#15 - CHECK!

Number 15 on my 101 things to do in 1,001 days list was to join a bible study. Well, instead of joining one, I kind of started one! This is a first for me so please pray for me and for the other girls during this study. We are doing the Plan B bible study. I've mentioned Plan B before on this blog. It's a book written by Pete Wilson, who happens to be my old pastor back when I lived in Nashville. He built that church from the ground up and Cross Point has grown tremendously since I left.

How funny is this. I went to church at our church on Sunday (St. Mark United Methodist Church in Vestavia) and brought my Bible. This is the first time I've brought my Bible in I can't even remember how long. Our contemporary service, the Hillside, puts the scripture on the screen, so I just stopped bringing my Bible. For some reason though, I had the urge to bring it on Sunday. While flipping to the scripture for the day, I ran across this....



It's the program for the Sunday service at Cross Point on April 6, 2008 where the series was Plan B. My heart just melted when I saw it. When I opened the program, there was a piece of paper inside that had scripture on it and Pete always had sentences with fill in the blanks that we filled out during the church service. This particular one said:

Two Temptations:

1) Wrapping your FAITH around the fulfillment of your dreams

2) Trying to CONTROL outcomes

These two things really just sums up what Plan B is all about. The group met for the first time at my house on Thursday night. We discussed chapters 1 and 2 and had a 3 hour long discussion about how these chapters related to us and our lives and what our current situations were that caused us to want to read this book. It's a small group, which I'm totally fine with because I would be way to nervous otherwise. It's comprised of myself, my sister-in-law, Melanie Martin (my P90X partner in crime) and Ashley Matherson (my best friend for 12+ years). Ashley was actually cracking me up. We were only supposed to read chapters 1 and 2, but Ash has read up to chapter 12 and kept trying to talk about it. I had to hush her a few times ;)

I discussed how intense chapter 1 was here. I suggest reading it if you can do it without crying. Chapter 2 is when Pete dives into scripture. His reference is the life of David. David was told by Samuel that God had chosen him as the next king. David's life progressed with no sign of becoming what he'd been promised and then all of a sudden this Goliath character came into the picture and David kicked some giant booty. THEN he had faith in himself that he could be king. Why didn't he have that faith before? We all have a tendency to say we know that God has a plan for our lives, yet we tend to be impatient about that plan coming to fulfillment. It's hard not to be.

David becomes a hero and the current king, Saul, starts favoring him. After some time though, Saul starts to become slightly intimidated by David and begins being unhappy with him. As Pete refers to the situation, a "Jerry Springer-type moment" happens when Saul throws a spear at David. David ends up running away in fear of Saul. He ran. How often do we run away from our problems? The questions we discussed in our bible study revolved around this. Do you run away? Do you try to control it on your own? The one thing we don't do often enough is turn to God for help. When we get ourselves dug so deep into a hole, we tend to exhaust ourselves trying to get out all on our own. Turn to God.

Some interesting things brought up during the bible study:

• Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. I can totally speak for this one and so can most of you. How often did you pray for that guy you dated in college? Pray that he would be the one? Boy did I do that. And I thank God everyday that he didn't answer those prayers, otherwise I wouldn't be married to the TRUE love of my life now.
• Plan B is only OUR Plan B. Plan B was ALWAYS God's Plan A.
• "Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish" ~ John Quincy Adams. We must be patient. When we say we will wait for God's timing, we have to actually do it. God knows way more about your life than you do. Be patient and wait for Him to reveal to you what He wants.
• Your dreams may not be happening , and things aren't turning out the way you expected, but that doesn't mean your life is spinning out of control. It just means that you're not in control.

Chapter 3 and 4 will be discussed on Wednesday and I can't wait. Chapter 3 is all about the illusion of control and chapter 4 is called "Your Jordan". I haven't gotten to 4 yet, so I don't know what it's about, but I'll certainly blog about it after Wednesday :)