Mouth Agape

The end

2008-11-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

Erin & I at Coldplay

So, this is the end of my posts on this site. If, for some unbeknownst reason, you deign to continue being a voyeur into my soul, continue onto http://tremblingandtrepidation.com

2008-11-04T10:10:00.001-08:00

Because My Heart Tells Me I Must Adopt

2008-10-28T12:09:00.001-07:00

How cool is this?

World Magazine profiles Jason Kovacs and the ABBA Fund:

When Jason Kovacs and his wife Shawnda were newly married, they developed a strong passion for adopting. "We were convicted by James 1:27, which said that 'true religion' involved looking after orphans," Kovacs said. But as a young couple on the staff at a church—Minneapolis' Bethlehem Baptist Church—the estimated $20,000 needed to adopt a child was simply beyond their means.

So they turned to the Abba Fund, one of a small but growing number of organizations that provide matching grants and interest-free loans to Christian families that want to adopt. Now, nearly 10 years and two adoptions later, Kovacs is the executive director of the Abba Fund.

Adoption funds are, in concept, simple: They provide grants and interest-free loans to couples who want to adopt but cannot afford the up-front costs associated with adoptions. "Most adoptive couples are relatively young," said Kovacs. "This is a great way for the church to come alongside these young couples to help with the adoption process."

My Mother the Thespian

2008-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

Firestarter (1984) may be one of the worst movies ever made... But, skip forward to about 5:00 into this "Part 3" video & wait for the surprise. Oh, that Joan Dugan. She should've received equal billing with Drew Barrymore. That's for sure.

Joan Dugan, The Worst Babysitter Ever

Notes for a Missions Breakout Talk

2008-10-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

These are the notes I have from a talk on missions I gave at this weekend's jr. high retreat:

Therefore, Go! Will We Choose Comfort or a Cross?
Whose are you?

We were created for…

1. A Person
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” –John 14:1

2. A Place
“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you” –John 14:2

“…Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or crying or pain…” –Revelation 21:3-4

3. A Purpose (Christ is IN you FOR them!)- Pray & Preach!
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” –Matthew 24:14

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news’… Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” –Romans 10:13-15, 17

“I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” –Revelation 7:9

“All the nations you have made will come and worship before you” –Psalm 86:9

Our two motives for missions:
(1) “For the sake of the name” (3 John 1:7)
(2) Compassion- “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown in the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15)

PLACES: HOME & ABROAD: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” –Acts 1:8

STATE OF THE WORLD STATS (from Momentum Magazine & The Joshua Project)
*An average of 160,000 people a day hear the gospel for the very first time. In 1800, 75% of the world’s population had never heard the gospel. In 1900, it was about 50% (879 million people). Today, 28% of the world remains unreached- still 1.7 billion people!
*2/3 of the world lives in what is known as the “10/40 window”- an area 10-40 degrees of the equator, and 95% are unreached or “least-reached” people groups.
*There are approximately 16,450 people groups (6.63 billion people) & 6,580 of them are unreached or least-reached people groups (2.67 billion people).
*30,000 children today will breathe their last breaths

Fear of FOCA

2008-10-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

After months of reading into the candidates & trying to learn everything that I could about them, I think somewhere between watching Palin's first two television interviews & two presidential debates, I had thought that I had finally come to rest about my decision about how to cast my vote. But today, when I was supposed to be writing letters & further preparing for a talk that I'm giving tonight, I instead dove a little deeper into the issue of abortion.

And, now, I feel like I'm at a terrible crossroads... I could use some help. Is the Freedom of Choice Act & Obama's willingness to support it reason enough to cast my vote to a pair I generally disagree with on most issues? Is he really that far out there?

Is Dr. George right to say that if I cast my vote for Obama, I am voting for the most pro-abortion candidate ever? Am I just so weary of hearing the issue that I put it on the back burner when, perhaps, it should be my primary political concern?

I need some help here... with apologies to my more conservative friends (and parents...) whose opinions I have sinfully discounted... and just in case I haven't put enough links on here yet, here are the blog banters between Randy Alcorn & Donald Miller... and Robert Greenwald is all over McCain on YouTube

Aside Update #1: Erin is back at work three days a week! Unbelievable! Praise God for all the healing she's had, and we're continually in prayer that her life will work it's way back to "normal" soon.

Aside Update #2: After a little over six weeks of support raising, I'm at 43% of my goal & am still waiting on 13 people who've committed to give, but haven't told me how much yet. Simply unreal. God's is growing my faith & my conviction daily in this...

Last Aside: I love Bob Dylan unashamedly. His brilliant, clever, convicting commentary on American military history in his song "With God on Our Side" seems relevant even today. Here are just some excerpts:

"Oh the First World War, boys, it closed out its fate
The reason for fighting I never got straight
But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead when God's on your side.

(And this verse has led to many-a-discussion for Warden & I)

In a many dark hour, I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you; you'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side."

Back at the Richie's!

2008-09-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

Erin spent her first full day at home, and it was a good one! She is really beginning to get a feel for her wheelchair and is beginning to eat with more regularity, which is great. All things considered, things are going well. Doesn't she look beautiful? She is such a trooper.

Support has continued to pour in. The Samford Crimson is printing an article tomorrow, and people at Campus Outreach volunteered to cover our dinners from Sunday to Friday. I just can't stop thanking God for the response of his body. If you're looking for a way to contribute, meals would be a fantastic way... or write up a check to Redeemer Community Church... or gift certificates (Amazon & Urban Outfitters)?

Here is the wheelchair ramp that Mr. Eades & Thomas built. Not bad, eh?

Less important Matt news: I've been raising support to go on staff with Campus Outreach, and, by the sheer grace & providence of God, I have jumped 36% in the last eleven days... God has given me such encouragement & re-affirmation over the last week-plus. I'm asking God to help me get on campus by next semester, so please keep praying for Erin & me as well...

Lastly, Ben Folds put out a new album today! Huzzah!

Erin's Home & The White Winter Hymnal

2008-09-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

Erin came home today! Huzzah! At around noon today, she was discharged from the hospital, and Mrs. Eades & I transported her to Thomas & Melissa's house in Crestwood, which will likely be her home for the next several weeks. The doctor requested that she come back in a week to take another look at her ankle and see about her stitches.

Update News: It seems that Erin, Laura, and Laura's apartment was not the only one whose fire alarm did not work properly. Another family reported that they were outside watching their apartment ablaze. We'll just have to wait and see how this whole insurance thing is going to have to work out... luckily, there is a layer (Thomas...) in the family...

Other news, Joseph Rhea, Patrick Sewell, and I went to see the Frank Fairfield/Fleet Foxes show at Bottletree tonight once Erin went to bed. It was surreal. Heavenly. Frank Fairfield of Tompkins Square records seemed straight out of 1934. He sang like Robert Johnson, sang like he'd worked in the mill his whole life, and laid bare his soul with the fiddle, banjo, and guit-fiddle. Beautiful. Timeless.

Then the Fleet Foxes... I think they're my favorite new band of 2008, put out my favorite album of 2008, and may have just put on my favorite show of the year. Their harmonies are angelic. It's like the Beach Boys cross-bred with My Morning Jacket. They were just flawless... And terribly witty...

FLEET FOXES!

Drummer Quip #1: "Ironically, Campbell's Soup was the only stock to go up today... which means that people are getting ready to be poor as ****"

Quip #2: "One day, I'd love to look out and just see a Muppet in the crowd... just chilling at the bar... sipping a beer"

If you haven't heard them yet, please, I beg of you to go check them out. And if you'd like to donate/contribute to Erin, we're making a meals list tomorrow and probably an Amazon Wish List. God bless you all.

Aflame

2008-09-28T13:01:00.001-07:00

...Melissa may have posted this already...

Erin's apartment at the height of the blaze

She's feeling okay now, but had a pretty good fever last night (103 degrees). It's back down now, but she's rather worn out... However, she dominated the wheelchair this morning, so that was encouraging.

Mr. Eades & Thomas built a wheelchair ramp for her at Thomas & Melissa's this morning. Very handy indeed.

Life in 403

2008-09-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

I stayed the night in Room 403 last night with battered, beautiful Erin... She woke up around 715 this morning and was in her typical good spirits. She remained chipper & upbeat for most of the day, especially through the flurry of visitors she had today (I think, beyond Thomas, Melissa, Vale, Mr. & Mrs. Eades & I, there were fifteen visitors today. You guys are amazing).

I think Erin would join me in saying thanks to God & you, the body of Christ, and how you have responded. There have been so many phone calls and so many people bringing clothes, toiletries, books, movies, and other things to replace what she lost. The body of Christ has been a wonderful picture of community- rallying in prayer, giving time & things, and, ultimately "filling up in [your] flesh what is still lacking in regards to Christ's afflictions." Thank you for showing us pictures of Christ's love.

As for Erin herself, she received her "corset," (Melissa & I want to have a contest to see who can come up with the pimpest design for it- in the lead are Robby's offer to cover it in cloth, my idea to make it look like a shot-through-bullet-proof vest, Mr. Eades's skeleton proposal, and Wonder Woman) as she lovingly calls it today, and she made her first venture into a wheelchair, which will be her vehicle for the next 6-8 weeks. It was a rough adventure, but Erin's looking forward to building some spectacular biceps (and abs, as a part of her back rehab).

Mr. Eades will be building a ramp so that she can stay at Thomas & Melissa's once she leaves here. Thank you to all of you who so graciously offered your home (I think the count stands at 5- you guys are ridiculous).

Erin's trying to go to sleep now, so I think I'm going to shut the computer and watch the rest of the UGA debacle on mute.

Taming the Talus

2008-09-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Front entrance to the ritzy Vestavia Park Apartments

my favorite picture: melty car

Erin's talus is shattered...

I'm sitting next to Erin in Brookwood Medical Center, waiting for her to fall asleep so that I can take a picture of her in her hospital bed, tubes and all. Still cute... Until then, I figured I'd just give a little bit of an update on her & the state of Vestavia Park apartments. I put several more pictures on Thirty Travelers & Melissa Richie, Erin's sister, put some information on her blog.

At around four-thirty this morning, Erin & her roommate Laura discovered that their complex was on fire, ran back into the apartment as the flames came into their apartment and tried to escape via Erin's window. Erin attempted to climb down the tiny window ledge, slipped, hung on for dear life, and then plummeted approximately three stories.

Thank God, everyone made it out of the apartments, but, unfortunately, Erin's a little beat up. At about 1:30 they had to take her into surgery.

Erin's out of surgery now... She had surgery on her ankle, specifically the talus bone, which is one of the bones that comprises the ankle, and, incidentally, one of the planets in the Star Wars universe... The doctor said that the surgery went well, but there's just no way to know just yet how it's going to turn out. If the blood vessels in her talus grow back properly, then she should be a-okay. If not, however, she could have avascular necrosis (bone death due to lack of blood flow) and they'll have to go back in and fuse the bone to another one... Bummer. Either way, she'll be rocking a wheelchair for 4-6 weeks. Brainstorming ways to trick it out presently. She'll also be sporting a new, hip vest for her cracked vertebrae (t-11 & t-12).

We'll be chilling at the hospital for the next few days if you want to drop by (Room 403, yo). Oh, and Joel said that if you'd like to make a contribution to her, Laura Vandal, or Laura Pearson, because they lost... everything... if you write it out to Redeemer Community Church, then they can meet the needs specifically (and be tax-deductible!). 205-253-5635.

Phone Calls Received Concerning Erin: 34
Text Messages Received: 60+

I love you guys so much. Thanks for your prayers. God is so good and gracious. I started crying on the way to Birmingham this morning and all I could stammer out was "Thank you... thank you..."

P.S. in case somehow you were unaware, my girlfriend is incredible. She is SO optimistic about everything, seemingly unconcerned about the loss of all her possessions, and laughing (yes, laughing) about her prayer (yesterday...) for God to help her know that He is all she needed and for God to strip her need of comfort. Hilarious.

Beautiful & Offensive

2008-09-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

I was reminded of a quote from Derek Webb when I read this excerpt from Mark Driscoll, who recently released a new book entitled Death By Love: Letters from the Cross. Webb, if I remember correctly, said that the gospel must be both beautiful and offensive. If it is not both, then it is not the gospel that we are preaching. He then went on to reference The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, where one of the children asks if Aslan, the Great Lion, is safe. The response received is remarkable: "No, he is not safe... but he is good, and he is the king."

Driscoll: "The curious paradox of the atoning death of a bloody Jesus rising above the plane of human history with a mocking crown of thorns is that he is offensive in an attractive way. It is the utter horror of the cross that cuts through the chatter, noise, and nonsense of our day to rivet our attention, shut our mouths, and compel us to listen to an impassioned dying man who is crying out for the forgiveness of our sins and to ask why he suffered. Tragically, if we lose the offense of the cross, we also lose the attraction of the cross so that no one is compelled to look at Jesus. Therefore, Jesus does not need a marketing firm or a makeover as much as a prophet to preach the horror of the cross unashamedly. (Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, 33, emphasis added"

Driscoll on Joel Olsteen

Look Who's Irrational Now

2008-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

I read Richard Dawkins' (in)famous The God Delusion earlier this summer, and I have to say, I was tremendously disappointed. I had heard of scores of people who, after reading Dawkins or Hitchens or another one of the so-called "new atheists," were suddenly empowered in their unbelief. I had hoped for some intriguing arguments that would lead me to delve into the depths of my faith and really search more and more into why I believe what I believe. Instead I read the poorly-researched, bullying (though deeply amusing and eloquent) words of a bitter scientist who, apparently, had spent more time using his thesaurus to belittle the religious than he had understanding their beliefs or finding sources (e.x. Dawkins seems to have done no scholarly research on the writing of the gospels- misrepresenting those who wrote them and when- or the accumulation of the canon, failed to note that Paul did not, in fact, write Hebrews, and it goes on...). Poor choice, sir.

Though I haven't read the book just yet, Alister McGrath, a professor at Oxford that I admire, released a book in response entitled The Dawkins Delusion? and wrote an amusing, intelligent article (the first link is another article written by him) called "Do Stop Behaving As If You Are God, Professor Dawkins."

Any way, all of that was a prelude to an article I found in the Wall Street Journal called "Look Who's Irrational Now." Interesting indeed.

An excerpt: The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won't create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that's not a conclusion to take on faith -- it's what the empirical data tell us.

"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

Recommended books in response: The Reason for God by Tim Keller & Letter from a Christian Citizen by Douglas Wilson

Oh, to have been a Christian in 1982

2008-09-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

I could've had such joy

I found this on Justin Taylor's blog. His post was entitled "A Knock-Down Argument Against Dancing in Church." I disagree. I expect Joel to implement this at Redeemer by Sunday.

And I heard so much about this video, I couldn't NOT post it. It's a song called "Jesus is my Friend." If you haven't seen it yet, just promise me you'll make it to 1:45 in the song so you can hear Jesus being compared to a mountee who "always gets his man." I wish I could hang out with the lead guitar player...

The Gospel according to AW Pink

2008-09-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

This comes from the end of Chapter 6 ("The Sovereignty of God") of Pink's The Attributes of God:

"Certain conditions were set before the Mediator. He was to be made in the likeness of sin’s flesh; He was to magnify the law and make it honorable; He was to bear all the sins of all God’s people in His own body on the tree; He was to make full, atonement for them; He was to endure the outpoured wrath of God; He was to die and be buried. On the fulfillment of those conditions He was promised a reward: Isaiah 53:10-12. He was to be the Firstborn among many brethren; He was to have a people who should share His glory. Blessed be His name forever, He fulfilled those conditions, and because He did so, the Father stands pledged, on solemn oath, to preserve through time and bless throughout eternity every one of those for whom His incarnate Son mediated. Because He took their place, they now share His. His righteousness is theirs, His standing before God is theirs, His life is theirs. There is not a single condition for them to meet, not a single responsibility for them to discharge in order to attain their eternal bliss. "By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are set apart" (Heb. 10:14)."

Links of the day: Tim Keller sermon notes & the world's greatest ukulele player

Food for Thought

2008-09-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is for Elaine...

Erin & I cooked dinner at Keith & Elaine's on Saturday night, and we talked about the flurry of activity on her blog following her announcement of her commitment to Barack Obama. It reminded me of a very interesting book that I read about a year ago called Faith of My Fathers by Chris Seay. It's basically a dialogue of a discussion about various subjects between Chris, a pastor, Chris's brother Robbie, a worship leader, Chris's dad, a pastor, Chris's granddad, a former pastor, and Donald Miller. It opened my eyes to a lot of generational differences and helped me understand them. This snippet comes from the section entitled "What does it really mean to be pro-life?"

(Chris's dad has just said that he thinks that abortion is the pivotal moral issue of our day, and, though he agrees with Democrats in many areas, "I don't care what else they are for that may be right- if they are for the murder of defenseless babies in the womb, then I could never support them")

Donald Miller: We have a Republican president right now, and women can still get abortions. Is he failing? Let's not assume that if you vote Republican you are saving the lives of unborn children. The truth is- if you vote Republican, you are voting with someone who is pro-life but with limited resources to make considerable changes. Contrast that with the lives lost in Africa and in the third world, by our neglect there, and you have to start counting bodies- unborn bodies versus African bodies. Would you concede that if the body count is higher because of Republican interest in corporate America over third world politics, then our moral obligation is to vote for the lesser of two evils?

... And I saw the Republicans neglect the poor and favor the rich, not just abroad but at home... So for me, it is both: it's the fact that if I vote for a Republican, certain people will lose their lives, there is no doubt about it; and if I vote for a Democrat, certain other people will lose their lives... Let's not pretend there's a "good party" and a "bad party." That is a lie from Satan. Both are trying to do good thins, and both have ugly sides

Bacchus

2008-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

I read this today & it really struck a chord with me:

"The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It's an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets... God has put in the human heart a desire to know and to be known, to love and to be loved and so many seek a counterfeit," Bruce Larsen & Keith Millar

It makes sense, doesn't it? We were created for confessional community... Community that struggles together, labors together, prays together, fights together, cries together, etc. and when we don't have that, we search for it elsewhere- wherever we can find it. The bar is such a place. On Beach Project, especially the first summer I was down there, generally the most deep, impactful conversations I had were over cigars on the beach at night. It was almost as if we need this semi-rebellious excuse to really dig into each other's hearts & seek the mysteries of God. Silly, I know, but I think that I, as an American male, am in one sense, terribly afraid of being fully known, being "found out" by others as a fraud, as inadequate, etc., but, in another sense, as one created in the image of God, my heart cries to be known fully by another, to know another fully. My soul longs for the day when I will "know even as I am also known" (1 Cor 13:12).

And so I am excited about what's going on at Redeemer Community & (hopefully deepening) at our house... I want to be prone... I'm learning, as time goes by, that vulnerability bleeds vulnerability... If I want us all to be real with one another, I have to first be real... I must first commit to true community before true community can happen... Why has it taken me my whole Christian walk to get this? Dang...

This video's for John Lambuth, room 106, & Sean Leboeuf

Life Under the Vulcan Sun Vol. 3, Best of Summer 2008

2008-08-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

My gracious, working at the law firm on Mondays can be dreadfully boring... At least I have memories of a delightful Vietnamese dinner to reflect upon... Since I have tired of attempting to write support letters (which preface a phone call, which preface a face-toface meeting...), here is my best of summer mix. If you want a spin, let me know...

1. Andrew Bird “Oh, Sister” (Bob Dylan)
2. Amos Lee “Listen”
3. Liam Finn “Second Chance”
4. Beck “Modern Guilt”
5. Son Lux “Betray”
6. Coldplay “Cemeteries of London”
7. Fleet Foxes “Ragged Wood”
8. Wild Sweet Orange “An Atlas to Follow”
9. Death Cab for Cutie “You Can Do Better Than Me”
10.Joshua James “Abbie Martin”
11. Blind Pilot “The Story I Heard”
12. Emily Wells “Symphony 6: Fair Thee Well & The Requiem Mix”
13. Death Cab for Cutie “I Will Possess Your Heart”
14. Bon Iver “Skinny Love”
15. Coldplay “Violet Hill”
16. Emily Wells “Symphony 8 & the Canary’s Last Take”
17. Amos Lee “Better Days”
18. Katie Herzig “Forevermore”
19. Ola Podrida “Atmosphere” (Joy Division)
20. Man Man “Top Drawer”

Two videos guaranteed to make you hurt & laugh: Slap Fight & Too Smart for Strangers by Winnie the Pooh.

And, just in case you haven't heard, David Blaine's latest trick: to spend twelve sleepless nights

Art Monk

2008-08-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Art Monk... I know, I know that I write about sports figures probably far too often, but in a profession so often identified with greed & worldliness, I get really encouraged by men who stand tall for Christ. Art Monk is one such man. He played wide receiver for the Redskins, and when he retired he was the NFL's all-time receptions leader (a record that was mercilessly destroyed by Jerry Rice). My buddies Bob, Michael Cody, Matt Souers, & I were sitting around in our hotel room when Art's induction ceremony came on. And, man, he brought the gospel.

His son, James Monk, Jr. introduced him with these words: Dad's greatness never came from his ability to play football, but it came because he wanted to be used by God for his glory, above all." Awesome.

Some other highlights from his speech (or if you want to read the whole thing or read C.J Mahaney's write-up):

"And even now as a Hall of Famer, the one thing I want to make very clear is that my identity and my security is found in the Lord. And what defines me and my validation comes in having accepted his son Jesus Christ as my personal savior. And what defines me is the word of God and it's the word of God that will continue to shape and mold me into the person that I know he's called me to be

So I've learned a long time ago never to put my faith or trust in man, for man will always fail you. Man will always disappoint you. But the word of God says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And he will never fail you."

"There's a scripture that I think about almost every day and I've come to personalize it to my life. It says: 'Lord, who am I that you are mindful of me?' And the Apostle Paul says, 'Think of what you were when you were called. Not many were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were born of noble birth.'

"And when I look at my life and how I grew up, I certainly had none of those qualities or benefits.

"But I understand and I know that I'm here not by in and of my own strength but it's by the grace and the power of God upon my life who I know gave me favor along the way and who provided opportunity and room for me to use my gifts.

"So I am very grateful to receive this honor, and I can stand here before you and say, hey, look at me, look what I did. But if I'm going to boast, I'm going to boast today in the Lord, for it's because of him that I'm here and I give him thanks and glory and honor for all that he has done for me."

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

2008-08-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

I had never heard this hymn until Michael Cody informed me that he was going to reference it in his talk this summer on spiritual depression and fighting for joy. Over the past six weeks, it has quickly become one of my favorites. It is so good because in our most Job-esque moments, when we cannot see the light of the glory of Christ, when our guilt trumps our conceptions of grace, when darkness veils His lovely face, these words help us to rest in God's unchanging grace.

Few people understood that "God moves in a mysterious way" as deeply as William Cowper ("Cooper"), the poet who penned these words (and the words to other great hymns, such as "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood," "The Saints Should Never Be Dismayed," & "O for a Closer Walk with Thee"). Cowper (1731-1800) had attempted suicide three times before he moved in with the Unwin family and relocated with them to Olney, a town famous for its pastor, John Newton. Cowper & Newton built a relationship and Newton, composer of "Amazing Grace," asked Cowper to contribute to a hymnbook he was compiling. Cowper contributed hymns filled with such faith, but his bouts with insanity & depression continued. In 1773, he fell into another spell of insanity, believing that he was already irrevocably condemned to hell & that God was calling him to sacrifice his life. He battled depression on and off for the rest of his life, dying of dropsy in 1800.

Cowper had a tremendously hard life, but he was anchored in faith that, though he couldn't see or understand what God was doing, God knew (knows) exactly what He was (is) doing.

Though now known to us as the hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way," Cowper entitled it "Light Shining Out of Darkness." Fitting indeed.

God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform:
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines,
with never-failing skill,
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust him for his grace;
behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour:
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,

and he will make it plain.

Since we'd never heard the hymn before, we (the COB-1 crew on Beach Project this summer) made a new melody for it. We wanted to get the full band to play for this rendition, but we garage-band'd it the night before Judson had to head home & Cliff was sick, so it's just Alyson, Judson, and I in the back of the resource room. We want to try it again with a fuller sound, but this one'll do for now. To download it, right-click (or control-click, for you awesome Mac users) on the file listed under "Advanced Audio Coding" (it should be the one that says 5.9 MB) and save the linked file. You should be able to play it in iTunes or any other media player.

Or... check out all of Cowper's poetical works here!

Josh Hamilton

2008-07-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

I know I love baseball too much, but this guy's story is too good not to share. Josh Hamilton was a once-in-a-lifetime prospect, drafted number one in 1999, but never made it to the big leagues because of a growing addiction to crack. After hitting the bottom, he became a Christian and made it back to the majors mid-last year. All he's done this year is become a legit triple-crown threat, make the All-Star team and hit 28 home runs in the first round of the Home Run Derby.

Best of Spring 2008 Music

2008-07-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

So as to establish a tradition (perhaps a semi-annual one?), I am posting my Best of Spring 2008 mix. These songs were "new," in that they were at least new to me, from the Fall of '07 to the Spring of '08. Some of the bands listed are those that carried over from the Fall because their albums never escaped my head... Without further ado,

1. Radiohead- Bodysnactchers

-Is there a group of more brilliant, other-worldly musicians alive? Doubtfully so. J Rhea and I think that if there is one (all members still living) band that should get into heaven solely on merit, it would be these guys.

2. Jose Gonzalez- Down the Line

- So simple, so dark. He hates religion as much as he loves playing brilliant classical guitar.

3. Jon Foreman- I Am Still Running

-I'm not a big Switchfoot guy, but someone I respect told me to check out Foreman's solo Winter Ep. It's brilliant. There is such a forlorn nature to all of the songs. This one actually is my second favorite- the top choice would be "White as Snow," taken directly from Psalm 51.

4. Plants & Animals- Bye Bye Bye

-If a tremendous smile doesn't wash over your face about 30 seconds in, go see a shrink. You're probably not well. This song is just terribly amusing.

5. Belle & Sebastian- If She Wants Me

-My favorite song they've ever done. They write great melodies with lyrics that startle you. This is no exception.

6. These United States- The Business

-Seeing them play with The Triceratops in Jonathan Benton Booksellers was one of the highlights of my Spring. They were so chill, so enjoyable, and they just plain had fun.

7. Over the Rhine- Don't Wait for Tom

-My love for Tom Waits was amplified ten-fold by this song and its genius lyrics. Stunning.

8. Midlake- Young Bride

-A really great track from a mostly mediocre indie band.

9. The Apples in Stereo- Beautiful Machine, Pts. 3-4

-I am convince that this album will make me happy for the rest of my life. It is so light-hearted & free.

10. Fionn Regan- Be Good or Be Gone

-Perhaps his most accessible song, "Be Good or Be Gone" really shows how good he is at guitar.

11. A Fine Frenzy- Almost Lover

-The lyrics are hard to swallow, so true to life. This song will forever be associated with riding with Ryan Hamilton up to Notre Dame.

12. The Avett Brothers- Will You Return?

-Everything they touch is gold to me. Emotionalism is phenomenal. Just a great folk band.

13. These United States- Slow Crows Over

-"Slow crows over as Van Gogh sobers." I don't have a clue what they're singing about, but it doesn't seem to matter.

14. Brandi Carlile- How These Days Grow Long

-live, acoustic encore from Workplay. Girl can sing.

15. The Triceratops- Bear: A True Love Story

-I feel confident enough to say (now that WSO's been on Letterman) that The Triceratops might be Birmingham's finest local indie band. I might have seen then 10-15 times in the six-eight months before I came down to Fort Walton.

16. Erin McKeown- Hum

-"In the Spring of my 24th year"- all-too appropriate. And catchy. This song is guaranteed to stick in your head, at least until you get to...

17. Jaymay- Gray or Blue

-I love this song & this girl's voice. "I can't stop staring at your mouth without wondering how it tastes"

18. Fleet Foxes- Mykonos

-This song blows my mind. I had no idea that people still made music like this. It sounds like these newcomers channeled CSNY and imported them forty years later. I love it. This song is from their EP. Their full-length just came out. J Rhea seems to think it's great.

19. Devandra Banhardt- Lover

-A great sing-a-long type indie acoustic song.

20. The Apples in Stereo- Sun Is Out

-so freaking happy. guaranteed to put you in a better mood

Audio for the heaven talk

2008-07-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

Not that it's the best quality, but I figured, in case anyone wanted it, I would put up the audio of my talk about heaven (if nothing else, to give me some good pointers about how to speak better next time). Enjoy.

Preface: Everyone who walked into the church was greeted by St. Peter, who granted them admittance and gave them a halo. They walked into a room full of clouds made of pillow stuffing hanging from fishing line and terrible smooth jazz on repeat. We were going to play a terrible game of Bible Verse Bingo (in which, of course, everyone would win at the same time, though they had slightly different cards, and win the same prize: joy! hoorah!), but we couldn't pull it off. The five minutes before the talk, after having read the George Bernard Shaw quote below, I asked everyone to journal about what they really thought heaven was going to be like- not what they THOUGHT they were supposed to think about it, but what they REALLy thought about it...

Most people had a hard time spending five minutes describing heaven, which is frightening indeed, being that we'll be there forever and ever and always.

Sorry that the talk's in two parts. Blame it on Garage Band.
Heaven (part one)
Heaven (part two)

i hope this works...

Talk One- Heaven

2008-06-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

JOURNAL ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK HEAVEN IS LIKE (5 min- following their mock time in "heaven"- playing Bible bingo, elevator music, clouds everywhere, etc.)

“To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain… Yet what shall I choose? I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” -Phil 1:21-23

Colossians 3:1-3 (ESV) If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

A tip of the cap to Jonathan Edwards, Tim Keller, Randy Alcorn, Charles Spurgeon, J.I. Packer

Everyone has his or her thoughts; Mine stemmed mostly from Looney Tunes & All Dogs Go to Heaven. It was a boring place of sitting on clouds, pure white, & harps. It was a kid’s nightmare. Heaven sorta sucked.

“Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven” -George Bernard Shaw

“To me heaven is getting a harp, drinking a mint julep & asking Ronald Reagan questions” -S. Colbert

ASK THEM SOME OF THE THINGS THEY JOURNALED

Compare what you thought & what George Bernard Shaw thought to this:

“And oh! What joy will there be, springing up in the hearts of saints, after they have passed through their wearisome pilgrimage, to be brought to such a paradise as this! Here is joy unspeakable indeed, and full of glory- joy that is humble, holy, enrapturing, and divine in its perfection! Love is always a sweet principle; and especially divine love. This, even on earth, is a spring of sweetness; but in heaven it shall become a stream, a river, an ocean! All shall stand about the God of glory, who is the great fountain of love, opening, as it were, their very souls to be filled with those effusions of love that are poured forth from his fullness… Every soul there, is as a note in some concert of delightful music, that sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together blend in the most rapturous strains praising God and the Lamb forever… And thus they will love, and reign in love, and in that godlike joy that is its blessed fruit, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath ever entered into the heart of man in this world to conceive; and thus in the full sunlight of the throne, enraptured with joys that are forever increasing, and yet forever full, they shall live and reign with God and Christ forever and ever” -Jonathan Edwards

Heaven, which in both Hebrew and Greek is a word meaning "sky," is the Biblical term for God's home (Ps. 33:13 - 14; Matt. 6:9) where his throne is (Ps. 2:4); the place of his presence to which the glorified Christ has returned (Acts 1:11); where the church militant and triumphant now unites for worship (Heb. 12:22-25); and where one day Christ's people will be with their Savior forever (John 17:5, 24; 1 Thess. 4:16-17). It is pictured as a place of rest (John 14:2), a city (Heb. 11:10), and a country (Heb. 11:16). At some future point, at the time of Christ's return for judgment, it will take the form of a reconstructed cosmos [world] (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1).

Why Should We Spend Time Studying Heaven?

The summer before I came on Beach Project I was in Montana… analogy- which is more loving for someone who is battling depression, etc.: for me to pull them in front of a full-size mirror or for me to pull them outside & let them be awed by beauty wholly outside of them, wholly beyond them?

1. We were created for a person (Christ) & a place (Heaven)

John 14:2-3

When you think of heaven, don’t think of a place where all the best amenities that the world has to offer are there available for us, as if God were competing with the prosperity of the West. Imagine a place where the very best things that the world have to offer pale in comparison to being with the very God of the universe.

When He tells us that He is going to prepare a place for us, he spoke as a groom to his bride-to-be. These are words of love and romance. How would any bride who loves her husband-to-be respond to these words? She’d be thrilled. Not a single day would go by, not a single hour, in which the bride wouldn’t anticipate joining her beloved in that place he prepared for her to live with him forever.

Like a bride’s dreams of sharing a home with her groom, our love for heaven should be overflowing and contagious, just like our love for God. Our passion for God and our passion for heaven should be inseparable. The more I learn about God, the more excited I get about heaven. The more I learn about heaven, the more excited I get about God.

Hebrews 11:13- Strangers & exiles in this land

2. We’ll be there forever

If we believe it lasts forever, shouldn’t we know something about it?

Like 007 going to take on the dirty Commies in Russia. Of course he would prepare before he got there.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis paints a beautiful picture of heaven in the final book, The Last Battle. The book begins with a near collision of a railroad train, where the children are thrust into Narnia. But when their adventure is over, the children are afraid they will be sent back to earth again.

Having experienced the joys and wonders of Narnia, and the presence of Aslan—the Lion who is in fact Christ—the thought of returning to earth was unbearable. Then, in the final section, called “Farewell to the Shadow Lands”, Aslan, the great Lion, gives the children some wonderful news:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are, as you used to call it in the Shadowlands, dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia have only been the cover and the title page. Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the great Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on for ever; in which every chapter is better than the one before. -C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 183-184

3. Nothing will so affect the way that we live in this world

If we study heaven, we’ll be better able to enjoy this world and labor well in it now

“What the New Testament says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfill the plan, you won’t be going up there to him, he’ll be coming down here”. -NT Wright

“The kingdom of God… does not mean merely the salvation of certain individuals nor even the salvation of a chosen group of people. It means nothing less than the complete renewal of the entire cosmos, culminating in the new heaven and the new earth” -Anthony Hoekema

Why should we protect the environment? Why should we help the homeless? Why should we strive for peace in our world? For lives to be restored? For the hungry to have food? Because God is going to redeem this very world. No other religion in the world teaches this! So many other religions proclaim that this world is evil & religion is about escaping the desires of this world, but Christianity teaches that God is going to reconcile this very world (Romans 8:22- the world groans as it awaits new birth; Colossians 1:19-20- God is going to reconcile to himself ALL things through Christ’s death)

Our treasure is found elsewhere.

Matthew 6:19-21- store up for yourselves treasures in heaven

Edwards- What will it signify for us to hoard up great possessions in this world; and how can the thought of having our portion here be pleasing to us, when there is an interest offered us in such a glorious world as heaven is, and especially when, if we have our portion here, we must, when the world has passed away, have our eternal portion in hell, that world of hatred, and of endless wrath of God, where only devils and damned spirits dwell?

Heaven takes the pressure off this world and enables us to enjoy it.

If you insist that your work, your spouse, your sport, etc. is “it,” is worthy of all your hopes, it is certain to crack under the pressure. You won’t be able to truly enjoy these things unless you know that there’s something more. Does it not make sense: if you have a wildest fantasy, how do you feel the day after? Miserable. Does it make more sense to sacrifice now knowing that our greatest delight is still to come?

What Is Heaven Like?

1. Heaven is purest beauty & satisfaction beyond our ability to comprehend

Revelation 21:1-8 (note that there was a FIRST heaven; just because God is beyond time does not mean that heaven will not have a sequence of events or that we will not experience time. I think that the Bible makes it fairly clear that we will, because if we die before the “end of time,” we will be in heaven, but we will be awaiting Christ’s work to be finished so we can experience what John is talking about here, the joining of heaven and earth, and our joy will be so great that a thousand years will seem as a day) Read 2-8

Heaven is incredibly hard to describe. Every description that we have of heaven uses the word “like.” It’s like a city with clear gold; it’s like a marriage; it’s like a feast, etc. We dwell on it, fix our thoughts on what it is “like” and then our minds are blown as we learn that it is infinitely greater than the grandest of our thoughts.

1 Cor 2:9 “No eye has seen... what God has prepared for those who love him” Beautiful song? “No ear has heard” Magnificent image or description? “No mind conceived” Spurgeon said, “What a mistake for us to conceive such a thing! Heaven is not a place for the delight of mere sense; we shall be raised not a sensual body, but a spiritual body. We can get no conceptions of heaven through the senses; they must always come through the Spirit…But never think that imagination can picture heaven. When it is most sublime when it is freest from the dust of earth, when it is carried up by he greatest knowledge, and kept steady by the most extreme caution, imagination cannot picture heaven”

2. In many ways, heaven is a perfected earth. (Alcorn)

Revelation 21:9-21 is a physical description of the new Jerusalem. It is a literal city with literal dimensions.

Heaven is both a country (Luke 19:12; Heb. 11:14-16) and a city (Heb. 11:16; 12:22; 13:14; Rev. 21:12). A country is typically a large territory of various geographies, with citizens of diverse cultures and jobs, sometimes even languages, under one government that provides a common identity. A city is a place of many residences in near proximity. A city’s inhabitants are subject to the common government. Cities usually have varied and bustling activity, community events, education, arts, and visitors.

Heaven is and will be a place of great beauty, both natural created beauty and architecture, including streets of gold and buildings of pearls and emeralds and precious stones (Rev. 21:19-21). Heaven will have the advantages we associate with earthly cities, without the disadvantages

Other ways that heaven will be like earth: We will have bodies. There will be trees, fruit, animals, a river… We will continue to learn & grow in heaven. Once we get there, we won’t know everything automatically or else we would be God. We will have homes. We will recognize people from earth.

We will rest from our labors on earth (Rev. 14:13). There will be work in heaven, but heaven’s labor will be refreshing, productive and without futility or frustration. Perhaps it will be like the work Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15), before sin brought the curse on the ground, with its thorns (Gen. 3:17-19). We will be exercising leadership, since we will reign with Christ in heaven, and making important decisions. We judge or rule over the world and we judge and rule over angels (1 Cor. 6:2-3).

We will fellowship at the table with Christ and the redeemed saints from earth, communicating, story telling, and rejoicing with them (Matt. 8:11; Luke 22:29, 30; Rev. 19:9). Communication, dialogue, corporate worship, and other relationship-building interactions all take place in heaven. Saints and angels and God himself will interact together, building and deepening their relationships.

Above all else, we will worship God (Rev. 5:13-14; 7:9-12). Multitudes of God’s people, of every nation, tribe, people, and language, will gather to sing praise to God for his greatness, wisdom, power, grace, and mighty work of redemption

3. Above all else, heaven is a world of indescribably perfect & infinitely satisfying love (Edwards)

1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12 “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect comes, that which is in part disappears… Now we see but a poor reflection [through glass darkly] as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”

In heaven, God will so perfectly and fully manifest His love to and in every heart that there will be no need for any other spiritual gift. Why would we need prophecy when we all see God face-to-face? Why should some excel in hospitality when all love and are loved perfectly? When every need is forever met?

Since the God of love (1 John 4:16) himself, the One whose very name is love, lives in heaven, heaven is a world of love for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light… “Seeing he is an all-sufficient being, it follows that he is a full and over-flowing, and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that he is an unchangeable and eternal being, he is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love.”

On earth we experience glimpses of this love: in parent-child relationships, in friendships, in romantic relationships- all of these are gifts of God to show us glimpses of His love, little drops of His love. It’s not like these things existed, and then God said, “Oh yeah, those things are sort of like how I love you…” No. God created these things in order that we might understand in part what his love is like, but in heaven, dwells the God from who every stream of holy love proceeds. It’s like moving from a light drizzle to being submerged in the ocean.

EYES CLOSED (FOCUS): There are none but lovely objects in heaven. There are none that pretend to be Christians. There are no hypocrites. There is nothing there that is not pleasant. Not only is everything lovely & pleasant, everything is perfectly so. “That blessed world shall be perfectly bright, without any darkness; perfectly fair, without any spot; perfectly clear, without any cloud. No moral or natural defect shall ever enter there; and there will be nothing that is sinful or weak or foolish.” No matter where you turn your eyes, all you see is dignity, beauty, and glory.

Everyone is united, with one mind, to breathe forth their whole souls in love to God their eternal Father, and to Jesus Christ their common Redeemer, and head, and friend. Every heart is wedded to its spiritual husband, and all the members of heaven are gloriously united. There is not a single secret or open enemy among them all. Not a heart is there that is not full of love, not a single inhabitant that is not loved by all the others. Love is mutual, full, and eternal. The saints in heaven love God for his sake and each other for God’s sake. There is no pride or selfishness in heaven to hinder this love. There is no more hatred, coldness, or deadness of heart towards Christ or towards anyone else. No, such feelings will be as far as sin is from holiness & heaven is from hell. Neither shall the saints of heaven have any doubt as to the greatness of God’s love towards them, and they shall have no doubt of the love of all their fellow inhabitants in heaven.

No one in heaven will be hindered from full & complete enjoyment of each other’s love by distance; for they shall all be together, as one family, all as the children of God, as brother and sister, in their heavenly Father’s house. There shall be no misunderstandings between them or misinterpreting things that are said and done. There will no divisions due to social status, prosperity or poverty, political alliance, race, nationality, or anything else, but everyone will be allied to the same Savior, and all employed in the same business, serving and glorifying the same God, all belonging to one another.

Everyone will enjoy one another’s love in the greatest prosperity, in glorious riches and comfort, in the highest honor and dignity, reigning together in the heavenly kingdom- inheriting all things, sitting on thrones, all wearing crowns of life, and being made kings and priests unto God forever.

In heaven, nothing will age or decay. The heavenly paradise of love shall always be kept as in a perpetual spring, without autumn or winter, where no frosts shall blight, or leaves decay and fall, but where every plant shall be in perpetual freshness, and bloom, and fragrance, and beauty, always springing forth, and always blossoming, always bearing fruit.

Life in heaven will be without the least sinful failure or error. None shall ever come short. Every feeling and action you have or anyone has shall be made perfectly in love and shall be perfectly glorifying to God in every circumstance.

JOURNAL ABOUT YOUR PICTURE OF HEAVEN NOW (5 min)

How Else Should This Knowledge of Heaven Affect Our Lives Now?

1. It should make it easier for us to fight sin- If we focus our hearts on heaven, sin will seem so much less appealing. Thinking of heaven helps leads us inevitably to pursuing holiness.

Edwards- “So now his or her heart, since it has the taste of heaven within it, strives all the more to end sin in his life, longs for the holiness that his heart cries out.”

2. If we cast our hope on heaven, the weight of all else will be easier to bear.

Romans 8:18- I consider that these present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory to be revealed in us.

KKK butterfly analogy

If you feel empty, feel unsatisfied, hate the wars, hate the fact that you struggle with dependence on people, the falseness of Christians, etc., REJOICE! Even the sweetest fellowship that we enjoy here on earth is but the smallest glimpse. The closest we’ve ever felt in this life is still only, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, “seeing through a glass darkly,” but then we shall see face to face. So REJOICE! Nothing is as it should be. Nothing is as it WILL be! We HOPE in this world, but in the next one we will be SATISFIED completely. The Christian life is more about hope for the future than it is about satisfaction now, for THEN we will be satisfied.

If you lose hope, you WILL stop walking with God. Nobody can live without hope. When hope is gone, what reason do you have to live? None. What have we to hope for in this fallen world? Nothing. Cast your hopes in heaven. God will complete what He has begun. God will lead us into his kingdom.

Hope is designed to enable you to run until the very last breath that you take. Hope takes every event that happens in our lives and interprets it in light of what God has promised.

If we cast our hope fully in heaven, then the good things of this world will never distract our vision of God & the bad things of this world will never drag us away from Him.

3. We will boldly preach the gospel

Life is a marathon race. Paul exhorts us to run in such a way as to win the prize (1 Cor 9:24-27; Compare with Hebrew 12:1-3). What does that mean? It means that you run with everything that you have. It means that you run full force after the prize; you don’t look left or right, but set your sights and your heart fully upon the prize. Anyone who has run a race will be sure to tell you that the harder you run, the more sweet your rest will be in the end. So it is with heaven. The harder we have “run this race,” the more sweet our reward will be in heaven.

Side note: I know this may be confusing to some of you, as it was to me, but the Bible makes it clear when it speaks about “receiving crowns” that some will have hearts that are more able to be filled in Christ’s love than others, but our capacities will continue to expand like a balloon on the faucet that cannot burst.

We must remember, as J.I. Packer says, “when God rewards our works he is crowning his own gifts, for it was only by grace that those works were done… [and the] essence of the reward in each case will be more of what the Christian desires most, namely, a deepening of his or her love-relationship with the Savior, which is the reality to which all the biblical imagery of honorific crowns and robes and feasts is pointing.” Also, it is important to note that we will not be jealous of those “ahead” of us because we will be fully satisfied in Christ’s love and those that are above us shall also be that much more humble than us, as they will have even further understood how high and deep and long and wide is Christ’s love.

So, in this life we fix our eyes on Jesus, our prize, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us, because we know how sweet & glorious the prize that awaits us is.

So now, we’re going to break up into our rooms and read an article about multiplication discipleship. Multiplication discipleship is the idea that the best way to evangelize and reach the lost world is to use the model that Jesus gave us- that is, to preach to the masses and specifically pour into a small, select number. Jesus taught thousands, claimed twelve as “disciples,” and even had three that we’re “the closest.”

Think about this: if our salvation were merely for us, then why wouldn’t God have claimed us out of this world right after we became Christians? The reason that we’re left here on earth after we’ve been given this new life is so that we may proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth. It’s a job we must take much more seriously. We run after Christ, with heaven in our sights, trying with all our energy to bring as many people as we can along the way

Hebrews 13:14- For we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

The way may be arduous and painful and long and difficult, but what is that compared to the glorious rest that we shall enjoy once we reach that city of light and love?

In all your ways, fix your eye upon Jesus, who has gone to heaven as our forerunner.

Julio, How I Love Thee

2008-05-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

What does a world look like without Julio Franco playing major league baseball? I have no frame of reference. Julio, my favorite player of all-time, retired a little over a week ago at the ripe old age of 49. He'd been playing pro ball since 1982, two years before I, a COLLEGE GRADUATE, was even born. He played for nine major league teams, made three all-star teams, amassed around 4200 hits (if you include his time abroad), was the oldest player ever to hit a grand slam and the oldest player to hit a home run, was the last player to face a pitcher who'd faced Ted Williams, and countless other feats. ESPN Page 2 recently posted an article about the amazing Julio, the one-time party animal turned indescribably-disciplined born-again Christian.

An Alcoholic Apocalypse

2008-05-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

A drunk piano player sits alone upon the bench

And his words are slurred together, but message all makes sense

He prophesies while a full glass lies safely in his right hand

The world spins then once again rests his head upon the Grand

As he wipes away the dribble from his world-weary mouth

The smell of whiskey fills the air, before his lips spout out,

“All our tears o'er the years are kept in a jar in God’s overcoat;

His breath, it makes every snowflake to give us sinner’s hope

He tips the Mason jar, his right hand full of grace

His speech sways the saline, each to its sacred space

Water crystallizes into forms all unique

Like the souls of those children who cried themselves to sleep

In catacombs, I stray alone because I long to be afraid

Valley of bones, I call you home, safe from what my hands have made

Like stars pretending to still be alive

An apparition of the glory that once gave birth to light

I am a skeleton of the man that once had life"

His words break the silence, hands slam upon the keys

The notes of discordance bring the world to its knees

The soothsayer sings of future things too great to be known

Of gnashing teeth and endless grief and ungodly moans

He sings, “A piccolo is playing the dirge for the dead

And soldiers sigh where angels fear to tread

Creation kneels while the devil steals the crown of the earth

He masquerades in a clownish parade as the world awaits rebirth

A harvest of hemlock! For every girl and boy!

Let us mourn for our fathers and the fall of Mother Troy

The peace of childhood seems deluded naïveté

And if ignorance is bliss, growing dumb sure seems heavenly

Am I to blame for the blue-black flame that burns in place of my eyes?

What life is this? As if I exist to count shells where once were lives

Take a drink from the bottle of prosperity

Before the damning dark of disbelief

Removes the veil off our eyes to see the world's plea for mercy

The moon is turned to blood and the world is full of fright

The atheistic priests commiserate over pints

Rasputin sings while Jezebel brings a word from the Lord

Babies they weep while their mothers sleep, hands a-ready at the sword

Glory falls from the clouds and luminescence swallows sight

Everyone is blinded; everyone has seen the light

Satan rants while children dance, lamb and lion reconcile

The Son of Man, He takes the hand of every singing child

The prophet he falls, the patrons all go home

The world still spins, the world she still groans

The bartender asks, "Where have all the good men gone?

Where have all the good men gone?

Are we left here all alone?

No finality and no direction home?

Where, o where, did we all go wrong?"

The Smilingest Man I Ever Did Saw

2008-05-04T23:43:00.001-07:00

Josh Ritter (with Ingrid Michaelson opening)- Bottletree- Birmingham, AL 5/4/08

"Open Doors"

"Mind's Eye"

"To the Dogs or Whomever"

"Bright Smile"

"Wolves"

"Wait for Love"

"In the Dark"

"Good Man"

"Snow is Gone"

"Harrisburg"

"Wings"

"Rumors"

"Right Moves"

"That's What They Say"

"Folk Bloodbath"

"Empty Hearts"

"Kathleen"

"Song for the Fireflies"

Encore: "The Temptation of Adam" & "Lillian, Egypt"

Prayer After Speaking at the J. High retreat

2008-04-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

Jesus,

My soul is not at ease. I don’t know exactly what it is. I don’t know how to place this feeling. I don’t like speaking. I think that’s it. I think I thought that I did. But I surely don’t. I don’t feel like I communicate well. I fear that my words are crafted to suit the ears of men rather than to be pleasing to You, to pierce hearts and convict, to encourage, and to proclaim Your greatness. I am a worm and not a man. I have no good but You. I can do nothing good apart from You. You alone are worthy to be praised. Blessed be Your name, O Great Father.

I just pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be pleasing to You, my God. I pray that Your words of power and truth would not fall upon deaf ears, but that they would level our souls, that our prides would not be left standing in Your Spirit’s wake. Let us be laid to rest; let us be humbled. O that Your name alone would be great. Jesus wake souls up from the dead! Create in us pure hearts, O God. Renew us in Your unfailing love. Let us not stand upon our own strength, but upon grace and grace alone, for there is nothing more. We get you. If we persevere, if we continue in our faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out for us in the gospel, you give us the right to sit with you on your throne in heaven. For eternity. What endless joy and perfect peace will be found there. There is no one like You and no god but you. To whom will I compare You? Or who is Your equal? Who can stay your hand or say to You, “What have You done?” You need nothing, as if You could be served by human hands. At Your name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He never changes. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.

Who is like our God? He does as He pleases. It pleases Him to be with His children. To meet them, while they were yet sinners. He died for the ungodly. He who knew no sin became sin for us to reconcile us to God. He rose from the grave, and now He is seated at the right hand of God.

Thank you, Father. Thank you, Spirit. Thank you, Savior. I would be blind without You. I would be dead. Lead me back to the cross in repentance. May I stand in awe of who You are and what You have done.

It was never about what I could do or what I could say. It was never up to me to save any of these students. Only Your Spirit can bring people to Yourself. If you had wanted them to be here before 1140, You would have brought them here before then. Your plans are perfect, and You never fail. Thank You for that. Thank you for saving a sinner as twisted and as vile as me. Thank You for teaching me how to love on them, even if I am not as skilled at communicating with them as I wish I was.

Thank You that my words are death, and Yours are life. Thank You that I can do nothing on my own strength. Thank You that nothing is too hard for You. Move in power this weekend. Change hearts forever for Your name’s sake. May community and fellowship be built from this place. May walls be torn down and hearts restored. May Your name alone be exalted and lifted up. Praise the name of Jesus. He’s my rock. He’s my fortress, the only one I can fully trust. He has never let me down. He has always been there when I needed Him. Praise His incomparable name.

La Musique- The Best of Fall 2007

2008-04-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Songs that were new (at least to me) during the summer & fall of 2007.

Best of Fall 2007

1. Iron & Wine- Boy With a Coin

-Genius song on an otherwise let-down of an album.

2. Rufus Wainwright- Going to a Town

-I love Rufus. This song is majestic & dark. A killer combo.

3. Robert Plant & Allison Krauss- Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)

4. Wild Sweet Orange- Ten Dead Dogs

-Hopefully a sign of greater things to come from a fantastic local band.

5. Josh Ritter- The Temptation of Adam

-Life-changing love song. The lyrics are astounding. This is seriously one of the most amazing love songs I have heard in my entire life. Ritter is undeniably brilliant.

6. Fiona Apple- Extraordinary Machine

-I'm not sure that I've heard anything quite like this song.

7. Feist- 1234

-Hopelessly catchy. Just ask Keith Davis.

8. The Apples in Stereo- Same Old Drag

-Hopelessly catchy track from a hopelessly catchy, hopelessly optimistic album.

9. The Triceratops- I’m Sold

-Stewart is a stud. Simple. Unadorned. Beautiful. What a great local band

10. Amy Winehouse- Rehab

-She can sing. Even if she is a cracked-out tramp.

11. The Avett Brothers- The Ballad of Love & Hate

-Fiendishly clever folk-love song about two lovers: Love & Hate.

12. David Gray- The World to Me

13. The Weepies- Gotta Have You

14. Ray LaMontagne- Hobo Blues

15. Fionn Regan- Put a Penny in the Slot

-Plays guitar like Nick Drake, but he can sing. I read a review that said he was "Ireland's answer to Bright Eyes." He's not nearly as pissed off.

16. St. Vincent- Marry Me

-She is amazing. She used to play with Sufjan and open for Jose Gonzalez.

17. Bishop Allen- The News from Your Bed

-Listen to the 30 second clip on ITunes and TRY not to buy this brilliant pop song

Stolen Words

2008-04-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've tried to turn this into a song for a little while, but I haven't had much luck. I think I get too depressed when I work on it. The lyrics are still very much in the rough stage, but they don't have a melody to be crafted into, so it's been hard to work with them. I got the idea from a post-secret that read something like this: "I realized yesterday that I only love her because she loves me. It's not reason enough to stay, but it's still not enough to leave." I tried to craft the scene around that confession.

"Stolen Words"

Daylight cuts through the blinds in ribbons

And the light lays the whites across your skin
I roll over and give a tug against the sheets
And see the blush that's still clinging to your cheeks

Remember how the frosted air had colored them

The night our firm resolve gave way to sin?

You were cold; I took you in; we drank all night, and then slept in

But these thin walls could not contain

The guilt I couldn't place, the fear I couldn't name

and, oh, that unutterable shame

o how quickly three magic words leapt from my heart into your ears

They ran like lidocaine through your veins, dissolving every fear

I wasn't sure I meant them, but they sure sounded nice to hear

In these still moments, I'm alone with my thoughts

I feel the coming wrath that those words hath surely wrought
I can see the sickening truth of it all
How my clever, stolen words made you fall

As you sleep, I dream of ways I could deny

That every tender word I spoke was a godforsaken lie
Because I know now I only love you because you love me
It's not enough reason to stay, no, and not enough to leave

You dream of children, I dream of ways to flee
And now I see.... finally....

That indescribable something that drives men to cheat

Proverbial Wisdom

2008-04-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

“The poor man and the oppressor have this in common: the Lord gives sight to them both” –Proverbs 29:13

I had been taught to “love his neighbor as himself” and to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” but this verse captured my attention further. If we grasp this, we can stare our brother’s killer in the eyes and forgive. Why? Because we understand that it is the Lord who has given us both sight, that God has ordained both of our steps, both of us are made in His image, both of us are undeserving of grace and deserving of eternal punishment for our treasonous rebellion, both of us experience his common grace every day. We can see that even this unfathomable sin will work for His glory- even this shall be made right.

“I am the most ignorant of men; I do not have a man’s understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the name of his son? Tell me if you know! Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to his words, or He will rebuke you and prove you a liar. Two things I ask of you, O Lord, do not refuse me before I die;; keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” –Proverbs 30:2-9

My attempt at "Such Great Heights" on the banjo

Songs of Hope

2008-03-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the mountains, here is a link to download the bluegrass night of worship at Campus Outreach at Samford on March 11, 2008. I apologize that the tracks are not split up, but I don't really know how to do that just yet... The featured players: Keith Davis (banjo), Ryan Warden (miscellaneous hand-struck instruments & intricate third-part harmonies), Alyson Snow (vocals), Trey Wagoner (improvisational violin/fiddle action), Cliff Cook (mandolin), and myself (vocals & guitar). We played "Come Thou Fount, "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand," "Amazing Grace," "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go/I'll Fly Away," and "O Praise Him." It's not the best quality, we don't mesh all that well at times, but it's bluegrass, so it's beautiful, it's fun, and it speaks to the soul. Enjoy.

Quotes of the Day:

"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise." -Annie Dillard

"The end of wisdom is design; the end of goodness is doing good. To suppose these perfections not to be exerted would be to represent them as insignificant. Of what use would God's wisdom be, if it had nothing to design or direct? To what purpose his almightiness, if it never brought anything to pass? And of what avail his goodness, if it never did any good?" -G. Tennent

From the top of Slieve Donard

2008-03-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Pictures compliments of Dwight Castle

"...The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least me can do is try to be there." -Annie Dillard

I spent this Saturday climbing the top of Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in Northern Ireland. Some beauty is so staggering that words run in fright from the tongue for fear of being clumsily lumped together into a dreadfully paltry description. When we reached the peak, with the wind beating us like a jealous lover, furious that we’d intruded upon his secret space, we were left completely speechless.

From atop the wall, we could see for miles in all directions- a range of emerald mountains at our backs and the rugged, grey-blue Irish Sea on three sides. God’s righteousness is like those mighty mountains. Everything around them changes, grows, retracts, and develops, but the mountain sits unchanged, unmoved, unaffected. Revolutions of thought and science make man more and more “modern,” but The Moutain. Is. Constant. Like the sunrise. Always faithful. Always the same.

I looked upon the homes far below the mountain near the shore. With one eye closed, I held my thumb up over them. I was reminded of the astronaut who went into space and held his thumb over the earth, and then of the cosmonaut who said, with great joy, that he “had not found God in space.” I think it would have been far more surprising to learn that he had. I looked upon the tumultuous sea that sailors and fisherman and warriors had no doubt crossed these past millennia.

Even in Ireland, the sea is still the sea. It’s amazing how just feeling the breeze and watching the waves angrily crash upon the rocks can be so comforting. There’s such constancy. Rough waters conjure up so many memories for me: sailing in the Keys after 8^th grade; Destin my freshman year; the failed sunrise of St. Augustine; Joseph Rhea & I fighting the hurricane waters of Panama City; So many nights on Beach Project spent with the air full of Black & Milds and talk of God. The water puts my soul at ease. When I look at it, I am consumed by it; I am brought to peace. It is such a reminder of how small I am, how small my problems are, and how great & constant God is. When I look at it, I wonder how anyone can think of their own importance, how great they are, or how big their accomplishments are. The ocean would destroy them without thinking. The ocean would destroy them simply by being itself and doing what it does (much like the glory of the divine, eh C.S.?)

I looked again upon the homes and shops below. How small they seemed. How insignificant. How frivolously their inhabitants surely live their lives, unaware or purposefully ignorant of how tiny & fleeting they are. It is so easy for me, in my routine in the concrete jungle, to grow self-important, to forget the fragile, brief nature of my existence. I will pass; my body will decay and nothing will remain of me. My flesh will surely be consumed by creeping insects and returned to the earth from whence it came. Rot will not fail to eat my bones. It seems that one of the most important things that I can do is to simply remind myself of the inevitability of my own demise and to live as I should wish that I had lived, supposing I live to old age.

The earth is about 4.5-4.7 billion years old. Countless tests all point to it. Even rocks taken from the surface of the moon give the same report. An American man generally experience seventy or so heliocentric revolutions before he is laid bare upon the cold steel and made to look pleasing, to be beautiful, before the world one final time.

Maybe that, then, is the fundamental quest, our raison d’etre, the reason why we must shout our barbaric yawps before the race of man before we go. We are all on the quest for beauty… to behold it…. to be called it… to know it by its name and have it wait for us solitarily by the fireplace in the lobby after the doors have closed for the night.

Mute-inducing beauty is what drove me to the top of the hill. It is what I came to see. In the face of something so magnificent and timeless, I am still. Be at rest once more, o my soul. You have caught a glimpse of the passing backside. Let your face now radiate unveiled that the world might now the beauty you’ve seen.

This beauty is a gift to us; all of creation stands as an ebenzer to us: Behold, I AM! I AM truth; I AM freedom; I AM beauty.

The waves swallow the shoreline again and again. As spectacular as they seem, as timeless as the ocean and these mountains are, they are but glimpses. They only point us towards the epicenter of the beatific earthquake, towards the truth of our incomparable artist, the Unmoved Mover. He is beauty and eternity defined. And He is asking us to behold these shadows of Him and to faith that He is so much more than we could know or dream of. To praise and wait in hope for the day when we will no longer see through a glass darkly, but face to face.

Even the earth, the sky, and the seas are groaning with death. Every mountain, even this one upon which I stand, will be brought low. Even these hills are fleeting. But for now they stand like holes punched in a black canvas in front of a spotlight, revealing the brilliant light that lies underneath, giving undeniable evidence to what lies beyond the present darkness. One day the canvas will be ripped from top to bottom, and the Artist will paint His final masterpiece, where he, the Great Floodlight of truth and beauty, will rest with his children, the partakers of his glory.

Beauty is only made true when it is shared. We are all the proselytizers; let us proclaim the beauty of the King who was and is and is to come.

God the Gardener in America

2008-02-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I heard Dr. David Platt echo the words of Derek Webb and so many others by declaring that, statistically, our churches are losing relevancy by the day. The American church has never been so irrelevant to today’s culture. Congregations are not only generally more empty, they’re less impactful. America, it seems, no longer cares to hear about brimstone, they have their weights and wallets to worry about; they no longer need to hear about morality, Oprah instructs them on how to live; they no longer need grace, they never believed in sin.

I have to wonder… is Christ pruning the American church? It seems like the children of the simple pew-fillers of yesteryear now are thankful for that extra two hours of sleep each Sunday morning. Those who might have once sat in church, believing that they, well, believed, now make no such mistake. Going to church, save in a few small pockets across the South, is no longer the norm- it is a much more radical notion than it used to be. Maybe Christ is pruning away the branches of the American church to have a healthier core that is more apt to grow. If He is sovereign, which He is, doesn’t it make sense that He would be working even this for His and our good? That He was purifying and preparing His bride to receive Him even when it seems like His bride, at least in the Western world, is growing weaker?

Just as in pruning, where the excess is cut away so that the smaller, healthier bush can truly thrive and grow as it should, perhaps this is what God is doing to the American church. And what do we do in response? Beg for God to water and feed this mustard plant; reach out to the lost and dying world with every ounce of strength that we have; encourage, challenge, and rebuke one another in love; and wait patiently for the coming King.

Talk with Clayton about Regeneration/Second Birth

2008-02-06T09:19:00.001-08:00

REGENERATION

Regeneration- an act of God in which He imparts spiritual life to us; it is being “born again.” It cannot be undone

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him:

John 1:13 “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God”

It is God’s will; just as we did not choose to be physically born, we did not choose to be “born again”- it is something that “happens” to us

Questions from last week
(1) Have faith and repentance continued to be a part of your life?
(2) How does God save us? From his perspective, how do we become Christians? Is there anything we could do screw it up?
-Ephesians 2:1-10… we were dead in our sins, but God, because of His great love for us and not because of anything good that we had done, made us alive in Him. It is solely by grace that we have been saved through faith; we are saved by a gift of God.

-2 Timothy 2:11-12 “The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us”

-Mark 13:13 “Any you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved”

-John 10:26-30 “But you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one”

-It is not that God demands perfection or any “good works” for us to get into heaven, but if we move towards doing these things, it is a sign that we have been “reborn”, since “every one who does what is right has been born of Him” (1 John 4:7). Once He has saved us, there is nothing that can separate us from Him. How sweet is that?

2 Corinthians 5:14-19; John 3:1-8; 1 John 5:1-5; Romans 6:1-14; Ezekiel 36:26-27

-What does it mean to be a new creation? What are some of the differences between a person who is a “new creation” and a person who has reformed their life to be a better person? Between a Christian and Gandhi? Romans 8:8 “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” No matter how “good” a non-Christian seems, the Bible says that all their righteousness, every good thing they’ve ever done, is as filthy rags before God (Isaiah 64:6). Non-Christians can do seemingly “good” acts because they were created in the image of God, but they do not give honor to God in their actions, so, even what seems to be “good” is sin before God. We, as Christians, however, are “new creations” in that we stand before God and He sees Christ’s righteousness in place of our own. We can give glory and honor to God because we have been made clean by Christ’s blood.

-What did Jesus mean in John 3 when He said that you couldn’t see the kingdom of God unless you were born again? What is the significance of this?

2 Corinthians 4:4-6 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake/ For Gods, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 2:14 “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned”

-What does it mean to be dead to sin and alive to God? How does this change occur and how does it affect our daily life?

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone , the new has come”

Talk with Clayton about Faith

2008-02-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

FAITH- January 30, 2008
(John 3:16-21; John 12:11; John 1:12; ACTS 20:21)

Major Points from Last Week (Repentance)
1. Repentance is a gift from God that brings us back to Him
2. We become more like Christ only through a life of active repentance

Questions from Last Week
1. How are faith and repentance intertwined? Can you have one without the other?
-You cannot have one without the other. They are both tied together in the act of conversion, our willing response to the gospel, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation. Turning from sin is called repentance, and the turning to Christ is called faith (if we agree that repentance and faith are tied together and cannot be separated, this means that people cannot accept Jesus as “Savior” without also accepting Him as “Lord”).

2. What is the difference between the belief that the demons have about Jesus (James 2:19) and the belief that saves in John 3:16-21?
-Knowledge is not enough, nor are knowledge and approval (see Nicodemus in John 3:2; he had concluded that Jesus must be from God, but still did not believe in Him). In addition to knowledge of the facts of the gospel (“How can they believe in Him of whom they’ve never heard?” Romans 10:14) and approval of them, I must decide to depend on Jesus to save me.

-Saving faith is personal trust in Jesus Christ alone as a living person for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life with God.

John 1:12- Much as we would receive a guest into our homes, John speaks of receiving Christ.

Why is it dangerous to separate faith from repentance?
(1) Offers false security to those who say they believe or have “prayed a prayer”
(2) Cheapens the power of what God has done

Acts 26:18- Just like repentance, faith is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-10

Questions for next week

(1) Have faith and repentance remained a continuing part of your Christian life?
(2) How does God save us? From his perspective, how do we become Christians? Is there anything we could do screw it up?

Lessons from 2007

2008-01-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Prayer is the primary means by which God conforms our hearts to His own; it is our primary work here in this world; it is how God has chosen to work in this world- by hearing and responding to the prayers of His people; to pray without ceasing effectively (i.e. as a "righteous man," whose prayers are always effective) one must continually be "made right" before the Lord, i.e. practice repentance.

The only way that a person becomes more like Christ (that is, his/her character more closely models that of Christ's) is through an active searching of the heart for sin (and being willing to pray until sin is revealed in the heart as sin, that is, something grievous and akin to treason before God, something deserving immediate and infinite punishment because it is an offense against someone infinitely worthy) and repentance thereof. If we are not repenting, we are certainly not growing.

Every moment of every day we are called to be ministers of His word. That is, when we don't want to let out lights shine brightly before all men, we need to repent and pray for God to change our sinful hearts because we are but vapors and these days are evil.

We serve a God who will one day make all things right. Even so, the heart of God cries out for us to plead and act on behalf of justice in this world.

Discipline is one of the man of God's best friends.

The Lord loves a humble, contrite spirit and hates American self-sufficiency. Oh how vital it is to remember how utterly dependent upon Him we are at all times for all things.

The only way that two sinners can exist in a relationship that is mutually encouraging and glorifies God is to found it solely upon grace and to practice honesty.

God is good; that is enough.

The Lord is trustworthy in all that He does.

A community of love and grace that is unafraid to practice discipline may be the greatest gift any believer could hope to receive.

I am but a small vessel- the Lord may use me as He wills, with or without my consent. How amazing it would be to never be remembered, but to have only left Christ's imprint upon the world, for the glory of His name.

I have re-learned how to use my gifts of "reading" people for good (that is, for spiritual encouragement) instead of using it for selfish gain. I have learned how to use it to motivate, how to use it to raise questions, and how to help people discover answers on their own.

I have learned that the Puritans were studs, and I pray that God, one day soon, gives me the desire to study the Word like Edwards.

God is at work in all people at all times everywhere to varying degrees, and my primary job in evangelism is to simply pray for discernment as to where the Spirit is already at work and to pray that the Spirit continues to work unto salvation, as only it can.

We can love each other because we were first loved. We can be Christ and the church only because He was Hosea while we were yet Gomer. We love because we were loved while were still unlovable.

If I do not love my brother or sister in Christ, I do not love Christ.

I may be called to preach- a call that I have passionately resisted for three years now.

I am just like Lazarus.

I am a sick man; I am a wretched man.

God does not need me for anything. He can accomplish (and WILL accomplish) His purposes with or without us. He never fails. It is my most awesome privilege to be used in the service of the King and to partake in His glory.

reflection on Isaiah 63

2008-01-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

You said to us, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.” And You became our Savior. But we grieved Your Holy Spirit; we turned in sin against You towards other gods- believing that our joy was somehow to be found elsewhere, outside of Your presence, where there is the fullness of joy. You hardened our hearts, O Lord, so that we feared You not and could not follow in Your ways. Our eyes were blind so that we could not see the light of the glory of the gospel of Your truth. Our hearts were made dull, and we chased fleeting pleasures, filled our broken cisterns, and drank from wells certain to run dry.

We stood condemned before the Maker and Master of all the universe, who alone is to be praised and feared forever. He who made, governs, and has purposed all of creation for the glory of His name was not pleased with the creature that bore His image. His anger and wrath burned against them, against us. For the honor of His name and for the sake of His holiness, His wrath must be satisfied lest His justice be made cheap. And yet, seemingly, the apocalypse of His judgment was withheld, a common grace was bestowed upon all mankind, even those who sought Him not.

Man frivoled in their sin, content to ignore and spit in the face of the Lord, to commit treason against God Most High in the name of themselves, building a tower to commemorate their greatness and building doctrine to belittle the greatness of God.

Yet the signs were there. Signs and wonders and words of prophecy were spoken declaring that one day, all things would be set right. One day in Jerusalem the great and perfect plan of God Himself was revealed. Impossibly grievous and unforgivable sin met the glorious and indescribably righteous plan of God. What we had planned for evil, God intended for good, penultimate good. Good enough to redeem any man from His sins, to loose any woman from her chains.

And the unbelievable greatness and vastness of God was revealed (though we continue to see but through a glass darkly). From before the creation of the world, God had planned this moment- the crucifixion of His perfect Son, the God-man- to offer forgiveness to mankind and to reveal His attributes and glory all the more clearly to His most beloved creation. And in this substitutionary atonement, the atoning sacrifice of one man whose worthiness cannot be contained in words, showed that God had planned from the beginning- His unflinching, unfailing love for man and unchanging glory and righteousness in all His actions.

For now, He waits, not wanting that any should perish, but that all should come to redemptive faith in His son, until the day in which the moon shall turn to blood and His robe shall be tainted the same as He treads the winepress in wrath alone, setting all things right. He will trample down those who, even in the face of offered forgiveness, do not run to the cross in repentance. And the honor of His holiness shall be known in all the earth.

And there will be a new heavens and new earth, and the chosen, adopted sons and daughters of the King will sit with Him on His throne, having been made perfectly clean, having been given new names and glorified bodies, and each day shall be better than the last.

thoughts on becoming an author

2007-12-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

it's been said that there can be no true confession before man, and I think that, to a large degree, that's true. Man will always try and paint himself up prettier than he is in actuality because he, in his heart of hearts, still believes that sin is a game of comparison. he doesn't want to believe that he is truly as bad as anyone else. and so within his "confession" there are subtle lies and knowing omissions. and his "confession" serves as a testimony to his vanity and to his lack of faith in the all-surpassing grace of God.

could i write a book? hmmm....

if i endeavor to do this, to write in such a way that my soul is laid bare, i must make this a practice in honesty. there mere thought of such a practice is terribly frightening. i am bound to disappoint everyone i know. i am a far greater sinner than any of them have imagined. of this i have no doubt. i can imagine the look of horror upon my grandmother's face as she reads of my sexual failures, the anger of my grandfather when he learns of my loose tongue, the great sadness of my mother when she learns of how i turned children's books into drinking games, and the cold shoulder sure to come from the ministers that i have served alongside when they see the thoughts of my twisted, perverse mind.

all of these i must be willing to face for the glory of His name. i must stand steadfast and believe that He who set me free from the bondage of sin and death will surely hold me fast in His love. i must believe that the single greatest thing that could ever happen to me is that my sins would be exposed before the world like they were plastered up on the billboards of every highway in the country so that i would have no place to hide. i couldn't run anymore- the only place that i could flee would be into the sweet, ready arms of Jesus, clinging to Him with all my might. He'd be all I'd have. He's all I have any way, and maybe it's high time i realized that.

i owe the last realization to derek webb.

i know You are my Father; You've called me Your kid

2007-12-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

i don't know how it is that i always seem to be surprised by God's perfect timing, but it never fails that i am amazed by how perfectly He orders everything and how He is continually working things together for my good.

i've learned that much of my earnest assesment of my life takes place in the shower. i'm not exactly sure why this is- it certainly is inconveinent to battle life's tormenting questions of purpose while sleepily scrubbing myself with slippery soap sans stilo- but it happens almost daily. as i rest my head upon the shower wall, water tumbling down my face, i am plagued with the questions of my future. this has happened for as long as i can remember, but this year the
magnitude and volume of these answerless questions has intensified.

i work for a high school discipleship ministry and i substitute teach. i fear that i am good at neither. i am almost a year out of college now and no closer to uncovering who i am and who i was made to be. this semester alone i have seriously considered going back to school
to pursue a master's in english, going to divinity school, trying to work for ucf, going through assesment for campus outreach staff, seriously pursuing a folk music career, seriously considering worship leading, going back to school to study philosophy, writing, getting a
teaching certificate, continuing my four-job way of life, and, most recently, abandoning hope. i think that i can be rather successful in the last pursuit, but only in the last pursuit.

yesterday i went to lunch with a friend of mine named caleb chancey. i use the word "friend" rather lightly here, because, until yesterday i hardly knew anything about him. i knew that he was cool, that he took pictures, that we shared some mutual friends, but that was about the extent of our friendship. i wasn't substitute teaching (which makes a day seem even more unproductive and useless), so we decided to meet at a new, trendy cafe on 2nd avenue.

we enjoyed chicken paninis and sugar cane infused ginger ale as we talked over our lives. caleb seemed to stumble upon being a photographer- he studied english at several different schools before landing in birmingham at uab, dropping out to begin his work as an intern for abryan photography- but his purposefulness day-to-day was astounding. he still isn't entirely sure what he wants to do with his life, but each day he wakes up with the assurance that he is where God wants him for right now. and then he goes at it, full force, as though working for the Lord and not for man. "if i do this, take pictures, every day for the next fifty years, that'd be great, but if God takes it away tomorrow, i'd be fine with it, and i'd do whatever it is He wants me to do," he said, "it might even be good to have less options."

what struck me was caleb's true dedication to live each day for the glory of God, wherever He is and whatever that entails. it seems like such a simple lesson, but somehow i'd been missing. somehow, i'm sure, i'll miss it again. while there is no fault in planning for the future and looking ahead, there is great fault, even deep sin, in fearing this unknown, as if God were not in absolute control, as if the unknown to me were unknown to Him, as though He did not order the stars into their place and govern the movement of every particle to the utmost of the glory of His name. the simple lesson gave way to a great and terrible truth: my faith is so weak.

Jesus again and again urges us to have faith like children, trusting in the goodness and love of our great Father. Something seems to happen to us as we age, as we "grow up"- we feel that we grow more wisened, more aware of the "ways of the world," and we lose our innocence. cynicism replaces optimism. sarcasm replaces enthusiasm. popularity replaces individuality. and a numbness whitewashes our souls, where we come to distrust everyone and we mask our doubt with the words of faith we know that we are supposed to believe in.

why can't we trust God? why don't i? why do i live as though i trust Him with nothing, as though He were somehow less-trustworthy than i? Christ, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Resolutions, First Draft

2007-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Based on the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

Undestanding that I am incapable of doing anything without the aid of God, I plead by His mercy that He might help me keep these resolutions, should they be agreeable to his will, for the glory of His name.

1. Resolved, to live with all my might for the glory of God, to order my steps to walk as Jesus would have walked, to act in such a way as displays the light of Christ that has redeemed my soul from death, to labor that others might know the riches of his mercy and grace, and to continually venture to explore ways to promote the aforementioned things.

2. Resolved, to examine myself to see whether I have neglected any part of the above resolution at the end of every week, month, and year, and to entreat upon the mercies of God in repentance of all that I have neglected.

3. Resolved, to think often of the great promise of heaven and its joy, knowing how lacking my mind is to comprehend its treasures, and often of hell, that it might inspire within me great compassion for my fellow man, to pray for them and plead them with all my might to turn from their sin and cast themselves upon Christ, and that it would remind me of the depths of my sin, what I deserve, and cause me more and more to loathe the sin within me in order to root it out.

4. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God (Edwards, Resolution #8).

5. Resolved, that I should live in all aspects as I should wish I had done at the hour of death, and to never do anything that I would be afraid to do at the hour of death or at the return of Christ.

6. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same (Edwards, Resolution #28).

7. Resolved, to pray with an urgency and passion as though prayer were my foremost labor in this life and the primary means by which God conformed my will unto His own: to beg of the Lord to spare sinners from hell and to destroy the sin within me and to praise and thank Him for His greatness and goodness.

8. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this, all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness, of which I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance (Edwards, Resolution # 65), and to lay bare my soul and sin before my fellow man for their edification and to ask for their prayers.

9. Resolved, to fight against the sin that lives within me with every breath, no matter how unsuccessful I may be in the fight, and to trust that Christ, the Good Shepherd, will lead me to Himself, that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it.

10. Resolved, to simply speak the truth in all matters, excepting in the preservation of life, liberty, or happiness to be taken unjustly.

11. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer (Edwards, Resolution #53).

12. Resolved, to imitate that which I admire in others and to avoid imitating that which is less than praiseworthy.

13. Resolved, to live in such a way that possessions were of no consequence of me, but the state of others' souls were of infinite importance; to live in such a way as that I have no more than what I need when I die and that I have labored to my utmost to see that others enter into the Kingdom of God upon their deaths.

14. Resolved, to be unashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation for all who believe.

Let Me Not Be Ashamed of the Gospel, For It Is the Power of God for Salvation...

2007-11-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

On my way back home this morning, as I listened to Ben Harper’s “God Fearing Man,” my focus was held by the feeling of rot deep in my stomach- it was a mixture of coffee on an empty stomach, a slight nausea from lack of sleep, and a sickening sense of guilt flavored ever-so-slightly by a tablespoon of shame.

My heart had been stirred by Nikki Wilcox’s prayer to open First Priority thirty minutes earlier, that we all would live lives of “unashamed faith,” and yet, though I amen’d her words, it took me no more than ten minutes before I again cowered behind the man others wished I was, affirming the lies they held as truth and preserving false unity at truth’s expense… My soul has grown so weary of false representation, and I have resolved and purposed myself over and again to be as genuine and forth-coming as I possibly can, and even still, in a moment of truth, I faltered, preferring to maintain decorum at the expense of the offensive & liberating truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The speaker this morning began his sermonette by quoting a story by Joel Olsteen, a man whom he highly recommended and a man who’s mere name compels my stomach into turmoil with disgust, bile, and rage. The lesson was on “God’s good versus God’s best,” and it was a series of pleasant stories with Jeremiah 29:11, of course, misappropriated for an Olsteen-esque “God wants to give you the absolute best” conclusion. What the speaker meant, of course, by “God’s best” is exactly what Olsteen means by it- though cleverly disguised, both men really are saying that, as Christians, God desires to give unto us precisely what WE want instead of what He wants for us (Adding to my misery, the speaker also misremembered the stories of Jonah & the big fish as well as Moses’ stuttering problem). And thus, like the Levite in Judges 17 &18, God becomes a means to an end, a way to get what we want. God is made into our own image, fashioned just the way we would like him to be… cute and cuddly, overwhelmingly generous, dismissing justice for the sake of mercy, and spoiling us rotten…

After it was over, the speaker approached me amongst students and told me, “Great job.” I stammered back, “Yeah, you too.” He followed this exchange with his grand plan for the two of us: we should hit the road together, a la Third Day and David Nasser, with him as a speaker and me leading worship. I laughed it off. “All right, all right... Except we’ll be sure infuse some youthful vigor, right?” I shot back. He chuckled, as did the half-dozen students still in the choral room.

Sitting back in my car, with Harper crying, “I am a God-fearing man” into my ears over the clang of his steel guitar, I realized the implications of what I had just done to those six students… I had just given affirmation to this man and, by implication, to his prosperity gospel. And there was no way to right this wrong… The kids were gone… The trite words of this well-meaning man were echoing in their heads while bold truth had been painted o’er for a more “pleasant” scene…

Dear Sweet Merciful Lord, let me be a God-fearing man and refuse to stand by any and all falsehoods declared in Your name, for the sake of Your glory among the nations.

Various Notes on John 11

2007-11-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

These are all the various (and non-linear) notes that I could remember from reading John 11, namely Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, as I sat in Mrs. Breeze's class during my off-period, sans Bible.

"This sickness is not unto death"- Jesus knows that Lazarus' illness will not result in death, that is, the ultimate daeth- eternal separation from God, i.e. the only death that truly matters. For, as Kierkegaard would attest, what good would it have done for Lazarus to have been brought back to life if Christ were not He who is the Resurrection and the Life. Humanly speaking, death is the end, but for the Christian, it is merely the turn of the page, a minor event in the scale of eternity. Following suiy, just as the ordinary man is afraid of death and shrinks back from it, like a child is fearful of the things that should not frighten him, the Christian, like the adult, understands that which is truly terrifying.

The disciples urge Jesus not to go back to Judea, because the Jews there want to stone him. Knowing this, Jesus goes any way, fully aware that raising Lazarus from the dead would ultimately seal his own death. Christ goes to Judea knowing that He has already begun his march to the cross. Lazarus (also viewed allergorically as us, the Christians) is brought to life by Jesus's self-motivated decision to give himself up to death, his willingness to bear the punishment of the sins of man. As Caiaphas so prophectically speaks, after he and other leaders begin the plot to kill Jesus immediately following Lazarus' resurrection and once many Jews (including, no doubt, some of those who had previously wanted to stone Him) began to believe and place their trust in Him, "It is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish." He speaks prophetically with only a false understanding the words he has proclaimed. Surely Caiaphas meant that, since He likely assumed that Jesus was like the other "Messiahs" that had come and gone, those who had led revolts against the Roman authorities, that it would be better to "strike the shepherd" so that the "sheep will scatter" than to have the full force of the Roman army to come and, once and for all, blot out the name of "Israel" from the face of the earth. But what Caiaphas did not grasp, and what the Apostle Paul so obviously understood, is that, by Jesus's death, all those who are Israel (meaning all those who are truly a part of Israel, including those who have been grafted in and not necessarily all those who have been descended from Abraham, those who have been "cut off," for, as it is written, "not all those who are of Israel are Israel). By his wounds, we are healed.

Notice also how Jesus meets us where we're at in how He deals with Mary and Martha. He meets Martha, who tells him that if He had been there Lazarus would not have died. She adds, "But even if You will it now, you can bring him to life." Jesus responds, "Your brother will rise again." I feel like Martha's next response is similar to how we respond when someone attempts to comfort us after the death of a loved one by saying, "He/she is in a better place now"- words meant to elicit peace, but words that merely sound cliched. Many Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead, so (my interpretation, which I feel is validated by Martha's response and Jesus's response back to her) is to blithely (I think) reply, "I know that he will rise again on the last day..." Jesus rebukes her, calls her faith to awaken once more, screams into her soul, "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. Anyone who believes in me..." essentially, any one who believes in Him will not die even though he dies. Jesus calls her faith into action- for her heart to mean what her words say. She responds back to Jesus by declaring that He is the Son of God. Her faith comes alive.

As for Mary, He meets her in an entirely different way. He weeps. It is incredibly important to remember that Jesus, as evidenced earlier in the passage, is fully aware that Lazarus is dead well before the news has even reached him, that He is convinced that Lazarus's death is not the final story, but that Lazarus died so that the glory of God would be displayed, and that He did not weep when he met Martha, though she too was Lazarus's sister. He weeps with Mary, because ours is a God of compassion, who mourns with those who mourn, who comes alongside us in our pain, agreeing that ours is a fallen world, that this is not the way that things should be, and comforting us with his promises and messages of hope.

Lazarus as us: Lazarus is dead- has been for four days and the stench of his rotting flesh is now noticable. There is no dount that he is dead. We, as Ephesians 2 declares, were "dead" in our sins. As Paul declares elsewhere, we have the "aroma of death" about us. There is no dount that we are dead. There is no hope for a dead man. A dead man cannot raise himself to life. A dead man can't choose to get up and walk. He's dead. He can do nothing but rot. He's going to stay dead and be returned back to dust. Then... though there is no hope for us, Jesus says to Lazarus, just as He says to our dead souls, "Arise! Come forth!" Now, where there was death, there is now LIFE! He speaks and we rise! His words give us rebirth! We rise and come to Him, as if we could do anything else. Anyone who has been dead and understands what life is does not wish to return to death, but follows the source of life.

Clayton helped to start this chain of thoughts- Jesus also commands the people standing outside the tomb to take the "robes of death" off of Lazarus. He is alive, but still covered in the linen wrappings that were the mark of his death. Two things:

(1) Lazarus as us again- though we have been given new life, we still have within us our sin nature, the cords of death that so easily entangle us. Slowly but surely, as we come to truly understand what it means to be ALIVE, to not have to be dead, to arise and follow Christ, we go to work taking off these clothes of death, removing sin from out lives so that we make have more of the appearances of being alive and less of the appearances of death, that we are more able to move and to run after Christ, that we are no longer dragged down by these things which marked our former selves.

(2) Lazarus is aided in removing the "robes of death" by the living people around him. Look at this in relation to the body of Christ. One of the primary duties of the body, of those that follow Christ, is to help those newly alive to help them see the "robes of death" that are still clinging to their living bodie, the sin that is preventing them from truly walking as Jesus walks, and to help them remove them. They can see the sins of their brothers and sisters, and, in love, so that they will not be hindered in their walks with God, help expose the evidences of death still attached to the living body and help them remove them from their lives forever.

This is my favorite story in the Bible, because there is SO MUCH here. It tells so much about jesus, how we came to know Him, and our lives now...

For Now We See Through Glass Darkly, But Then...

2007-11-04T20:31:00.001-08:00

I never cease to be amazed at the goodness of God or how little I know about Him and His ways.

We (the illustrious members of the unfortunately named "Big Time Ministries") held our bi-annual retreat for the junior high students, the fifth installment was dubbed Bravehearts, this past weekend, and I, more than a week later, have still not quite found the ability to articulate the ways in which God moved or all that He showed me. First, it was simply unreal- we had 130 boys from Mountain Brook Junior High School, plus 30 of mine and Coach Skip's high school guys come as leaders. Something only explainable as supernatural happened at Camp Mac, and thirty-one of those students said that they, that very weekend, had finally understood what it truly meant that Jesus died for them.

These high school guys were so pivotal; we held a meeting four days before we left and cast a vision for them- essentially letting them lead (with some guidance) and explaining to them how they could have such a tremendous impact for the Kingdom. They caught it, and it was incredible. They loved on the kids, mixed up with them during lunch, team times, stayed in their cabins, worshipped alongside them, asked them the hard questions, and, most importantly, portrayed Christ to them. That, more than anything else, was the most striking difference about last weekend. Two of my eleventh graders, including Alex, a student I mentioned in a previous blog who became a Christian a mere two months ago, shared their testimonies, and the j-high students are still talking about them...

It also got me thinking- wait, wait, have I so often overlooked one of my primary roles as a Christian? To cast a vision for others about how they can make an impact for Christ in this life? Isn't that what disciple-making is all about? Simply saying: The light of Christ is in you, now here's how to best let it shine that you might ignite a spark in others? And so often I am foolish enough to believe that I have been saved merely for my own sake, instead of catching a glimpse of God's greater plans at work...

Apologizing for my inability to be anything other than either ultra-serious or utterly inane

Whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed

2007-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

(October 26th- Pre- Big Time "Bravehearts" retreat)

Only Father in Heaven,

How often I live as though I have no faith. And, while I may have faith, I certainly pray like I have none. If I truly believed the things that I tell others about prayer- that it is the primary means by which You conform our wills to God's, that You as the potter mold us into the image of Your Son, and the way that You have chosen to use us for Your will in this world- then certainly I would pray with more urgency, purpose, and power. Surely I would pray with more humility, fervor, and awe. No doubt I would simply pray more. God, I believe. Help my unbelief. Amen.

What do we have to offer these kids save for Christ? There is nothing... All else will fall away as dust or, worse, will only help strengthen the chains that keep them enslaved to sin, in bondage to eternal death, and destined for hell. Let us as leaders know nothing among these students except Christ and Him crucified.

Many many fall in love with You this weekend. May they see the joy that is in our hearts that comes from the greatness of knowing You, Lord.

You are light. In You there is no darkness. May we walk in the light as You are in the light. Amen.

forbidding mourning...

2007-10-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

i have no idea how to grieve. absolutely none. it's positively horrifying. i realized this peculiar fact late last night- in the face of death, i find myself always either playing the stoic, unfazed by the most terrible of news, or i allow my mind to play the drunk and obliviate, just like i did the first time when anna broke my heart. i was, be it temporarily, not a part of this world, but wandering about like a stranger in a strange land or a zombie- the living dead.

certainly there has to be some balance between a "time to mourn" and "death has been swallowed up in victory," right? i should not be made to sit idylly, seemingly unaffected & unmoved by the news of my Aunt Bettie's passing, nor should i be hopelessly distraught, because this mortal death is not the final death at all (did not Christ raise a little girl, Lazarus, and even Himself from the dead, assuring the disciples not to fear because Lazarus's sickness was not unto death?). however, inhumanly, instead of weeping, i withdraw.... into a place where i no longer have the ability to think or feel or, for a time, even move. and so, i sit here on the couch in our dirty house that was my make-shift bed last night, fingers growing heavier by the second, eyelids longing to draw close and shut out the world and its vendetta against life and beauty, mind reminiscing over the fleeting and suddenly fuzzy memories of Aunt Bettie chasing my grandmother around the backyard with a plastic bat after an Easter egg hunt, her battle with my dad over a box of chocolates, the sound of her aged, country voice calling my name, the ferocity with which she loved Georgia Tech...

And then my mind lingers over the words of Dylan Thomas, so fresh in my mind, so filled with morbidity & darkness and simultaneously ponders the words of David Crowder, so honest and filled with hope in the power of God. O God! I believe! Help my unbelief! It is so hard for me to claim your promises now in the face of blackness & bleakness! My heart feel so far from joy and hope and, yet, cannot bring my eyes to tears.... I just feel, empty. Thanks Ray... Maybe I will always feel this way- at least until the sun turns black...

Can I really claim to love her if I cannot cry over her death? God, I believe I loved her. I want to believe it. I need to believe that I loved her. Curse this intolerable weight! How can I hope to stand against it?

Christ, be with us now and at the hour of our deaths- stand by us and help us to live well for you and only for you, that we might come before your throne and hear you utter the most beautiful words any human could ever hope to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." You hold the keys of life and death, nothing can withstand your will, and no one can say to you, "What have you done?"- O Living God, hold me close in your arms now...

"Why are you so downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

For yet, I wll praise Him,

My savior and my God" -Psalm 43:5