{"id":5457,"date":"2009-07-29T00:08:48","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T00:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/beginning-with-god-9.html"},"modified":"2009-07-29T00:08:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-29T00:08:48","slug":"beginning-with-god-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/beginning-with-god-9.html","title":{"rendered":"Beginning with God 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Worship.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/120\/import\/imgs\/Worship.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt;float: left\" height=\"207\" width=\"208\" \/><\/span>It all begins with God &#8212; what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our &#8220;narrative&#8221; of God? What are the narratives that hinder our perception and life in God?<\/p>\n<p>James Bryan Smith, in <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0830835318?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0830835318\">The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows (The Apprentice Series)<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0830835318\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: medium none  ! important;margin: 0px ! important\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em> , in chp. 9, closes off this set of studies about God by &#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking about being &#8220;present&#8221; every moment.<\/p>\n<p><b>What is the biggest obstacle for you when it comes to being &#8220;present&#8221; at every moment?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<br \/>James Bryan Smith deals with being in a hurry and being too busy. The false narrative is the narrative of Martha (instead of Mary). &#8220;Will we take on too many things?&#8221; is the question.<\/p>\n<p>Speed is not the problem; the problem is our love of speed. The irony, of course, is that while we do everything we can do to save time, we don&#8217;t enjoy time. We speed up in order to do more but in speeding up we accomplish less of what is important.<\/p>\n<p>The first public clock was erected in 1370 in Cologne, Germany. Life was changed &#8212; we measure things by the clock and how much we can do in a hour and how fast we can go in an hour&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The most important things in life &#8212; love of God, love of others &#8212; cannot be rushed. Rushing them ruins them. <\/p>\n<p>Mary&#8217;s way is better than Martha&#8217;s. He likes Jesus&#8217; rhythm in Mark 1:35-39.<\/p>\n<p>Slow down. That&#8217;s the ticket to finding the good and beautiful God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It all begins with God &#8212; what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our &#8220;narrative&#8221; of God? What are the narratives that hinder our perception and life in God? James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Beginning with God 9 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/beginning-with-god-9.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beginning with God 9 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It all begins with God &#8212; what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our &#8220;narrative&#8221; of God? What are the narratives that hinder our perception and life in God? James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God:&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/beginning-with-god-9.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-29T00:08:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Worship.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Beginning with God 9 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/beginning-with-god-9.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Beginning with God 9 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"It all begins with God &#8212; what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. 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