Tried With Fire

I really shouldn't have started reading another book but I did. I found The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller at the local library in the new nonfiction section sandwiched between new agey, Oprahish books. It was a quick read. Although, I would have appreciated more scripture to back up what Dr. Keller was saying, I did appreciate his take on this very familiar parable. Basically, both brothers are lost. Both brothers are in rebellion to the father, using him for their own ends. The True Elder Brother is Jesus Christ who laid down His life to restore both brothers back to the Father. In contrast, I had read What's So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey two years ago. At the time, I was swept away by the touchy, feely, warm fuzzy version of grace. The impression I got from that book was that grace is always nice, it is wrong to make anyone feel bad about what they have done, and one should never judge. The implication is that all we need to do is be nice and we will win back th...

This post by Kim of Upward Call is so true. It's ironic in a sad way that although most Christians would agree that the worship of God is the main focus of the Sunday service, how much does 21st century Christianity downplay who He really is? Does God have a PR problem where His character needs to be soft pedaled to make Him more palatable? Does He have a bad user interface and needs to be made more user friendly? I would think the problem isn't with God but with us. Many popular Christian songs use the words awe and awesome . Do we want to be awestruck by the presence of God? Do we want to see the Lord like Isaiah did in all His holiness and at the same time be struck with our sinfulness in His presence? Don't even get me started on Esther choruses - the ones where God's name is not mentioned but only implied. This dates me, but ever since You Light Up My Life was touted as a Christian song, I've had a distinct aversion to those kind of songs. I think the Triune...

Bradford pear blossoms Our Bradford pear trees Early spring is a beautiful time in Virginia, especially before the pines and oaks drop their pollen. The Bradford pears are so pretty but their blooms don't last very long. Already, we see a shower of petal snow everytime the wind blows. The bees were taking advantage of the blooms. The trees were literally buzzing with activity when I took these pictures today.

The definition of thrashing: In a virtual memory system, it is the excessive swapping of pages of data between memory and the hard disk, causing the application to respond more slowly. The term may also be used to refer to any situation in which multiple processes are competing for the same resource, and the excessive swapping back and forth between connections causes a slowdown. (Taken from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia) I feel like my life has been in a state of thrashing. So many things have been going on that all my energy seems to be occupied swapping one task for the other in a less than efficient way. It has been a busy month with homeschooling, administering the Iowa tests to my daughter, working part-time, more church related activities, a sick guinea pig who needed multiple visits to the vet, dealing with legal matters related to the divorce, and just normal everyday life. On the one hand it seems as though my activities have accelerated. At the same time I am thankful that I...

First, the self movement assumes, in a way biblical faith cannot, that human beings are essentially innocent. That in fact is what a great majority of Americans believe. This goes to the heart of American individualism, which believes that one's self-definition is a matter of private choice and, it turns out, this choice is unencumbered by the gravitational pull, and misdirection, of sin. It is all a matter of choice and not of nature. This is the heart of the self movement, and it is anathema to biblical faith. The majesty of God's forgiveness is lost entirely when we lose what has to be forgiven. What has to be forgiven is not just what we do but who we are , not just our sinning but our sinfulness, not just our choices but what we have chosen in place of God. This belief in our inherent innocence is belied by the kind of life we all experience, and, more importantly, it is also contradicted by Scripture. May I gently suggest that the reason is that the essence of pride...

When I was a child, we were encouraged to memorize a verse every week for Sunday school. If you recited your verse correctly, your reward was candy. There was a large goldfish bowl filled with Tootsie Rolls and you could put your greedy little hand in the bowl and grab the reward. Looking back on it, I wonder about that sort of incentive. It seems to appeal to the baser instinct of greed in all of us to try and grab as much candy as possible. Isn't learning the Word a reward in itself? Another incentive that was tried was offering a prize to whoever read the most chapters. I won. The prize was a nice pink leather wallet. But did I really read what I read? Probably not. From an early age, I could speed read so it was a piece of cake to read as much as I could. Today, I don't have the incentive of candy and neither is a prize being offered but there is something more intangible and just as bad, if not worse. It's pride. I started out the year with the desire to follow the ...

We had our first meeting about small groups tonight. I am excited on the one hand and scared on the other. Although we have been at the church for more than a year and members for nearly a year, I haven't gotten to know the folks that well. I am an introvert. I can make small talk if I have to but I would prefer not to. I would like to skip over the "getting to know you" small talk phase and go right into the discussion of theology. However, I don't think I will be able to skip that step. People aren't just the theology and the doctrine they believe. On the one hand, it really isn't fellowship to only talk about homeschooling or crafting or the weather or politics or children or family. But you can't share your life with someone without relating some of these other areas as well as the theology and doctrine. When we left the meeting this evening, my daughter commented that she felt weird that we just left without saying good-bye to anyone. I don't thin...