Our first assignment - for 9/22

Go through the five elements on the following.  Also consider memorizing it this week or doing the exercise more than once.  Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Sunday.  

Week 1 (9/15 - for class on 9/22) – Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

A few reflections as I worked through the assignment this morning:

 - I was surprised by the silence in my head.  That is, I'm so poor at thinking hard about Truth that when I sat down to it, there was a lot of dead space in my thinking process.  I'm so grateful to learn this skill so that I can follow a train of thought that unlocks the Truth and encourages me to stare at it.  

 - I was also taken back by how much I wanted to make the exercise practical.  I desperately wanted to understand what immediate benefit I would receive from taking my time to do this.  God himself was not enough.  I wanted a more practical goal.  Shame on me.  

 - As I moved through the exercise, I found my language went from thinking and writing about God to writing TO him.  ('he' and 'him' and 'they' became 'you' and 'me')  Pretty cool.  

AD