Hmm

Yesterday afternoon, I told God, “If you keep me in this job, give me a vision. If you take me out of this job, give me a vision too.”

Last night, I learned this from Dallas Willard’s Life Without Lack on the promises of Psalm 23:

Submission is giving up the belief that my will is supreme or best. 

What if I carry that attitude into my work and relationships?

To seek others' good and glory.

Evidences of God

I was invited to attend a luncheon of 17 leading pastors including Stephen Olford who influenced teachers and preachers worldwide. His impact was recognized by seminarians, pulpit ministers, and evangelists. During the table conversation he said, “My brothers. I am weary of celebrity religion. You know I have received my share of honors. But if when I die my family does not say, ‘There is something of God in the man,’ I will have failed.”

A holy hush came over this distinguished group. Each attendee considered his own personal situation.

Even though I was invited as a guest and not pastoral participant, I thought then and continually about the evidences of God in a man.

Here are four ideas that come to mind:

A quiet center that cannot be panicked is an evidence of God. The Quaker theologian Thomas Kelly called it making a “mental habit of internal orientation.” That is a mouthful! I like to just say those who evidence God have a quiet space that is rooted in Him and immune to permanent disturbance. I think of Christ asleep in the boat when the storm was raging. A physical representation is the eye of the hurricane which is perfectly still while everything around it is reeling and rolling. The very center is quiet.

God is evidenced in the way we speak. I think of my friend Bob, raised on the streets of a big metropolitan area. He once said, “When I came to Christ, He cleaned up my dirty mouth and tongue.” Vulgarity gave him a bad taste in his mouth. Profanity turned into prayer. The choice of subjects we talk about reflects our internal base. The things we think about naturally come out in our conversation.

Another evidence is the quality and breadth of love in our lives. Unconditional love comes from Christ and is a demonstration of God’s presence. John, the apostle, tells us we can’t be rightly related to God and hate our brothers. Jesus told us our love one for another would let others know we belonged to Him.

Another evidence is our attitude toward death. The way we think about dying is crucial to maturity. The assurance of heaven gives us a peaceful acceptance of life with its ups and downs. The fact that this life isn’t the sole experience creates an equilibrium which allows us to reflect an eternal perspective. God in our life reminds us this life is the practice – the real game comes later. I am certainly glad.

This week think about: 1) How do people know I have a relationship with God? 2) What do I want my family to say about me when I die? 3) When do I experience the quiet center?

Words of Wisdom: “The things we think about naturally come out in our conversation.”

Wisdom from the Word: “But as for me, God’s presence is all I need. I have made the sovereign LORD my shelter, as I declare all the things you have done.” (Psalm 73:28 NET Bible)

- by the late Fred Smith Sr.

Dog's breakfast

Who else but God?

tired pup

double portion

Sobering

At the faculty fellowship today, someone shared about how she had the chance to pray for a retired professor at Cambridge. He won a Nobel prize and while he was passionate for Christ in his 30s, but he turned away from God.

He seemed to not respond to my colleague's sharing and prayer, but she wasn't sure either. Only God knows his final decision. But apparently his wife used Ecclesiastes in his eulogy and described the man's life work as meaningless. More shocking, his children didn't even turn up at the funeral. How much brokenness must have existed for them to make such a hurtful choice? Only the devil would rejoice in such a thing.

I'm glad for my colleague's faith and focus on the work and glory of God. The wife must have felt some comfort that this slightly odd Chinese couple cared to visit when even her children didn't.

Insomnia

Some days, all the blue skies in the world are just not enough. A friend who understands even when not much is said can be a balm.

Faith comes by hearing

Thankful

This came on a day when I felt incredibly fatigued and despondent.

Lord, help me submit to Your will and Your ways.

Volunteer event

No truer word ....

Friend: "Let's keep up! God has not given up on us, so we shouldn't either."

Amen.

Sand

A close friend's two youngest kids went through stages where they couldn't step on sand. They would go to the beach but have a hard time playing because they would cry when sand touched them or they touched sand.

That must be how God sees me right now. He's brought me to the beach so that I can run around, play, and have fun, but I'm scared of the sand ...

Even I have to laugh at myself.

Old interview with Eugene Peterson

The interview is worth reading in full. I'd paste it here, but it's far too long. I praise God for the example of this man's life and words.

"Sometimes I think all I do as pastor is speak the word “God” in a situation in which it hasn’t been said before, where people haven’t recognized his presence. Joy is the capacity to hear the name and to recognize that God is here. There’s a kind of exhilaration because God is doing something and, even in a little way, it’s enough at the moment."

In a way, so much of what Peterson talks about--planting, waiting, trusting, believing, praying, and all of this always in community--is what LB2 is all about. I'm in awe of how God patiently speaks to us over and over again. This interview was published in 1987!!

"The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it."

Israelites in the desert

"Day after day there was nothing but emptiness. All their lives they had never known anything but work, forced labor and no respite from it. What they had to realize was that emptiness was a prerequisite to being filled" ~ Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, 31.

Politics

"The politics of the Lamb, by showing that the plainest details of our daily faith are significant factors in a cosmic drama, protects us from hubris and guides us into the maturity that pours intelligence and energy into what is before us, making a holy work of art out of the ordinary" ~ Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 132.

Smart

My dad said that my grandmother rings this bell when she needs to get the helper's attention.

Entering God's life?

Prophecy addresses our wills with an invitation to participate in God's will. When we witness we do not recruit or propagandize; we clear the ground where decisions are made, try to throw some light on the intersection between time and eternity, and invite entrance into that clarity where the "narrow way" begins. Law tells us how God is involved in our lives. Prophecy tells us how we are involved in God's life.

~ Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 114.

"Prayer discovers the coordination of all needs under the mastery of the one who supplies all needs. Prayer is a focus upon God whereby all things come into focus. By centering attention on God the center, all things become centered. Life is not indiscriminate bits and pieces, mingled treasure and rubble. It is coherent" ~ Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 91

Daniel 3: 16-18

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

“There is no way to know who you really are until you are tested. There is no way to really empathize and sympathize with other suffering people unless you have suffered yourself. There is no way to really learn how to trust in God until you are drowning. But we also learn from this story that God is with us in the fire…. He walks with us, but the real question is—will we walk with him?” (234).

“Christian peace comes not from thinking less but from thinking more, and more intensely, about the big issues of life. Paul gives a specific example of this in Romans 8:18, where he uses the same word, logizdomai, and speaks directly to sufferers. He says, ‘I reckon that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that shall be revealed in us.’ To ‘reckon’ is to count up accurately, not to whistle in the dark…. 

Someone reading this might say, ‘You are talking about doctrine but what I really need is comfort.’ But think! Is Jesus really the Son of God? Did he really come to earth, die for you, rise again, and pass through the heavens to the right hand of God? Did he endure infinite suffering for you, so that someday he could take you to himself and wipe every tear from your eyes? If so, then there is all the comfort in the world. If not—if none of these things are true—then we may be stuck here living for seventy or eighty years until we perish, and the only happiness we will ever know is in this life. And if some trouble or suffering takes that happiness away, you have lost it forever. Either Jesus is on the throne ruling all things for you or this is as good as it gets” (299).

“Suffering puts its fingers on good things that have become too important to us. We must respond to suffering not ordinarily by jettisoning those loved things but by turning to God and loving him more, and by putting our roots down deeper into him. You will never really understand your heart when things are going well. It is only when things go badly that you can see it truly. And that’s because it is only when suffering comes that you realize who is the true God and what are the false gods of your lives. Only the true God can go with you through that furnace and out to the other side. The other gods will abandon you in the furnace” (308). 

“When things go wrong, one of the ways you lose your peace is that you think maybe you are being punished. But look at the cross! All the punishment fell on Jesus. Another thing you may think is that maybe God doesn’t care. But look at the cross! The Bible gives you a God that says, ‘I have lost a child too; but not involuntarily—voluntarily, on the cross, for your sake. So that I could bring you into my family’” (312).

Tim Keller on suffering

Sometimes.....

God doesn't have a Plan B

There's always only been a Plan A

Socials

The gospel is God's love letter to us. In it He never tires of telling us how much He loves us.

How to live life

Rule No. 1: Have friends