campus that's wherever you're sitting right now. Your prayers and your giving keep both of them open. Give at marshillchicago.org/giving, or text MHGIVE to 33777. 👉 Give here Here's where I'll leave you. You don't need a new verse. You need to actually read the one you already have. He's still on the line. See you Sunday at 10:30. Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr. P.S. Tonight, write Psalm 119:105 on a card and set an alarm for the time you will read it tomorrow. Put the card where your phone usually goes. A word from this week's sponsor A quick word from this week's sponsor, Shortform. |