Biologos is a wonderful tool that helps hone our understand of the world and God. However, how do you relate to the Divine, other than studying His creation? Do you have devotions? If so, what kind? I just read a C S Lewis quote that is convicted me. I get so busy in my work that I forget to meditate:
There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organiser of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares. (The Great Divorce).
I’m curious how you (scientists, pastors, linguists) who are very busy interact with God. It would be good learning for me.
At present, I am trying to do better than before. Sometimes, at the worst, I’ve gone as long as a week without cracking a Bible! Right now, I try to read parts of the Bible periodically in the day; and my wife and I read together the daily devotions from Skye Jethani (With God Daily), besides church (our couples Sunday School, of about 20-30 folks, helps us the most emotionally) and praying with our children. We’ve used Our Daily Bread in the past, too. It does seem that my attitude improves when I am more faithful with this.
That’s a great quote from Lewis! Kinda reminds me of why I didn’t feel much desire to go on to graduate school in English (aside from lack of funds, etc.) – I’d gotten so used to analyzing literature that I’d almost forgotten how much I loved it. It was a few years after college before I began reading for leisure again.
I sympathize with your wanting to do better – I also sometimes go way too long without opening a Bible too. Of course, I have my “substitutes” – I have read several books lately about the Bible, and I do hear it read frequently at church, or sung in music we listen to, or taught to my children when school is in session, which are all helpful but not the same thing as personal reading. I’ve found it helps to know what translation works best for you (sometimes I like “regular” ones, but other times reading a paraphrase like The Message helps me see familiar passages in a different way), and what time of day as well. So often “first thing in the morning” devotions are put on a pedestal, but some of us just focus better in the evenings.
Being in an adult Sunday School class that usually studies whole books of the Bible has helped me focus on specific parts of the Bible. I think both can be good – having a book or passage where you’re “parked” for a while but also, as you said, reading a bit here and there is good too – makes it feel less academic, to me anyway.
At some point we’d like to start doing family devotions too – we just got a copy of Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally-Lloyd Jones, and it looks really good for that.
If things are getting a bit stale, try “The New Testament: A Translation” by Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart. That should really shake things up! I’ve done a number of posts about this: let me know if you want the links. Speaking of Hart, I have an article by him on science and faith–published in an Islamic journal!
My devotion is mostly a private affair, apart from reciting the Shema seven times over in Hebrew every Saturday morning, my devotion is primarily based on glorifying god through everything which I do, as Isaiah 43:7 says, God made us for his glory.