So, what’s next?
We made it through the book of Job – I still can’t say it’s one of my favorites. I don’t know if I will ever say that “suffering” is one of my favorites. But it is part of being human, what we all experience, and God wants to speak to our just or unjust suffering. There are parts of the book I have grown to love, and parts that I still don’t understand, much less embrace.
So, why don’t we look at a smaller book, a book we can dig deeper into, maybe verse by verse, or phrase by phrase? Something to meditate on, feel our way through, ask ourselves questions?
Recently I heard a devotional on Philemon that sparked curiosity, made me want to dig deeper. I knew the basics of the book, but it had the opposite problem of Job – it’s so short, I’ve read it quickly and not deeply.
And it feels like an obscure book to me. It’s even hard to find, tucked between the Timothys and Hebrews. It’s one page easily stuck to the next and you have to peal it back to get to it. It hardly fills the page which, to a “let’s get her done” person like me, almost translates into “skip over it.”
And it is also about a topic that doesn’t relate much to me – slavery. I don’t own a slave; I don’t live in a context where slavery is allowed. I am adamantly against slavery, or even the idea that a person is “owned” or controlled by others.
And it’s about two people, Philemon and Onesimus, and their situation. It harder for me to relate it to me and my situation…
But maybe it’s because I haven’t taken the time?
Maybe I haven’t taken the time to really read what is written? Maybe I haven’t taken the time to feel what is written? Maybe I haven’t taken the time to hear what God wants me to hear?
So, here I go – the deep, slow, dive.
Are you in with me?
