Engrossed

Brenda and I spent Valentine’s Day together. I promise it was her idea to go to a bookstore. She had several things she wanted to look at and so we parted ways for a while as I perused the shelves of the bargain books and she looked for gifts for a few friends. The next thing I knew I had a nearly a dozen books stuffed under my arm lugging from aisle to aisle.

You all know I love to read. I felt giddy on the inside. Books are a passion for me. They are like friends. I feel at home in bookstores and libraries. We were about to leave when I noticed a selection of books for $1. Normally I do not read novels because my passion is non-fiction and biographies. I do find a few novels entertaining but generally they do not buy or read them. My eyes landed on this novel for a buck. A hardback book for only a buck. I reasoned it really did not have a downside. If the book were not good I had had not spent much money on it. If it turned out to be a good book then I found a bargain. We were in a Christian bookstore and I thought it would be entertaining. When I bought all eleven of my books I had spent a grand total of $35. What a Valentine’s!

After lunch Brenda wanted to shop at one other store. She loves me so much and knows me too well. She knew I really did not want to go into that shop but wanted to ravenously tear into my bags and grab one of those books to read! For whatever reason my fingers gripped the $1 novel. I told her to take her time and cracked the windows and nestled in with book in hand.

I sat back and began getting my mind around the plot and the main characters. The novel had a weird storyline but the more I read the more engrossed I became. This is one of the biggest reasons I do not read novels. I cannot put them down. I become obsessed wanting to read every waking moment. Other priorities began to get pushed to the side so could I read that book. By the time I went to bed on Valentine’s night I had read nearly half of it.

My eyes popped wide open around 3:00 a.m. I am ashamed to admit I did not have a hunger to pray or get in the Bible but I yearned to get back to reading that book. Each chapter left me hooked and wanting more. It did not matter my body screamed for sleep, I could not put the book down. I resented it when I had to stop to get breakfast cooked for the boys. As soon as they headed off to school I sat down to read some more. Before I knew it an entire hour passed.

I brought the book to the office but could not find time to get any reading in. So going home after work and getting everyone else off to bed I pulled out the book and cracked it open to dive back in. I kid you not, I read until I could not keep my eyes open and resented that I was not finished. I drug myself to bed trying to figure out the ending of the story.

My body slept but mind stayed twirled around the book. For the second morning in a row I got up out of bed before the crack of dawn to get my fix of reading. I felt like a junkie having to get his fix or to get a high. It felt like an addiction. I read page after page shocked at twists in the story. With the ending of every chapter I told myself, “Just one more.” One more turned into two, three, four, five,… When I finally finished it, instead of being satisfied I felt hollow inside. The book that started with such a great promise, fizzled in the end. It left me dissatisfied and unfulfilled. There I had made a GREAT time investment in that book and it did not deliver. I can see why it had been marked down to only one dollar.

There is a point to all this. I felt addicted to that book. I became engrossed in it. This leads me to my warning for all of you. Be careful what you become engrossed in. The book, though entertaining, did not feed my soul. If I am to become engrossed in a book, let it be in the scriptures. Let reading the word of God day after day get me up in the wee hours of the morning to read with insatiable hunger. Let reading the words of life draw me away from the hum drum of everyday life to become engrossed.

So guess what? At 4:00 a.m. my eyes opened this morning. For some reason I felt energized and got up. I dressed and then drove to my office where I became engrossed in prayer and reading God’s word. Here is what captured my mind and heart this morning. It is now 9:23 p.m. and I am still thinking about what I read in God’s word this morning. In fact my Bible is still opened to this passage. [Matt 14:28-29] “Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’ And He said, ‘Come.’ And Peter got our of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”

As those words sunk in and took root in my soul, I found myself asking Jesus if He wanted me to get out of the boat of my comfortable life to come after Him to what might look impossible and risky. Nothing really profound. Just the honest cry of my heart to know if the Lord is calling me to get out of the boat or if at times I dream my own dreams and plunge out of the boat without His call and into the depths of turbulent waters and utter failure.

Lord, is it really You? Are you the one calling me to get out of the boat? Lord, is it You speaking in myriad ways? Lord, is it really You or are the thoughts running through my head my own fanciful dreams and imagination running rampant? Lord, if it is really You, I want to follow You. I want to see You do the impossible. I want to come to You. Lord, if it is You, I want to be engrossed by Your simple invitation for me to, “Come.” No long discussion and no details about to come to You are needed. All I need is Your simple invitation for me to come. Just a giant leap of faith. Dear Lord, You know I live for such leaps.

I ask You to honor the leap I have taken to trust You for a hospital in Honduras. You have blessed us with $11,000 to start. I will need so much more. I ask You to bid me to come to You. I ask You to move Your people to join me in this impossible dream. Thank you for delighting to do the impossible. I trust You to build a hospital and give it as a gift to Copan Ruinas. As physical bodies are mended there in the future I rejoice that hundreds and thousands of souls will be mended by Your redeeming blood as well. The task is huge. It is bigger than me but that excites me because I know it is only something You can do. I know it is You calling me out of the boat of my safe and risk free life. I am over the sides and my focus is on You. Sink or swim I am all in. There is no turning back. I ask You for all the money before Dec 31, 2011. You will have to raise the money for that hospital. That is Your job. I simply trust You to do it and am stepping out of the boat toward You. I pray the multitudes will be awed at Your power and by what You do. In Jesus name, amen.

I am engrossed today but in a totally different way. I am engrossed by God’s word and His call on my life to follow Him