Thought For the Day

I manage three, some times four, other blog sites besides my own. The boys can blog more than twice a month, why can't I?

Grace in a Jolt

Open your eyes. Look at what is going on around you. Think about the fact that while it could always be worse, you have never been in a better place to see that it could always get better too. Stop. Remember when. Those were the days. But were they really? Would you really want to go back? You have learned so much. They smiled at you. Keep going. It's a new dawn, it's a new day. He laughed with you. It could always be worse. She sent you a card. But it's not. They prayed for you last Sunday. Why does it have to hurt this much? He listened when no one else would. It has been such a very long road. I never knew she cared so much. What is the point? A kind word. Where is the pleasure? An honest answer. Who really knows what I am going through? A simple deed. What next? A touch of mercy. Where are the people I need most? A small grace. How much longer? A leap of faith...

Often great calamity brings a whole new perspective of life to the church. At least it should. The deeds that should be carried out as a consistent outpouring of the truth of Christian faith are jolted into action and awakened to the realization of need. We finally stop to listen, to see, and, if the former are allowed to reach our inmost being, to comprehend a hurt and a hunger out side our finely padded lives. Why can't we hear the questions all the time? Why can't we respond with a kind word and an outstretched hand when it is less convenient for us? Why wait until we have no choice but to stare woe in the the face and fall back on the same grace that heals hearts and others? That is grace--when we are left with nothing but. That is mercy--when we are driven towards it in time of need and left with a gaping void when the time is over. With every trial more is learned. Remembrance and forgetfulness in how to extend the gospel of grace to others need not be a vicious cycle. We will forget, we will be stirred, we will remember. But hope lies in that faith is the evidence of things not seen. Grace depends not on our deeds but on the finished sacrifice of the Creator of all things. It is in His Image and as His people that we work out our salvation with fear and trembling--if we will only have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Small

If we look for the big things in life there will never be enough of them to satisfy us. But if we take them in stride, there will never cease to be a small grace that amazes us.

It is most often the simple things in life that leave us the most dumb-founded and encouraged. Anything from the reddish rays of early morning sunlight piercing the hovering ground cover of fog, to a Wednesday tradition of eating Tai food to go. From the comforting ambiance of your favorite coffee shop couched in the middle of a suburban sprawl, to a kind reassurance from a friend that the world is not going to fall apart. The small things just tend to remind us that there is a pattern and a purpose to life. We need not look to deep descriptions and elaborate explanations when ordinary simplicity makes so much more a profound statement in its own time through well-placed graces and kindly explanation. Some times no manner or amount of elaboration will get a point across. But if we are shown rather than simply told, many times the light bulb of realization turns on when we least expect it. And often when we need it to most.

Logic Low-Down

Somehow, our whole approach to teaching and learning has gone awry. Do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible? Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils subjects, we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think. They learn everything except the art of learning. Dorothy Sayers

Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right. Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Logic—the art of reasoning born from sound judgment—is the second stage in the classical approach of the Trivium. Following the grammar stage and preceding the stage of rhetoric, logic is the vital transition between knowledge and wisdom. Its purpose is to cultivate an environment of thought, to begin to understand purpose and pattern, and make connections.

Logic has been defined by some as "the science and art of reasoning". Some have argued that logic should stand apart from the sciences, but few know why nor do they see the link that logic can be bridging the rigid and the refined, the structured and the sensate, the numbers and the narrative. It would seem that the grammar stage is dealing mostly with facts and figures while the rhetoric stage is primarily polished dictum and practicality. Because most people lean to one extreme or another in relating to the arts and sciences, the middle stage of logic tends to get passed over due to a lack of understanding when in fact it is the perfect marriage of the studies. Pattern and order are an originally biblical idea after all. "In the beginning God created..." and the vivid portrait of God's masterpiece is put on display before our eyes to both observe and imitate. There is a pattern in the daily structure: God spoke and thus made, He separated and called forth, He blessed and saw that all was good. There is and order that is made more resilient by the poetry of the words: Light and darkness; the expanse of the waters; earth, sea, vegetation, and seed bearing plants; sun, moon, and stars; great sea creatures and birds; livestock and creeping things; man, within whose nostrils was breathed the breathe of life.

There is a place for structure just as there is a place for beauty. While it is true that the point of logic, ultimately, is not to win and argument but to restore order, it is simultaneously true that one must first learn how to rightly win an argument based on sound judgment and the understanding of thought patterns. Hand in hand, the sciences can merge with the arts to craft a lasting and substantive apologetic for truth...if we will only cross the bridge.

Dark and Depthless

Confession: I do not remember the last time I sat down to read. Oh, it was probably last week, but this is Tuesday for heaven's sake! That was ages ago! I have caught snatches here and there--on blogs, in Levenger, in Scripture, sifting through theology but never letting it seep in. So when I sit down with a moment's peace in which to write, I have nothing to say. I am a dried up well whose last glimmer of liquid has evaporated leaving only dark and depthlessness. It is so easy just to get by, running off of shear talent or energy can carry a strong headed person such of myself a good long way. But happens when joints start squeaking or muscles cramp up disabling that natural talent to do it one's self?

Yesterday I had the day off and went on a really long walk. I took my time and stopped a good bit along the way...for the sake of my knees and to stay hydrated. The first six miles were basically an avoidance of thinking. All I wanted to do was get as far away from people as possible. So, music up, back pack on, tennis shoes laced I set off to power walk my way away from life. Long about, oh, mile one and a half an elderly couple pulled up in their hunter Crystler mini-van stopping the traffic behind them to a 4 to 5 car halt. I saw their lips move and realized that they were talking to me and I should probably get rid of the head phones. I gave them their directions, they turned around, and I was bemoaning the fact that I had to actually interact with someone on this trip--and a mile and a half into it to boot! About mile four I begrudgingly went into a small town market to get a bottled Cheerwine and water and I am pretty sure I didn't say a word to the poor girl who took my money. Oh, wait, she did ask if I wanted "a bag for that", and I thought, "Are you crazy! Did you not just see my walk up to this joint all red, hot, and nasty without a car and wearing a back pack", but what came out was, "no thanks". Somewhere along mile 7 when the first of three people pulled over to ask if I needed a ride things got a little bit lighter, "No, thanks. I'm just walkin' to walk". That produced some strange looks. So that around mile 9.5 and 10 I was telling a little old lady and a little old man that their yard looked beautiful!

When you do any one thing--or even when there is a lack of any one vital thing--for any period of time, something has to give. Baby sitting some one else's children is not quite the same as raising your own. Eating one low carb burger means you are about as faithful an Adkins dieter as if someone else feigned being a vegetarian after drinking 32 oz. of carrot juice. Sitting in your average Sunday morning church service is not quite the same as participating in a four hour Orthodox Easter service. Fifteen or twenty minutes a day of quiet time tends to become avoidable or improperly repetitive until you shaken life up a bit with so long a walk that you find that the only thing left within site is you and your thoughts.

Life catches up with us. Some times it overwhelms us, some times it bores us. Maintenance is good. If you let a car run long enough on what it has got to keep it going at present, things will inevitably burn up and fall out. You have to put something in to get something out, but being the creative beings that we are we tend to not feel like using out creativity so what we do--or do not do--on a daily basis becomes trivial and trite. I think I have come to prefer life shaken, not stirred.

Doing Something Worth Doing

"If a thing is worth doing"...how do you define what is really worth doing? "If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly"...how can you define what is really worth doing enough for it to be worth doing badly? At the top of my list are those things that show instant accomplishment: mowing a lawn, washing dishes, making a bed. While these things are considered chores, there is something to be said for being able to quickly strike a task from your to-do list. But things like that leave little room much less time to be done badly. So, does that say something as to there worth?

I have heard the plea for Reformation as opposed to Revolution time and again--the quality and importance of a thing being worked out and perfected over time rather than over night. When one really tries to live in that fashion--to invest in ongoing accomplishments, to soak in continuing education, to strive for a vision that may not be achieved in ones own life time--that in and of itself is a process worth pursuing. It is stretching and maturing. And the change over time shines so much more evident a light on the permanence of the endeavor. It is in those long spent, toiling days in which the small mile-stones and the completed chores of instant gratification mean so much more. To everything there is a season and to all things there is a purpose. So the short term brings a seed of hope to the ongoing labors of the long term. But that is the beauty of things worth doing. Because we are called to invest, because that requires time, because time leaves plenty of room for error, that is why life has been punctuated by small graces. That is why things worth doing are worth doing badly.

"If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly."
G.K. Chesterton

Story Time

We say we are a covenantal people. A covenant people who wrestle with covenant issues. A covenant issue is one that takes into account past performances. A covenant is the initiation of an agreement on the part of individuals and God, the slow progression over time towards either the fulfillment or breaking of that oath on the part of the individual and the consistent fulfillment of that oath on the part of God. Come what may, God is always faithful to keep covenant and whether or not man is able to do the same determines the fruit produced from such an interpersonal investment--cursing or blessing. The deliberateness of God's relational dealings across time has been preserved, written down just as contracts are so that both parties may stand in accountability before a watching world. A document that can be referred back to in times of crisis, sited when rebellion threatens everything that has been worked for, and recalled to mind when encouragement is simply needed to face the path ahead. Scripture is our covenantal thread--the stories making up The Story, the commands to show us what we are, the dialogue to show us who God is. It is the contract signed so long ago by our spiritual ancestors and our familial forerunners. It is a word that has been sealed upon the tablets of our hearts and stands as a stone of remembrance for what God has brought us out of and a sign of hope for what He will lead us through in times to come.

The way a story is told should have as much a deliberateness about it as the message of the story itself. The means and the message should insist on going hand in hand otherwise the narrative is lost to a sea of talking faces who never intended to put feet to their loud insistence. Inconsistency is the hypocrisy of the day. There is no point in saying "in all things BUT". The world is flooded by exceptions while the absolutes sit stagnant, just to the brim of a thimble. The very nature of covenant demands consistency and deliberateness in every area of life. After all, as Kuyper has said, "There is not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not say: MINE". The Incarnational deliberateness inherent in God's covenant with man can be expressed by no more profound means than through a story. The complexities of such a relationship can only begin to be fathomed in the ordinariness of living out life from day to day--sharing that life with the community surrounding you, and then applying your mutual discoveries to the culture around you. The wonder of Scripture is that while we have been given the principles in covenant, we have been shown the application through stories.

Elijah Concentrate

There is so much here! I am trying to unpack it all and then I realize that I have been jumping around schizophrenic-like as usual. I feel that I have got the whole picture and then it hits me that I am not even sure that I have read the whole narrative from beginning to end. Where did he come from, this Elijah the Tishbite? Where in heaven's name is Tishbe, tell me quick and then I would know! He just shows up in chapter 17 of I Kings and boy, is it a whirlwind ride from there. Confronting the king, praying for no rain, no rain, empty grain barrel one minute, unable to contain the overflow of grain the next, raising a boy from the dead, proposing a duel of sacrifices, jeering at the false prophets when nothing is going their way and then dumping 12 buckets of water on his own sacrifice and having God consume it--bull, wood, stones, water, ditch and all. And then there is the aftermath. He does not just leave it at that, there is cleaning up to do and rebuilding. Oh, and maybe while he is at it he will start a school of prophets with his disciple Elisha just to leave a lasting nagging impression on any and all future kings who decide not to tear down the high places and opt to walk in the ways of their father Jeroboam. Drama, drama, drama.

It never ceases to amaze me how even God's method, His structure, in conveying His message is so revealing and consistent to His character. To put so much in a story. To even converse through story itself is so very potent and unassailable. For the ordinary saint, it is the gospel in interpersonal tangibility. For the theology buff, it is a parable of many faceted ponderables. Either way it is grace concentrate. So deliberate and yet so vivid. The story of Elijah is proof once again that Scripture really is only one story--His Story.

Chalmers: On the Need for a Replacement Warrantee

If our affections for the world are not to be in existence, they cannot simply be striped from us with nothing present to fill the void. It must be replaced with something so much more consuming and desirable lest the vacuum be left to devour itself for lack:

“The heart would revolt against its own emptiness. It could not bear to be so left in a state of waste and cheerless insipidity….You have all heard that nature abhors a vacuum. Such, at least, is the nature of the heart, that though the room which is in it may change one inmate for another, it cannot be left void without pain of most intolerable suffering.”—pg13

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” —I John 2:15-17

“…to bid [a man to] love not the world is to pass a sentence of expulsion on all the inmates of his bosom. To estimate the magnitude and the difficulty of such a surrender, let us not only think that it were just as arduous to prevail on him not to love wealth, which is but one of the things in the world….But to desolate his heart of all love for the things of the world, without the substitution of any love in its place, were to him a process of as unnatural violence as to destroy all the things he has in the world and give him nothing in their room. So that, if to love not the world be indispensable to one’s Christianity, then the crucifixion of the old man is not too strong a term to mark that transition in history when all old things are done away, and all things are become new.”—pg 14

“If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things have passed away behold, all things are become new.” —II Corinthians 5:17

“We have already affirmed how impossible it were for the heart, by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world away from it and thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.”—pg 17

Grace for the Petty Schizophrenic

I’ve been wondering and unsettled. Moving from one thing to the next, scared that if I let more than 5 minutes laps without productivity I will fall back into my natural habit of slothfulness. I find that when I do not know what to do with myself I find things to do. Stay busy. Stay harried. Fill in the void with pure manual labor—that builds character I hear. When I lose grip on life I start doing petty things to cling to the fruit of my labors. Petty things like fold laundry with particular creases in particular places, or sweep my floors for the 6th time this month when two times would have sufficed. I’ll make dinner for myself using as many utensils, plates, and bowls as possible and then wash them just to see that I have done something—two somethings really…made dinner and cleaned the dishes.

My most recent impulse might well be the most life saving side-track of productivity ever. It is thirty pages long with an introduction of 2 pages and a title and copy right page taking up 2 before that—so really it is only 26 pages. I just got it in the mail today. Published in 1910. Looks fun. And, hey, if I sit down to read it now I can say that I read a whole book in one sitting and I wouldn’t even be lying. What a sense of personal accomplishment!

That is what I was thinking as I read the introduction by one Dr. John Angus MacVannal. I should have know by the heartiness of the man’s name that I was in for a confrontation with substance, but I did not think that through. And then I got to the line, “What we love we live”. The impetuous impulse vanished, the hunger emerged. It was then that I actually stopped to think about the title of this small book I held in my hands—“The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”. I knew I was doomed, or at least my bout of schizophrenic-egotistical-harried-habitual-impulse-to-petty-productivity was doomed:

“The heart must have something to cling to, and never, by its own voluntary consent, will it so denude itself of all its
attachments that there shall not be one remaining object that can draw or solicit it.”

Chalmers goes on to talk about how we belabor ourselves with pleasurable sensations and petty indulgences that we grow tired and numb to any sensation at all. The genuine longings of our heart then become either lost in a mess of overbearing excess or indistinguishable from the affections of our self-sufficiency. My heart had lunged out once again to find that one thing to side track and numb, and true to grace that one thing, this time, has brought me to repentance and contentment.