Crazy Love - Chapter One

So this month in Sunday School (did I mention I'm teaching now? Yeah...it's kind of nerve wracking) we're looking at love. After all it is February so we're going to look at what true love looks like. And we get to read one of my favorite stories - Hosea and Gomer! Oh those crazy kids...literally...

And wouldn't you know it our lesson recommends you read...Crazy Love by Francis Chan! One of my favorite books! Who knew!

So I'm kind of taking this personal journey to re-read the book, tie it in with our Sunday School lesson, and share it with you :) (WARNING: I'm pretty much summing up each chapter and then posting my thoughts. All the "smart stuff" comes from Francis Chan *copyright*)

Today I managed to get through the introduction and chapter one and it's just kind of setting up what we're going to learn through the book (you know....an introduction....). And of course on page 1 I get hit with one of my favorite quotes ever

"We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You've probably heard the expression 'I believe in God, just not organized religion'. I don't think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live. The expression would change to 'I can't deny what the church does, but I don't believe in their God' At least then they'd address their rejection of God rather than using the church as a scapegoat"

It doesn't really have much to do with love (except that what the church should be doing is LOVE) but I just love it. Anyways back to love

Chapter One

One of the key things about loving God is we forget why we should. We get so used to being a Christian and God just becomes another "thing" in our lives. Instead of I don't know THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING.

And one of the things I love about this book is that it has an internet companion (SYNERGY!!!) Francis posted a video on just how amazing God is.

If you've got 15 minutes check this out

If you've only got 3 check this out

And if you've got 30 minutes CHECK THIS OUT! (saw it live - amazing)

If there's one person who deserves to be loved it's God. But like I said we just forget that way too easily. Francis says:

"There is an epidemic of spiritual amnesia going around, and none of us is immune. No matter how many fascinating details we learn about God’s creation, no matter how many pictures we see of His galaxies, no matter how many humongous white clouds we see in His vast blue sky, and no matter how many sunsets we watch, we still forget. Most of us know that we are supposed to love and fear God; that we are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know Him better; that we are supposed to worship Him with our lives. But actually living it out is challenging. It confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn't it be easy to love a God so wonderful? When we love God because we feel we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is.”

He gives a great human example. His wife. He talks about how people are always amazed that his wife married him. And then he looked at a picture and realized - yeah! What is someone as beautiful as that doing with me! That's pretty awesome! (I hear you man)

It's the same thing God. Someone SO AMAZING has chosen to be with US! That's pretty awesome! We just keep looking at everyone else and forget about what we have already. THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING.

So he says let's remember what God is like. He's holy - we don't get to define Him. He already did. He's holy. The end. He's eternal - God exists OUT OF TIME. Wrap your mind around that nugget *head explodes*. "Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we’re capable of comprehending." He's all-knowing - Don't think of it as a scary "he's all knowing" but think of it as a caring "THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING took the time to know EVERYTHING about me". He's all-powerful - Harsh truth #1. Technically he doesn't have to answer to us for anything. But...he took the time to. He's fair and just - Harsh truth #2 "Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. When we disagree, let’s not assume it’s His reasoning that needs correction."

After ALL OF THAT we should literally be in awe. Dumbstruck at the awesomeness of God. And this is just a HINT of who He is. Wrap your mind around THAT! This is just a HINT!

Doesn't this sound like someone we should love?

One Giant Leap for Vinson Kind

OK so I'm embarking on 2 journeys this month and you know what that means! I finally have a reason to blog again! Huzzah (or BOOOO if you hate me and my thoughts - it happens)

So one journey is I'm re-reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Our Sunday School lessons for this month are focusing on love (get it - February - love - clever) So my class and I (hopefully) are going to embark on this journey on learning what it really means to love God, why He deserves our love, and the whole crazy thing.

More on this journey later

My other journey is about FOOD! Surprise Surprise!

For those of you who don't know - I love to cook. And we eat crap. I may love to cook but I have no idea WHAT to cook. We've got about 50 cookbooks but they're all so complicated or they're so simple but they require ingredients that we hate, never use, or use to much. We eat about the same 5 meals (or slight variations) all month long and most of them come pre-packaged. So thanks to the internet I stumbled across E-Mealz

This is a service that plans out a week worth of meals for you. All you do is shop and cook. Takes all the guesswork out of it. It was mainly made for big families and moms who never knew what to make for dinner every night. BUT they also have meals plans for 2! They even have some tailor made for grocery stores like Wal-Mart and Publix.

They claim you'll save money because you won't be impulse buying, buying ingredients you'll only use once, etc. It's really cool. If one meal calls for 4oz of cream cheese but you can only get it in 8oz packages, then look 2 meals later and you've got another recipe that calls for 4oz of cream cheese! Awesome! They say each week will cost around $40-$50, which is close to what we spend anyways.

So all month look I'm going to be journaling our culinary adventure (hey it's not all frozen pizzas this is a big deal for us!)

Join us won't you?

*EDIT*

So I should mention since we had some groceries left over we're actually starting our first meal Tuesday.

This week's menu:

Monday - Chili (left over groceries)

Tuesday - Ranch Chicken Tenders (with fresh green beans and rolls)

Wednesday - Fast food :( (because of Courtney's crazy church schedule we don't have time to cook)

Thursday - Fantastic Enchiladas (with chips and salsa)

Friday - Cheesy Chicken and Spinach (with rice and rolls)

Saturday - Fish (left over groceries)

Sunday - WHO KNOWS