Crazy Love by Francis Chan- Chapter 1 "Stop Praying"

So I started reading the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan for the second time in the past year. This time around I'm going to write a post about each chapter of the book to help me think about what I'm reading. God really spoke to me through the words that Francis Chan wrote in this book the first time through, so I expect Him to do the same this time.

There was so much information packed into the short chapter of 14 pages. When I first read it, Chan seem to jump back and forth between topics. This second time around I realized it was all related. Stop praying....What? If I had to summarize the chapter in one sentence it would be...God is so amazingly big and unfathomable that we need to stop talking and listen to what He has to say during prayer.

There were two things you talked about that really spoke to me:

Francis Chan wrote:

"There is an epidemic of spiritual amnesia going around, and none of us is immune. No matter how many fascinating details we learn about God's creation, no matter how many pictures we see of His galaxies, and no matter how many sunsets we watch, we still forget."

I forget stuff all the time, you can ask my wife. A perfect example of this happened just recently. A guy at work called me and asked that I do him a favor. Well I hung up the phone and read an email, in that amount of time I forgot to do what he asked. It is so crazy to think that we can actually forget who God really is. He has done so much to show His power and love, not only in creation but by sending His Son to die for our sins. I so often have to remind myself that I need to love God because of who He is and not out of obligation. Now if I can just remember to think of this each time God shows me just how creative He is.

Chan went on to give five characteristics of God that I need to remind myself of on a daily bases. They are listed below:

God is holy. Exodus 3:14
God is eternal. Psalms 102:12,27
God is all-knowing. Hebrews 4:13
God is all-powerful. Colossians 1:16
God is fair and just.

When I first read these things here was my thought..."This is so basic, get into the deeper stuff". Then it hit me as I read them the second time, I don't think about these characteristics of God in my daily life. To be honest, there are times I live my life as if God doesn’t have these characteristics. God is all-knowing and God is all-powerful are the two characteristics of God in this list that I most commonly forget in my daily life. He sees EVERYTHING we do and He is in COMPLETE control. In the end of the first chapter my thoughts go back to the first paragraph. We need to stop praying in the sense of always just talking to God but listen to the holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, fair and just Lord of our lives.