40 Days

Next week, Thursday to be exact, is the first day of the Bible Study/Life Group I will be facilitating.  Nervous? Yes!  Excited? Yes!  Coveting Prayers?  YES!

We are starting in Acts.  Does that strike anyone else as "coincidentally" appropriate?  I have to confess, until this morning, it hadn't even dawned on me the timing!!  (I don't believe in coincidence if following God's will and path.) 

I had been praying, prior to deciding what to do, that the Spirit would reveal to me what type of study I should do and where we should start...I felt a very clear direction to start in Acts and just walk through the Word.  Before I was able to share that with the Pastor, he said "Let me tell you what I would like to see..." and proceeded to tell me how he would love it if we just went straight through the books of the Bible

(Confirmation??  I think so!)

I then shared with him that I was feeling led to start in the book of Acts.  Prior to today, this made sense to me because:

a) I've attended several studies that started in Acts, but we never finished (anyone who knows me,  

    knows I like to finish a book - even if I don't like the book, like "Lord of the Flies") 
b) our church is currently on a Matthew through John challenge, so the following book would be Acts

Doesn't that make sense?!

Today, I feel I received a very valuable realization...

Acts begins with a brief what Jesus did after He rose and before He ascended.

YES- I already knew that!  

But what I didn't realize (because I'm horrible with time), is that we would be starting our study the Thursday following Easter Sunday - 

what's that?!  Do I mean Resurrection Sunday?!  Why yes, yes I do!!  

And that, my friends, is where my "coincidentally appropriate" comes in!  ('scuse my excitement, I get this way when I feel God showing me new stuff, even if it's tiny).  This may be something you already thought of- I'm typically a bit late on the uptake.

As I was reading Acts 1 this morning (and having my epiphany), the 40 days stood out to me.  Maybe it's all my singing of Arky Arky to Phalen - 

you know "The Lo-ord told Noah to build him an Arky Arky...

get.those.animals out of the muddy muddy"

(now it's stuck in your head isn't it?!)

anyways, 40 days has been standing out to me a lot.  

God used 40 days with Noah (see above song referenced).  Jesus was in the wilderness fasting for 40 days.  And in Acts 1, Jesus spent 40 days, after He rose, proving He is alive and spreading the news of the Kingdom of God.(vs 3)  40 seems to be an important number!  I'm not a theologian, so currently I don't know the significance, but I am going to be looking into that.

Reading this, I was moved to challenge myself to let Jesus prove Himself to me.  Ok, before this sounds like some sort of heresy, let me state for the record that Jesus does not have to prove Himself to me; 

I am a full blown, sold out believer in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour!

  

But I would be kidding myself to say that I see Him in my everyday life....not that He isn't there, it's just I fail to pay attention.  

I fail to let Jesus reveal Himself to me in the ways He wants to.  

I fail to feel Him in the wind and see Him in the sunsets.  

I fail to experience Him in relationships. 

I fail to breathe Him in from the scent of a rose.  

Not everyday, of course!  There are days I'm seeing and feeling and breathing and experiencing Jesus in all that is around and all that I do.  But if I were to be honest, I would say it's not enough.  And I would say I can have a bad moment afterwards and forget about it.  I would say:

"I do believe, Lord, help my unbelief" - Mark 9:24

Because in the end, isn't that what it's about...we fail to believe?!  For isn't it that if we had belief even the amount of a mustard seed..........And didn't Jesus have to prove himself to his own apostles because they didn't believe?!

Soooo, back to my challenge.  For 40 days, I will be looking for Jesus, and I will be asking Him to "prove" Himself to me. And I realize that much of how/where I see Him right now is in my lil Sweet P, after all, he's a gift from God, but I will be trying to look beyond my son.  See past his cute little chubby cheeks to the sunset in the background.  Look up at the night sky to be enamored by the stars instead of stare at Sweet P's little person when I'm rocking & nursing him when he wakes at 2am.  Engage with the cashier at the grocery store rather than make googley eyes & sounds with my baby.  And any other way the Lord chooses to reveal Himself or use me. 

*but don't think I won't still be fully engrossed in my son

can't help it.  he's got me where he wants me*

I am sad that I have to challenge myself on something like this.  I wish I could say this is just second nature, but I would be lying (and let's face it, I have enough things on my list to work on, trying to keep lying off that list - even though I'm pretty good at lying to myself and ignoring what's truly in my ugly wicked heart).

My hope and my prayer is that this will become second nature, 

that I will not need a challenge to force me to pay attention to Jesus 

and what he's trying to share with me.

I will be starting this 40 days after Resurrection Day, just like Jesus did.  I think I might even extend the challenge to the group of women that come to the study.  

How about you, will you take this challenge with me?
Is there something else you wish to work on over the next 40 days?