What a Day Brings

"Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring. (Proverbs 27:1)"

You've heard about the broken water pipes. Now let me tell you about losing electricity yesterday for the whole afternoon. There really isn't much to tell, except that all the plans for those five hours flew out the window. Which meant those plans (like blogging) were going to have to get squeezed into this morning before 9:30. This was cause for a bit of anxiety.

But, as the Lord would have it (and the dog), Tim and I were awakened at 2:30 a.m. to tend to Heidi. As I laid back down I had a pretty good feeling I wasn't going to be getting any more sleep. So, I reasoned, "why not begin the day and knock off yesterday's to-do list?" It all turned out really well, and at least for now I am feeling a little more relaxed about everything (though a tad sleepy).

It's times like this, though, that force me to question how much I count on getting everything done, in my way, and in my time. I think I do pretty well in the area of time management but the question is: am I ok with God's management of my time? When I grumble and complain about the unexpected, I am pretty sure I have not been living in reliance upon God's sovereign will for my life. Instead I have set myself and my agenda to be all important. In other words, I've made my agenda an idol that I worship.

I am thankful to say that God gave me much grace over the last 24 hours to submit to His will. There were the occasional temptations to complain, but by the kindness and grace of God, He kept me from sinning greatly. I am so thankful. It isn't always this way, but even then there is forgiveness for me in the cross.

I was reminded of a quote by the Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes, "There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us." Now, isn't that an amazing and thought?

Knowing God

In light of our recent focus on Philippians 3, I found the following passage from J.I. Packer's Knowing God to be quite pertinent:

I walked in the sunshine with a scholar who had effectively forfeited his prospects of academic advancement by clashing with church dignitaries over the gospel of grace. "But it doesn't matter," he said at length, "for I've known God and they haven't...."

Not many of us, I think would ever naturally say that we have known God. The words imply a definiteness and matter-of-factness of experience to which most of us, if we are honest, have to admit that we are still strangers. We claim, perhaps, to have a testimony, and can rattle off our conversion story with the best of them; we say that we know God--this, after all, is what evangelicals are expected to say; but would it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference to particular events in our personal history, that we have known God? I doubt it, for I suspect that with most of us experience of God has never become so vivid as that.

Nor, I think, would many of us ever naturally say that in light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don't matter. For the plain fact is that to most of us they do matter. We live with them as our "crosses" (so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the "joy unspeakable and full of glory" which Peter took for granted that his readers were displaying (1 Pet 1:8 KJV). "Poor souls," our friends say of us, "how they've suffered." And that is just what we feel about ourselves!

But these private mock heroics have no place at all in the minds of those who really know God. They never brood on might-have-beens; they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained.

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ," wrote Paul. "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus My Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.... I want to know Christ" (Phil 3:7-10). When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or dung (KJV), he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God.

The third paragraph is certainly me. Is it you?

sternly gentle reminders

I'm having another night with the nephew. We have a deal worked out: he doesn't cry and I get my knuckles chewed and slobbered on. He is four months and a day old today. He has patiently endured kisses and baby talk and camera flashes and being passed around the table from adoring family member to family member.

Every time I'm around the kid, I'm reminded of how the apostle says that we should desire the Word the way that babes desire milk. As much as I love Jaden and as much as he smiles for me (which is a lot, if I do say so), he desperately wants and needs something that I can't give him. Correlate that however you want--I take it as a sternly gentle rebuke.

Another stern, gentle reminder: "I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food."

As much as I might flatter myself, I am just a distraction--hopefully a good one--in Jaden's little world. He knows what's really important. And I know better than to not follow his example.

love is blind

Love is blind. We've all heard that, right?

After a couple days in a car driving across half the country with my sister, I'm more convinced than ever that love is, indeed, blind.

And I don't mean my love for her. Does anyone want to know her faults? I've got a list. Did I mention that we drove from New Jersey to Minnesota in two days? Make that a very long list. Ask me about my faults. Well, this is embarrassing, really, but you see, I haven't got any. I haven't gotten on my nerves once. I've been perfectly reasonable, rational, and sensible.

The blind love I'm talking about is my love for myself. My self-love effectively blinds me to all my faults and sins. She is upset? It couldn't have had anything to do with my selfishness, snippiness, smart comments, impatience, etc. I get upset--it can't have anything to do with my super-sensitivity, self-defensiveness, and pride--it must be her.

Blind love is probably never very healthy, no matter who the subject of love is. Blind self-love is just plain disgusting.

Real love is others-focused--not blind, but rather patient, kind, enduring. It is based on the Gospel. The one who is forgiven much loves much. Lord, help me to love!

Augustine's Relevance--4th vs. 21st Century...People Are The Same

Sunday's message brought many powerful exhortations. Particularly convicting were Pastor Steve's comments concerning our Christian responsibility toward unbelievers.

It is often difficult, isn't it, to know when to speak and confront unbelievers in their sin and when to hold our tongues. As Pastor Steve made clear, we can only truly love people by revealing to them their desperate condition and pointing them to Jesus. (Only a few weeks ago, we heard from another pastor that any relationship we have with an unbeliever that is not redemptive in purpose is treason!)

It could be that group of moms at the park who berate their husbands or speak unbecomingly. Maybe the environment you work in constantly surrounds you with immoral banter or vulgar speech. Oftentimes it is the 'sweet little elderly neighbor' (that everyone seems to have) that gossips about the goings-on of the block. There are countless settings that provide us with opportunities to speak truth to our friends and neighbors (and sometimes even strangers). So how do we 'make the most of our opportunity' while speaking graciously and kindly?

In his classic work City of God Augustine offers some insight into the whens, whys, and hows of responding to the sinful habits of unbelievers. 

For often we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing [unbelievers], either because we shrink from the labour or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friendships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement, or injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from losing.

[Christians] abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love...the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind.

God give us grace to take bold stands for holiness, for His name's sake. May it become the instinctive impulse of our tongues to defend righteousness and truth and to dismantle evil that we may be pleasing to the Lord. 

'Speak the truth in love.' Now that's hard!