… the obedience that God desires is obedience that comes from faith, not obedience that produces results. Do we believe that faith in grace produces better obedience than that which is based on anything else? Or are we so enamored with what we can control, predict, produce and observe that we can’t stand the thought of leaving obedience in the hands of a gracious God and his amazing Good News about Jesus?
iMonk Classic: Our Problem with Grace
In depths of winter there has been a lot activity. The past week was “the birthday week”. In addition to grandson Chase, grandson Tyler and sister-in-law Marjorie, we celebrated Ann’s birthday on Wednesday. This was a milestone – 70 years. It doesn’t feel like seventy and she certainly doesn’t look like it. We had a wonderful dinner at a romantic Italian restaurant. On Friday evening we had an open house to honor Ann. There were family, friends and neighbors who came by to eat and greet.
On Saturday we traveled to Louisville to be with Madison and her family for her baptism. I am so proud of her and her desire to be a follower of Jesus. It was a wonderful event and we enjoyed lunch together afterward.
On Sunday we enjoyed our time of worship and praise. Unfortunately Ann and I came down with a stomach virus later that day which put us out of commission for the next 24 hours.
On Monday evening we learned of the passing of son-in-law Daniel’s grandfather. Troy Crockett was 101 years old. Daniel was close to his grandfather and will be traveling to Cross Plains for the funeral. We plan to travel to Atoka this coming weekend to celebrate Neyland and Turner’s 2nd birthday. Life goes on.
I came across this quote from a good friend who is the wisest young man I’ve ever know.
Quit looking for the solution and find the opportunity in the problem itself. Could it be that the precise reason for these problems is the opportunity to bear witness to God’s sufficiency admidst the problem? Could it be that the answer is: there is no coping strategy. Could it be that the call of Christ is not to solve the problem, but to suffer it? Perhaps the call is not to the end, but to the journey….
Maybe the gospel of Jesus … is all about our relationship with Jesus rather than about ideas. And perhaps our lists and formulas and bullet points are nice in the sense that they help us memorize different truths, but harmful in the sense that they blind us to the necessary relationship that must begin between ourselves and God for us to become His followers. And worse, perhaps our formulas and bullet points and steps steal the sincerity with which we might engage God.
http://donmilleris.com/2012/01/31/why-scripture-includes-so-much-poetry/
Youth cannot reach their potential through the influence of peers. They best mature through the influence of older, wiser, and more experienced mentors. If generational segregation was the start of the moral downfall of youth culture, than re-connection through formal mentorship is the logical solution to empower youth against the curse of low expectations.
I am, maybe, the ultimate Protestant, the man at the end of the Protestant road, for as I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.
Jayber Crow – Wendell Berry
For whatever reason, while looking at the x-ray of my fractured foot, it reminded me of when I was a young boy and my mother would take me to the shoe store. It seems that we always got Buster Brown shoes. What was the most fun was that when I tried on the shoes I got to use the fluoroscope to see exactly how they fit my foot. Very cool.
The gimmick changed from decade to decade to suit the market at the time, but the most famous sales pitches were that the fluoroscope allowed salesmen to better fit shoes and that it made it more fun for kids to go to the shoe store. During the Great Depression, a popular sales pitch was that the fluoroscope allowed the best possible fit, which made for longer-lasting shoes and implied that customers would not have to buy as many pairs for themselves or for their children. In reality, the shoe-fitting fluoroscope was little more than a way to attract potential customers because essentially the same fit could be obtained by simple measurements.
Buster Brown was my favorite brand of shoe. Buster hid in a shoe and had a dog named Tige.
You cannot walk the second journey with first journey tools. You need a whole new tool kit.
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr
Rohr’s statement regarding the first half of our lives and the second half has been proven correct in my experience. Most of the tools that I found necessary and useful in the first half of my life have not served me well in the second half. In fact, it never occurred to me that I would need different tools. The tools I refer to are both practical and spiritual tools. With regard to spiritual tools, my first journey spiritual tools were mostly ineffective.
One of the things I remember about my father was his propensity for always trying to do a job with whatever tools he had available rather than taking the time and expense to get the tool designed to do the job. For example, he would always repair the brakes on our cars. Removing and installing brake shoes necessitated brake spring pliers. Dad refused to procure any brake spring pliers, insisting that the job could be done with ordinary pliers. I must say that he always got the job done but at pretty high cost… busted knuckles, wasted time, frustration and anger, improper installation requiring re-installation; not to mention the lessons he was teaching his son in the process. I followed his example. Thankfully, I eventually decided to have the brakes on my vehicles repaired by a real mechanic.
In retrospect, my first journey spiritual tools were akin to the ordinary pliers my father used. It seems to me that if I had used the proper tools in the first journey, I would have been better prepared for the second half. At least I could have avoided all those busted knuckles, et al; and maybe have taught my children a different lesson.
A quote from interview with Kerry Burke who has been reporting on crime for the New York Daily News, primarily homicides—or murder and mayhem, as he tends to call it
I go into these houses and there aint no men. I walk into these places and there aint no men. There are mothers and grandmothers, and there are these children that belong to whom exactly? Families are fractured. I see the unwanted children. Sometimes they are males around, but theyre the cats who are living off of the women. They are on the couch, there for the drink and the drugs or whatever money she has. They are the broken men. But there are no men. There are no fathers. Time and time again.
