*disclamier... i'm NOT trying to sound profound by quoting or discussing this quote. I simply posted it up here because i encountered it while reading one of my 10 books for the summer, and it really spoke to ME*

There is, in a word nothing comfortable about the Bible-- Until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves... Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be a stuggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the Bible itself... Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned to to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have a problem with it... -- Thomas Merton

this really made me think. it made me realize that sometimes i struggle to read the bible, and maybe that's a GOOD thing. not that i give up, but that i'm not "abnormal" for not always "getting" everything that i read in the bible. Sometimes i think that's what holds me back. i just don't get things like everyone else seems to. I can't look at a passage and be like "I feel God is speaking to me..." sometimes it takes me TIME, and it takes a lot of effort to see God speaking to me through the word. But maybe its good that i don't just take it for what its worth and just stop asking questions. Maybe the idea is that you SHOULD take the time and mull over a passage. to sit and question what you're reading, to think about what applicational aspects it has to your life, and what purpose does it serve in your relationship with God, AT THIS MOMENT...

Reading this quote this morning on the subway really encouraged me to keep TRYING to read the Bible...