I don’t want to wait until everything is clearer on my deathbed; I would like my deathbed clarity now, when it can still do some good. I expect that one of the things I will regret on that day “when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few,” is the movies and TV shows I allow myself to see.
In truth, this allowance has been more drift than philosophy, but to the extent that you can dignify half-conscious notions with the status of convictions, mine have been the following: (1) I am no legalist, and (2) one must be informed about the culture.
The interesting thing about these self-justifications, as I view them at the moment, is that they are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Oh, some crafty person can wrest them out of the Word “by good and necessary consequences,” as they say. I can imagine the texts rustled to the rescue: Galatians will be a rich vein. And Colossians 2:21, where Paul excoriates teachers of “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,” who put rule keeping for true piety.
What is unequivocal in the Bible is the command to love God with all your heart. What has no ambiguity is the call to pure eyes that alone will see God. What is not fudgeable is that we are to put God’s word above the word of man.
Evan Thomas went around Wales during the great Revival of 1906 telling folks to “put away everything doubtful in your life.” I like that. You have to think about that one. I sometimes get deathbed inklings. I feel quite sure that when the death dew lies on my brow, I will not think it had been necessary to see a raunchy movie in order to be better informed about the culture.
Andree Seu
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
"Striving For Excellence"
Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.
Harriet Braiker
Harriet Braiker
"Clasping For Things Still Higher"
| As plants take hold not for the sake of staying, but only that they may climb higher, so it is with men. By every part of our nature we clasp things above us, one after another, not for the sake of remaining where we take hold, but that we may go higher. Henry Ward Beecher | |
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"There Is A Time And Season For Every Activity Under Heaven"
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
"Retaining No Sourvenirs of Hell"
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' - or else not. It is still 'either-or'. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'...But what, you ask, of earth?...I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
"I Will Put My Trust In Him"
"I Will Put My Trust In Him" (Hebrews 2:13)
I have read these words all wrong for years. They are not a pious sentiment; they are the final, exhausted act of will at the end of a grueling fight. They are a white flag waving from the barricades of self-will and striving. They are a victorious shout of defiance against hell’s arrows that would fell him before he reaches the finish line, whether by sweet seductions or by fear or perplexity.
They are spoken by Jesus, the one who after battling the flesh in Gethsemane, after hours of pleading for some other way to accomplish the plan, after coming so close to the edge that He is talking in terms of “my” will and “thy” will as two distinct things, comes to rest in the place we must all come to rest in: “I will put my trust in Him.”
I have read these words all wrong for years. They are not a pious sentiment; they are the final, exhausted act of will at the end of a grueling fight. They are a white flag waving from the barricades of self-will and striving. They are a victorious shout of defiance against hell’s arrows that would fell him before he reaches the finish line, whether by sweet seductions or by fear or perplexity.
They are spoken by Jesus, the one who after battling the flesh in Gethsemane, after hours of pleading for some other way to accomplish the plan, after coming so close to the edge that He is talking in terms of “my” will and “thy” will as two distinct things, comes to rest in the place we must all come to rest in: “I will put my trust in Him.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
"God: Outside And Above Time"
Suppose I am writing a novel. I write 'Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!' For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story)at all...God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series (the real one)at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself.
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the points of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from about or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all... what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday. He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him.
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp. 167-168
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the points of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from about or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all... what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday. He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him.
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp. 167-168
Monday, May 18, 2009
"Moving Mountains"
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones
Chinese Proverb
Chinese Proverb
"As If You Were The Only Creature"
He who counts the stars and calls them by their names, is in no danger of forgetting His own children! He knows your case as thoroughly as if you were the only creature He ever made, or the only saint He ever loved!
Charles H. Spurgeon
Charles H. Spurgeon
Saturday, May 16, 2009
"Neither Whining Nor Criticism Changes Truth"
Two and two the mathematician continues to make four; in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five
James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
"My Argument Against God Collapsed"
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless -I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp38-39
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp38-39
"Restitution Trumps Incarceration"
Where does this idea of incarceration come from?
In the Bible, there are two basic punishments for two basuc types of crimes:
Property crimes are punished by restitution, slavery (until both compensation and punitive damages are paid — the thief pays back what he stole to restore his victim, plus 3 or 5 more as punishment), etc.
Violent crimes are punished like-for-like. E.g., death penalty for murderers, physical punishment for assaults, etc.
This idea of the criminal owing “a debt to society” is thinly-veiled statism....have you ever stopped to consider just how odd it is that, in the false “debt-to-society” paradigm, the debtor is provided for by the entity to whom he ostensibly owes the debt!
The car thief didn’t steal from “society” (i.e., everybody), and “society” (everybody) shouldn’t be taxed to feed, clothe and house him in an environment where he may very well learn nothing more than more skills about the “craft” that put him there in the first place.
No, he stole from the car’s owner. He must work — two or three jobs, if necessary — to a) pay his own rent, groceries and bills, and b) restore the car’s owner (restoration) and c) perhaps to put gas in his car for the next six months (punishment).
Frank A. Golubski
In the Bible, there are two basic punishments for two basuc types of crimes:
Property crimes are punished by restitution, slavery (until both compensation and punitive damages are paid — the thief pays back what he stole to restore his victim, plus 3 or 5 more as punishment), etc.
Violent crimes are punished like-for-like. E.g., death penalty for murderers, physical punishment for assaults, etc.
This idea of the criminal owing “a debt to society” is thinly-veiled statism....have you ever stopped to consider just how odd it is that, in the false “debt-to-society” paradigm, the debtor is provided for by the entity to whom he ostensibly owes the debt!
The car thief didn’t steal from “society” (i.e., everybody), and “society” (everybody) shouldn’t be taxed to feed, clothe and house him in an environment where he may very well learn nothing more than more skills about the “craft” that put him there in the first place.
No, he stole from the car’s owner. He must work — two or three jobs, if necessary — to a) pay his own rent, groceries and bills, and b) restore the car’s owner (restoration) and c) perhaps to put gas in his car for the next six months (punishment).
Frank A. Golubski
"Right Is Right"
Right is right. Even if everyone is against it: and wrong is wrong. Even if everyone is for it.
William Penn
William Penn
"The Kingliest Warrior Born: Your Mother"
Motherhood
The bravest battle that ever was fought!
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you will find it not;
'Twas fought by the mothers of men.
Nay not with the cannon of battle-shot,
With a sword or noble pen;
Nay, not with eloquent words or thought
From mouth of wonderful men!
But deep in a walled-up woman's heart --
Of a woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part --
Lo, there is the battlefield!
No marshalling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But oh! those battles, they last so long --
From babyhood to the grave.
Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars,
She fights in her walled-up town --
Fights on and on in her endless wars,
Then silent, unseen, goes down.
Oh, ye with banners and battle-shot,
And soldiers to shout and paise!
I tell you the kingliest victories fought
Were fought in those silent ways.
O spotless woman in a world of shame,
With splendid and silent scorn,
Go back to God as white as you came --
The Kingliest warrior born!
Joaquin Miller (1839-1913)
The bravest battle that ever was fought!
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you will find it not;
'Twas fought by the mothers of men.
Nay not with the cannon of battle-shot,
With a sword or noble pen;
Nay, not with eloquent words or thought
From mouth of wonderful men!
But deep in a walled-up woman's heart --
Of a woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part --
Lo, there is the battlefield!
No marshalling troops, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave;
But oh! those battles, they last so long --
From babyhood to the grave.
Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars,
She fights in her walled-up town --
Fights on and on in her endless wars,
Then silent, unseen, goes down.
Oh, ye with banners and battle-shot,
And soldiers to shout and paise!
I tell you the kingliest victories fought
Were fought in those silent ways.
O spotless woman in a world of shame,
With splendid and silent scorn,
Go back to God as white as you came --
The Kingliest warrior born!
Joaquin Miller (1839-1913)
"Sacrificing The Dispensable To Gain The Indispensable"
He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Jim Elliot
Jim Elliot
"When The Dust Clears"
God had a plan to raise up 12 tribes of Israel.
A man named Jacob took to wife Rachel (whom he loved) and Leah (not so much). Leah conceived, and named him Reuben. She interpreted his birth as God’s consolation for her emotional affliction. She conceived again, winning first and second prize. He was called Simeon. Then it was a hat trick, and she named him Levi. Soon the score was four to nothing, Leah: Enter Judah.
All of which produced no end of drama between Leah and barren Rachel. Rachel unsheathed her secret weapon, Bilhah the maid, who was good for two in a row: Dan and Naphtali. The war of the maids was off and running. Leah’s Zilpah gave her mistress Gad and Asher. Leah also purchased Jacob’s services from Rachel with mandrakes: nine months later came Issachar, followed by Zebulun and Dinah. Rachel finally conceived twice, having the last word in the baby wars, with Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 29-30).
When the dust cleared, there were the 12 tribes of Israel standing all in a row.
A few hundred years later God’s plan hung by a thread. The Benjamites were complicit in the most debauched episode recorded in Scripture (Judges 19). The other 11 tribes, no slouches at debauchery themselves, went out to war against their brother, slaughtering 25,100 of Benjamin’s 26,000 able-bodied men. When they saw what they had done —nearly exterminating one of the 12 tribes of Israel—they wept and prayed, and then they got scheming: They looked around to see who had not shown up for battle, slaughtered them, and thereby scared up 400 virgins for the Benjamite remnant. That wasn’t enough, so they sent the leftover Benjamites to hide in the vineyards at an annual dance in Shiloh, and snatch themselves some women from the dance floor.
So when the dust cleared, there were still 12 tribes of Israel.
We do not recommend as policy jealousy, intrigue, maid-swapping, debauchery, internecine warfare, dance hall high jinks, and other sin. But we are edified that God is adept at throwing all of this into the hopper and, when the dust clears, bringing about his Kingdom.
Andree Seu
A man named Jacob took to wife Rachel (whom he loved) and Leah (not so much). Leah conceived, and named him Reuben. She interpreted his birth as God’s consolation for her emotional affliction. She conceived again, winning first and second prize. He was called Simeon. Then it was a hat trick, and she named him Levi. Soon the score was four to nothing, Leah: Enter Judah.
All of which produced no end of drama between Leah and barren Rachel. Rachel unsheathed her secret weapon, Bilhah the maid, who was good for two in a row: Dan and Naphtali. The war of the maids was off and running. Leah’s Zilpah gave her mistress Gad and Asher. Leah also purchased Jacob’s services from Rachel with mandrakes: nine months later came Issachar, followed by Zebulun and Dinah. Rachel finally conceived twice, having the last word in the baby wars, with Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 29-30).
When the dust cleared, there were the 12 tribes of Israel standing all in a row.
A few hundred years later God’s plan hung by a thread. The Benjamites were complicit in the most debauched episode recorded in Scripture (Judges 19). The other 11 tribes, no slouches at debauchery themselves, went out to war against their brother, slaughtering 25,100 of Benjamin’s 26,000 able-bodied men. When they saw what they had done —nearly exterminating one of the 12 tribes of Israel—they wept and prayed, and then they got scheming: They looked around to see who had not shown up for battle, slaughtered them, and thereby scared up 400 virgins for the Benjamite remnant. That wasn’t enough, so they sent the leftover Benjamites to hide in the vineyards at an annual dance in Shiloh, and snatch themselves some women from the dance floor.
So when the dust cleared, there were still 12 tribes of Israel.
We do not recommend as policy jealousy, intrigue, maid-swapping, debauchery, internecine warfare, dance hall high jinks, and other sin. But we are edified that God is adept at throwing all of this into the hopper and, when the dust clears, bringing about his Kingdom.
Andree Seu
The Slumbering Leviathan
"Cephalus...was relieved to have escaped the "mad and furious master" of the more youthful pleasures. This resonated with a 17-year-old who could already see that love was a problem - a force associated with anguish, bondage, obsession...It is fun, I suppose, to feel faint like the "Beloved" who sighs in the quicksand of her emotions, "I am sick with love" (Song of Solomon 2:1-7)...But it begins to seem too, that love has its drawbacks. Falling in love can be debilitating, enfeebling, and all-consuming...But love is a sleeping tiger, and Song a solemn warning of its bottled-up danger, a force which if approached unwisely will consume a man and all he has (8:6-7, Proverbs 5; James 1:14-15, Jude 8, Revelation 18:3) Are you ready for those feelings? I have been young and now I am old, and I adjure you, O children of Jerusalem that you "not awaken love until it pleases". Heed the caution, that you also may enjoy the garden in season. The wise man will take care for his affections and keep them in the bound of God's design, while the foolhardy will tickle the slumbering Leviathan before its time.
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business pp 45-48
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business pp 45-48
"Goodness = Freedom"
No longer virtuous, no longer free; is a maxim as true with regard to a private person as a commonwealth.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"Human Philosophy Defined"
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
"Let In The Blaze of The Risen Sun"
Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but the dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a lit patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky. This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen. She does it very largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon...So with us. 'We know now what we shall be'; but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth. Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like penciled lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines vanish from the real landscape, not as a candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun.
CS Lewis
CS Lewis
"Discover Their End"
Better is the end of a thing than its beginning (Ecclesiastes 7:8).
It is well to keep in mind, when we are tempted to either discouragement over our own lot or covetousness over the happy lot of the godless, that “better is the end of a thing than its beginning.” That is, what matters is the final outcome, not this particular snapshot in time. If only we could get this straight, could we not better endure the messy middles of life?
The Psalmist got bogged down in messy middles. It’s easy for us to be unsympathetic: “Hey, Asaph, trust in God and cheer up! The bad guys you envied are all pushing daisies now.” But that’s the point, isn’t it—that you and I see Asaph’s end from the beginning, knocking off his whole life in one sitting with Psalm 73. What we don’t visualize so conscientiously is our own ending. Are we just lazy? Asaph finally came around to wholesome thinking after 15 verses of slogging in the slough of despond:
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a weariness task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discovered their end (Psalm 73:17).
During my youth, Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson were all the rage in the academic world for their hands-on research into America’s sexual habits. I just learned in Newsweek the final chapter: “We see the thrice-divorced Johnson cursing her former partner from the confines of a nursing home. . . .” As for Masters, he admitted, “I haven’t the vaguest idea . . . what love is.”
I wish we had a sci-fi time machine we could step into that would show us the end of our lives if we keep following Christ and don’t give up. But I think God just wants us to employ our imaginations.
It is well to keep in mind, when we are tempted to either discouragement over our own lot or covetousness over the happy lot of the godless, that “better is the end of a thing than its beginning.” That is, what matters is the final outcome, not this particular snapshot in time. If only we could get this straight, could we not better endure the messy middles of life?
The Psalmist got bogged down in messy middles. It’s easy for us to be unsympathetic: “Hey, Asaph, trust in God and cheer up! The bad guys you envied are all pushing daisies now.” But that’s the point, isn’t it—that you and I see Asaph’s end from the beginning, knocking off his whole life in one sitting with Psalm 73. What we don’t visualize so conscientiously is our own ending. Are we just lazy? Asaph finally came around to wholesome thinking after 15 verses of slogging in the slough of despond:
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a weariness task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discovered their end (Psalm 73:17).
During my youth, Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson were all the rage in the academic world for their hands-on research into America’s sexual habits. I just learned in Newsweek the final chapter: “We see the thrice-divorced Johnson cursing her former partner from the confines of a nursing home. . . .” As for Masters, he admitted, “I haven’t the vaguest idea . . . what love is.”
I wish we had a sci-fi time machine we could step into that would show us the end of our lives if we keep following Christ and don’t give up. But I think God just wants us to employ our imaginations.
Your Prayer Has Always Contributed
A man who knew empirically that an event had been caused by his prayer would feel like a magician. His head would turn and his heart would be corrupted. The Christian is not to ask whether this or that event happened because of a prayer. He is rather to believe that all events without exception are answers to prayer in the sense that whether they are grantings or refusals the prayers of all concerned and their needs have all been taken into account...We must not picture destiny as a film unrolling for the most part on its own, but in which are prayers are sometimes allowed to insert additional items. On the contrary; what the film displays to us as she unrolls already
contains the results of our prayers and all our other acts. There is no question whether an event has happened because of your prayer. When the event you prayed for occurs, your prayer has always contributed to it. When the opposite event occurs, your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused for your ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.(For example, because it is better for you and for everyone else in the long run that other people, including wicked ones, should exercise free will than that you should be protected from cruelty or treachery by turning the human race into automata.) But this is, and must remain, a matter of faith.
C.S.Lewis
Miracles pp.187
contains the results of our prayers and all our other acts. There is no question whether an event has happened because of your prayer. When the event you prayed for occurs, your prayer has always contributed to it. When the opposite event occurs, your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused for your ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.(For example, because it is better for you and for everyone else in the long run that other people, including wicked ones, should exercise free will than that you should be protected from cruelty or treachery by turning the human race into automata.) But this is, and must remain, a matter of faith.
C.S.Lewis
Miracles pp.187
"A Kind of Immortality"
The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
"A Dinner Plate of Carrots"
There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Jose Ortega y Gasset
"He Is Calling Us Into That Summer"
The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise. St Peter for a few seconds walked on the water; and the day will come when there will be a re-made universe, infinitely obedient to the will of glorified and obedient men...To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, 'The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago' in the same spirit in which he says, 'I saw a crocus yesterday.' Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those 'high mid-summer pomps' in which our Leader, the Son of Man, already dwells, and to which He is calling us. It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.
C.S.Lewis
The Grand Miracle
C.S.Lewis
The Grand Miracle
"Feelings: A Fickle Tyrant"
"...life is lived out in the matrix of time, in a succession of moments. And therefore, living is marked by inconstancy of feelings, feelings that would threaten to pull asunder by centrifugal force if not brought into submission to a higher rule...the tempted woman "sues for grace" (as the Puritan used to say), until the impulses threatening her very soul abate...Where feelings were fickle tyrants, covenant is a gentle yoke and dependable master, leading her to safe harbors...because life is not tidy, we hold each other's feet to the covenant. It tides us over the thin patches of feelings, till the day we all come to full sight."
Andree Seu
Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me pp.78-79
Andree Seu
Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me pp.78-79
"Save The Best for Last"
The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"Waste Not Your Life in The Grasslands of Existentialism"
All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God. Here [Francis Shaffer's 'The God Who Is There'] was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth. This will be the way to avoid wasting your life. Stay on the road that your fiery evangelist father was on...Here was weighty intellectual confirmation that life would be wasted in the grassland of existentialism. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is Point and Purpose and Essence to it all.
John Piper
Don't Waste Your Life pp.18
John Piper
Don't Waste Your Life pp.18
"100 Reasons Why I’m a Christian"
1.Bowing my knee to Christ is the only natural and logical reaction to everything that each of my senses has taken in for 47 years.
2.It fulfills the purpose for which I was created.
3.It delights God.
4.It reflects my appreciation for Jesus’ crucifixion.
5.I can face death with confidence, having made peace with God.
6.I can experience an eternity of pleasure so great it cannot be described.
7.I can hear my Creator say to me, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
8.I will, fall all eternity, look upon the face of God.
9.Through being Christ-like I am able to leave this world a better place than it would have been without me.
10.I will not spend eternity where there is no hope.
11.I can live for eternity in a place with the best souls that ever inhabited the earth.
12.Christianity opens up the opportunity to have a marriage that is as beautiful as can possibly be experienced in this world.
13.I can take every concern and problem to the powerful One who rules the Universe. He can change what I cannot.
14.As a Christian I have been given the ultimate guidebook for raising exceptional children.
15.Being a Christian makes me the friend of God, rather than His enemy.
16.When I apply the principles God has given, I can learn to be a diligent and good steward, which usually prevents poverty.
17.My becoming a Christian thwarts the plans Satan had for my demise.
18.Christianity applied prevents alcoholism.
19.I can bless others with the life-improving wise counsel I have obtained from the Lord.
20.It uses my talents in the most meaningful ways they could possibly be used.
21.Christianity involves me in the single most world-improving cause that has ever existed.
22.I can enjoy the creation for what it truly is: the art of my Father.
23.I know Who to thank when something goes unexpectedly well.
24.Christianity prevents child abuse.
25.Christianity comes with a spiritual family that will care for me during times of crisis.
26.Even when my crisis hits in the middle of nowhere—I have family I have never met a phone call away.
27.God’s instructions and principles bring clarity as to what courses of action will solve even the most complex problems.
28.Christianity prevents drug abuse.
29.God promises me that in eternity those who have loved and served Him will no longer experience pain or suffering.
30.It prevents me from wondering my entire life what the meaning of life is.
31.The self-control He teaches me improves absolutely every aspect of my life.
32.Christianity puts everything in perspective. Molehills are not mountains.
33.I am more respected for the goodness He’s given me.
34.Christianity applied prevents AIDS and all other sexually transmitted diseases.
35.Authentic Christianity keeps me from naively following charismatic, self-centered false teachers who do not have my best interest at heart.
36.God promises me that in eternity those who have loved and obeyed Him no longer experience death.
37.I get to spend time in this life with the world’s most authentic and best people.
38.Christianity prevents domestic violence.
39.It feels good to face truth and not go through life trying to avoid reality.
40.I need not go through life insecure in my marriage. My spouse has extra incentive for being faithful. In honoring me, he honors God.
41.I know that even though life is not fair now, God will vindicate and bring justice in the next life.
42.I have a destination for the joy I want to express for all I’ve been given. God accepts my worship.
43.Christianity prevents an eternity in the presence of the Devil and his angels.
44.It honors the work my parents put into me when they sacrificed throughout my childhood to share God with me.
45.Christianity prevents abortion—the holocaust of our generation.
46.When I listen closely to the written words of my Shepherd, I can know who is and who is not telling the truth in matters of religion.
47.Christianity makes my life beautiful.
48.When as a Christian I share information God has given me as to His plan for saving us, someone can change where they will spend eternity.
49.Being a Christian helps me to not waste God’s grace.
50.When correctly applied, through the removal of such things as pride, greed, and selfishness, it is the best avenue to world peace.
51.Christianity applied usually prevents incarceration.
52.Being a Christian gives me the most meaningful reasons for taking good care of the earth’s resources. This is my Father’s world.
53.It prevents an eternity of decay “where the worm never dies.”
54.Christianity prevents gangs by offering young people a productive, tight, and meaningful group to belong to.
55.Living life God’s way prevents citizens from becoming a financial liability.
56.Living life God’s lowers, or more accurately, removes the crime rate.
57.God provides comfort through all my afflictions.
58.Christianity applied would solve virtually all the problems in the public school system.
59.Christianity raises the value of women and prevents them from being used, suppressed, or exploited.
60.Christianity often prevents children from living life without both a father and a mother.
61.The principles of moderation taught in God’s word keep the pleasures of this life at their peak of enjoy ability.
62.Christian employees are often valued for the work ethic learned from Scripture, and thus are more likely to climb the corporate ladder.
63.I don’t have to feel compelled to dress like I’m a prostitute in order to get attention. God instead is my confidence.
64.Christianity teaches me to express myself in creative, intelligent, interesting ways, without depending on profanity to make an impression.
65.Holidays with generations of Christian family members takes the drama out.
66.Christianity prevents the atheism that taught people in WW2 that they were only animals and should be therefore selectively bred.
67.Christianity gives me a beautiful reason to have children: to share God with them and honor Him together throughout eternity.
68.Christianity gives me a motivational reason to take good care of my body: It belongs to God.
69.Christianity applied often prevents homelessness.
70.God has taught me how to forgive so I do not have to seek vengeance or live a life filled with bitterness or grudges.
71.Christianity teaches us from a young age to be diligent, and this attitude often contributes to academic success.
72.Christianity prevents sexual addictions.
73.It teaches we must earn an honest living, and thereby prevents gambling family money away.
74.Christianity discourages smoking and therefore prevents the consequences of being addicted to nicotine.
75.Christianity prevents racism, and instead helps us enjoy the differences God Himself has created.
76.Christianity gives extra incentive to get out and vote, write editorials, and in other ways improve the moral climate of this world.
77.Christians are often patriotic and honor their country and those who have sacrificed to protect our freedom. We are taught to be grateful.
78.It avoids an eternity of more intense pain than I can ever experience in this life.
79.Christianity applied keeps taxpayers out of trouble with the IRS.
80.Christianity applied prevents cruelty to animals.
81.God promises those who love and serve Him, that in eternity there will no more crying.
82.Christianity keeps my mind more pure, fresh, and innocent, and thus more pleasant.
83.As a Christian, God gives me the strength to break destructive, long-term habits.
84.He teaches me to be generous. When I give of myself, or of what I have, it gives me a sense of fulfillment. I gain even when I give.
85.God promises me that He will reward me for even the simplest act of service offered to others, as if I had done it for He Himself.
86.God gives me the power to overcome my weaknesses.
87.Christianity gives a depth to my friendships, which would not have been experienced without our spiritual ties from our oneness of purpose.
88.Christianity teaches me to view time as precious and to manage it wisely.
89.Christianity prepares me for the day I will stand before my God in judgment.
90.I am able to overcome through the strength God supplies even genetic predispositions.
91.By serving God I have a merciful and kind taskmaster, compared to the cruelties of serving Satan.
92.I no longer need to feel guilty for my sin. God promises me He has removed it as far as the East is from the West.
93.Christianity brings more love into my life from every direction.
94.Christianity has taught me to be honest and has as a result caused me to be considered trustworthy by others.
95.It prevents involvement with the darkness of the occult.
96.It keeps me from being shallow or materialistic, and instead schools me in contentment.
97.Christianity has taught me not only how to better get along with all kinds of people, but how to prevent and resolve conflict.
98.Christianity exchanges my weariness for “seasons of refreshing” only He can provide.
99.God gives me a calm heart in a world of turmoil.
100.As a Christian, God promises to give me the strength at the end of my life to “finish strong”.
Cindy Dunagan
"In The King's Stables: This Perishable Shall Put on Imperishable"
There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, ‘Who will trust us with the true wealth is we cannot be trusted even with the that perishes?’ Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may someday be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else – since He has retained His own charger – should we accompany Him?
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp169
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp169
Kites Rise Against The Wind
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with the wind.
John Neal
John Neal
"Follow Now. Ask Questions Later"
Two Chairs
It was hard to see a dime’s worth of difference between the responses of the priest Zechariah and teenaged Mary to the angel’s announcement of the miraculous births. Zechariah: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” Mary: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Oh, I suppose you can tease their words with a fine-toothed comb for clues, but I suspect the solution lies on the heart level, not the linguistic level. The angel is pleased with the maiden’s response but rebukes the priest’s unbelief.
One of the exquisite sufferings of the Christian life is intellectual suffering. Is this not the “perplexity but not despair” that Paul himself was afflicted with (2 Corinthians 4:8)? Why hasn’t Christ returned sooner? Why did the Holy Spirit forbid me to bring the gospel to Asia (Acts 16:6)? Why has God allowed the Corinthian church to splinter into factions almost from the get-go? Why am I sitting in a prison in Rome when I could do so much more on the road?
I and a friend of mine are both perplexed about a prayer of ours not answered. I heard him say, “I don’t understand why God has not answered this prayer.” I also said, “I don’t understand why God has not answered this prayer.” But he said it with a spirit still tender toward his Lord, and I said it with a sneer.
René Descartes resolved to begin with doubt as a way to truth. But it doesn’t work in the Christian life; there is always one more objection that rears its head. Jesus passed Levi the tax collector at his booth, and said, “Follow me.” Levi got up immediately. Follow now; ask questions later.
The methodology of doubt produces a hobbling walk (1 Kings 18:21). I have decided today to be “perplexed” from the chair of faith and not unbelief. Hold me to it.
Andree Seu
It was hard to see a dime’s worth of difference between the responses of the priest Zechariah and teenaged Mary to the angel’s announcement of the miraculous births. Zechariah: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” Mary: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Oh, I suppose you can tease their words with a fine-toothed comb for clues, but I suspect the solution lies on the heart level, not the linguistic level. The angel is pleased with the maiden’s response but rebukes the priest’s unbelief.
One of the exquisite sufferings of the Christian life is intellectual suffering. Is this not the “perplexity but not despair” that Paul himself was afflicted with (2 Corinthians 4:8)? Why hasn’t Christ returned sooner? Why did the Holy Spirit forbid me to bring the gospel to Asia (Acts 16:6)? Why has God allowed the Corinthian church to splinter into factions almost from the get-go? Why am I sitting in a prison in Rome when I could do so much more on the road?
I and a friend of mine are both perplexed about a prayer of ours not answered. I heard him say, “I don’t understand why God has not answered this prayer.” I also said, “I don’t understand why God has not answered this prayer.” But he said it with a spirit still tender toward his Lord, and I said it with a sneer.
René Descartes resolved to begin with doubt as a way to truth. But it doesn’t work in the Christian life; there is always one more objection that rears its head. Jesus passed Levi the tax collector at his booth, and said, “Follow me.” Levi got up immediately. Follow now; ask questions later.
The methodology of doubt produces a hobbling walk (1 Kings 18:21). I have decided today to be “perplexed” from the chair of faith and not unbelief. Hold me to it.
Andree Seu
"God Is A Spirit"
God is a Spirit - this is one of the first, the greatest, the most sublime, and necessary truths in the compass of nature! There is a God, the cause of all things-the fountain of all perfection-without parts or dimensions, for He is ETERNAL-filling the heavens and the earth-pervading, governing, and upholding all things: for He is an infinite SPIRIT! This God can be pleased only with that which resembles Himself: therefore He must hate sin and sinfulness; and can delight in those only who are made partakers of His own divine nature. As all creatures were made by Him, so all owe Him obedience and reverence; but, to be acceptable to this infinite Spirit, the worship must be of a spiritual nature-must spring from the heart…and it must be in TRUTH, not only in sincerity, but performed according to that divine revelation which He has given men of Himself. A man worships God in spirit, when…he brings all his affections, appetites, and desires to the throne of God; and he worships Him in truth, when every purpose and passion of his heart, and when every act of his religious worship, is guided and regulated by the word of God.
Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke
"The Root of Discipline"
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Consumers Must Be Producers"
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
"Death, Thou Shalt Die"
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
John Donne
John Donne
"The Greatest Friday"
Lest any trial incident to humanity should be lacking, the torments of hope -- of suspense, anxiety -- were at the last moment loosed on Him -- the supposed possibility that, after all, He might, He just conceivably might, be spared the ultimate horror. There was precedent. Isaac had been spared: he too at the last moment, he also against all apparent probability. It was not quite impossible...and doubtless He had seen other men crucified...a sight very unlike most of our religious pictures and images.
But for this last (and erroneous) hope against hope, and the consequent tumult of the soul, the sweat of blood, perhaps He would not have been very Man. To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man.
At the end, I know, we are told that an angel appeared ``comforting'' Him. But neither "comforting" in sixteenth-century English nor ``ennischuon'' in Greek means ``consoling''. ``Strengthening'' is more the word. May not the strengthening have consisted in the renewed certainty -- cold comfort this -- that the thing must be endured and therefore could be?
C.S. Lewis
Letters to Malcolm pp 42]
But for this last (and erroneous) hope against hope, and the consequent tumult of the soul, the sweat of blood, perhaps He would not have been very Man. To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man.
At the end, I know, we are told that an angel appeared ``comforting'' Him. But neither "comforting" in sixteenth-century English nor ``ennischuon'' in Greek means ``consoling''. ``Strengthening'' is more the word. May not the strengthening have consisted in the renewed certainty -- cold comfort this -- that the thing must be endured and therefore could be?
C.S. Lewis
Letters to Malcolm pp 42]
"Why Those Dainty Morsals Are So Sweet"
People use information as leverage and even mild self-promotion all the time. Sharing news about friends hints that you're popular enough to be privy; office tidbits suggest you're plugged-in. Swapping family news makes you central to these important ties.
Negative information is particularly potent. In sharing it, you form a mini-alignment with your confidant against the person you're dogging or whose confidence you're betraying. Good news makes groups, bad news makes factions.
Carolyn Hax
Negative information is particularly potent. In sharing it, you form a mini-alignment with your confidant against the person you're dogging or whose confidence you're betraying. Good news makes groups, bad news makes factions.
Carolyn Hax
"Pride:The Chief Cause of Misery"
...it is through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind...Pride is the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began...For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense...
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp122-125
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp122-125
"More Certain Gain"
No gain is so certain as that which proceeds from the economical use of what you already have.
Latin Proverb
Latin Proverb
"Finish The Job"
It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth."
John Locke
John Locke
"Promising Carefully"
He who is slow in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau
"A Quiet Place To Lay Your Head"
Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart has no rest till it comes to Thee
St. Augustine
St. Augustine
"Life Is LIke A Grindstone"
Life is like a grindstone: Whether it grids you down or polishes you up depends on what you're made of.
Anonymous
Anonymous
"How Should We Then Live?"
Guitar lessons
There is a shop on Easton Road advertising guitar lessons for $20 a half hour. For years I have been asking God to let me learn the guitar. I finally realized why it wasn't happening: I wasn't taking the instrument out of the case. There is a lesson in that.
The Titanic was a bad deal for 1,517 people in April of 1912, but it has been useful as an example ever since. Constantly resurrected from the inky waters off Newfoundland, only to sink it again as a parable of whatever the lecturer wants to exploit it for, the Titanic's ghost continues to instruct: Do not test the Lord by calling yourself "unsinkable." Do not live in self-indulgence in the last days (James 5:5). Do not say "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" (James 4:13). What king goes to war without first making sure he has enough soldiers? Be prepared: have enough lifeboats on hand (Luke 14:31).
And this other lesson: Do not polish doorknobs on a sinking ship.
There are two reasons why I have not made more traction on my beautiful yard sale Yamaha. (I got through Frederick Noad's "part one" and half of Mel Bay's "grade two" twice before tanking.) One is that although it is always on my daily to-do list, I never make it that far down the list. Other jettisoned detritus of good intentions include deep-cleaning of the house and letters to relatives in Korea. And the reason I never get that far down the list has to do with lack of competence on the preceding items on the list.
But the second speed bump is philosophical. As Koheleth mused, what is "good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life" (Ecclesiastes 2:3)? And not just generic days anymore, but the last days? Of course we have been in "the last days" for two millennia. But never before in the "last last days," which it seems to me, on alternate Mondays and Thursdays, we are in.
How shall I then live when Francis Schaeffer's How Shall We Then Live? is unprecedentedly pointed? What is the wise use of time while Rome burns? (The close kinship of fiddle and guitar is a tad uncomfortable, n'est-ce pas?)
Selected events of history now appear as bolder heads protruding from the river's surface, marking our species' crossing. There is Babel first, raising itself to the sky, and getting lopped off. Then Nebuchadnezzar's tree, leveled to a stump. Did you know that the unsinkable Titanic took about 2½ hours to sink, from 23:40 when the iceberg brushed the ship's starboard and seawater rushed the five forward compartments, spelling the luxury liner's doom?
Oddly, the first lifeboat launched contained only 28 people, despite a capacity of 65. There is always only a small subset of people who can see the meaning of small events at first—the child's marble, once stationary, now slowly rolling off the cabin table onto the deck floor.
"As she glorified herself and lived in luxury . . . in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen.' . . . And the kings of the earth . . . will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, 'Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.' . . . What city was like the great city?'" (Revelation 18).
On the other hand, you can't just stop living, can you? Indeed, it's time to start living, if we have not yet started. Sleepers awake! Man your stations! Like Nehemiah's men in a similar crisis, work with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other (Nehemiah 4:17). Be found in enterprise and not indolence when the Lord makes His appearance with uplifted hand, on a white steed, to an angel's shout.
I just don't know yet if that includes taking up guitar.
Andrée Seu
WORLD Magazine
April 11, 2009, Vol. 24, No. 7
There is a shop on Easton Road advertising guitar lessons for $20 a half hour. For years I have been asking God to let me learn the guitar. I finally realized why it wasn't happening: I wasn't taking the instrument out of the case. There is a lesson in that.
The Titanic was a bad deal for 1,517 people in April of 1912, but it has been useful as an example ever since. Constantly resurrected from the inky waters off Newfoundland, only to sink it again as a parable of whatever the lecturer wants to exploit it for, the Titanic's ghost continues to instruct: Do not test the Lord by calling yourself "unsinkable." Do not live in self-indulgence in the last days (James 5:5). Do not say "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" (James 4:13). What king goes to war without first making sure he has enough soldiers? Be prepared: have enough lifeboats on hand (Luke 14:31).
And this other lesson: Do not polish doorknobs on a sinking ship.
There are two reasons why I have not made more traction on my beautiful yard sale Yamaha. (I got through Frederick Noad's "part one" and half of Mel Bay's "grade two" twice before tanking.) One is that although it is always on my daily to-do list, I never make it that far down the list. Other jettisoned detritus of good intentions include deep-cleaning of the house and letters to relatives in Korea. And the reason I never get that far down the list has to do with lack of competence on the preceding items on the list.
But the second speed bump is philosophical. As Koheleth mused, what is "good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life" (Ecclesiastes 2:3)? And not just generic days anymore, but the last days? Of course we have been in "the last days" for two millennia. But never before in the "last last days," which it seems to me, on alternate Mondays and Thursdays, we are in.
How shall I then live when Francis Schaeffer's How Shall We Then Live? is unprecedentedly pointed? What is the wise use of time while Rome burns? (The close kinship of fiddle and guitar is a tad uncomfortable, n'est-ce pas?)
Selected events of history now appear as bolder heads protruding from the river's surface, marking our species' crossing. There is Babel first, raising itself to the sky, and getting lopped off. Then Nebuchadnezzar's tree, leveled to a stump. Did you know that the unsinkable Titanic took about 2½ hours to sink, from 23:40 when the iceberg brushed the ship's starboard and seawater rushed the five forward compartments, spelling the luxury liner's doom?
Oddly, the first lifeboat launched contained only 28 people, despite a capacity of 65. There is always only a small subset of people who can see the meaning of small events at first—the child's marble, once stationary, now slowly rolling off the cabin table onto the deck floor.
"As she glorified herself and lived in luxury . . . in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen.' . . . And the kings of the earth . . . will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, 'Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.' . . . What city was like the great city?'" (Revelation 18).
On the other hand, you can't just stop living, can you? Indeed, it's time to start living, if we have not yet started. Sleepers awake! Man your stations! Like Nehemiah's men in a similar crisis, work with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other (Nehemiah 4:17). Be found in enterprise and not indolence when the Lord makes His appearance with uplifted hand, on a white steed, to an angel's shout.
I just don't know yet if that includes taking up guitar.
Andrée Seu
WORLD Magazine
April 11, 2009, Vol. 24, No. 7
"My Soul, Find Yourself in Jesus And Be Free"
Jesus met a woman at the well who had had five husbands. I would guess she had Self issues. I would say she was a hollow in search of filling. Jesus wanted to fill her. He said, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water" (John 4:10).
Perhaps all lusts are corruptions of good desires. Before "sin, the flesh, and the devil" got a hold of us in Eden, we desired (and we had) sweet intimacy with the Lord—and because of that, with each other. His love, and the assurance of it, were the wellspring from which to bathe our neighbors in nurturing, the hub of a solid soul from which spokes of ministry and not manipulation emanated.
Intimacy is not a secondary agenda of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. The salvation these wrought were a salvation into the sweet lovemaking of the eternal Trinity. Being somebody, being affirmed, delighted in, held in close embrace, are where reality began and where it all goes to.
Acceptance is tendered: "I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it" (Revelation 2:17). My soul, find yourself in Jesus and be free.
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business pp 104-105
Perhaps all lusts are corruptions of good desires. Before "sin, the flesh, and the devil" got a hold of us in Eden, we desired (and we had) sweet intimacy with the Lord—and because of that, with each other. His love, and the assurance of it, were the wellspring from which to bathe our neighbors in nurturing, the hub of a solid soul from which spokes of ministry and not manipulation emanated.
Intimacy is not a secondary agenda of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. The salvation these wrought were a salvation into the sweet lovemaking of the eternal Trinity. Being somebody, being affirmed, delighted in, held in close embrace, are where reality began and where it all goes to.
Acceptance is tendered: "I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it" (Revelation 2:17). My soul, find yourself in Jesus and be free.
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business pp 104-105
"On The Far Side of Every Risk for Righteousness, God Will Still Be Holding Us"
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"Thank You, Valient Ones"
Let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you form all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil--every evil except dishonor and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it.
On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing. Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount and whose society you do not frequent, soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, inevitably, in any minority group. For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love. It offers you time to lay the foundations of a career; for whether you will or no, you can hardly help getting the jobs for which the discharged soldiers will one day look in vain. You do not even have to fear, as Pacifists may have had to fear in the last war, that public opinion will punish you when the peace comes. For we have learned now that through the world is slow to forgive, it is quick to forget.
C.S.Lewis
The Weight of Glory pp89-90
On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing. Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount and whose society you do not frequent, soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, inevitably, in any minority group. For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love. It offers you time to lay the foundations of a career; for whether you will or no, you can hardly help getting the jobs for which the discharged soldiers will one day look in vain. You do not even have to fear, as Pacifists may have had to fear in the last war, that public opinion will punish you when the peace comes. For we have learned now that through the world is slow to forgive, it is quick to forget.
C.S.Lewis
The Weight of Glory pp89-90
"Stand Corrected"
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.
Joseph Joubert
Joseph Joubert
"Invest Wisely, Everything Counts"
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.132
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.132
"Happiness And The Art of Living"
The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
Charles Morgan
Charles Morgan
"Perfection of Word"
A few feet from my bed is a narrow waste basket around which, on any given night, you will see crumpled paper projectiles like a game of horseshoe solitaire, all capsized attempts at correspondence that have been discarded for various reasons—too strong, too wimpy, too whiny, manipulative, exaggerated.
The person who will receive the final version of the letter will read it as if it were an objective reflection of my mind. If he is so inclined, he may weigh every word, parse every expression. He will freeze my thoughts in aspic as if he really has something solid, little knowing how tenuous and contingent it is, little knowing that it is draft No. 9. It is the gauge of temperature at one moment in a stream.
God’s Word is not like that. “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him” (Psalm 18:30). God says exactly what He means to say, and says it how He means to say it, and does not change His mind. It is not too strong, not manipulative, not fickle, not exaggerated, not proceeding from evil motives, nor bitterness, nor selfish ambition, nor out of anything but love.
Because “the testimony of the Lord is sure” (Psalm 19:7), there are implications. As my NKJV Bible says in its introduction to Genesis: “The Word of God must always stand above the word of man; we are not to judge His Word, but rather, it judges us.” This is easier said than done. I am in the habit of running God’s words by the bar of reason and through the net of personal experience and anecdotal reports and denominational affiliation. I need to quit that and let God speak to me directly.
Andree Seu
The person who will receive the final version of the letter will read it as if it were an objective reflection of my mind. If he is so inclined, he may weigh every word, parse every expression. He will freeze my thoughts in aspic as if he really has something solid, little knowing how tenuous and contingent it is, little knowing that it is draft No. 9. It is the gauge of temperature at one moment in a stream.
God’s Word is not like that. “This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him” (Psalm 18:30). God says exactly what He means to say, and says it how He means to say it, and does not change His mind. It is not too strong, not manipulative, not fickle, not exaggerated, not proceeding from evil motives, nor bitterness, nor selfish ambition, nor out of anything but love.
Because “the testimony of the Lord is sure” (Psalm 19:7), there are implications. As my NKJV Bible says in its introduction to Genesis: “The Word of God must always stand above the word of man; we are not to judge His Word, but rather, it judges us.” This is easier said than done. I am in the habit of running God’s words by the bar of reason and through the net of personal experience and anecdotal reports and denominational affiliation. I need to quit that and let God speak to me directly.
Andree Seu
"The Intellectual Fakeout"
How many people are abstract as a way of appearing profound!
Joseph Jourbert, 1754-1824
Joseph Jourbert, 1754-1824
"Make Yourself Obsolete"
The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching. Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say "They need me no longer" should be our reward...The instinct desires the good of its object, but not simply only the good it can itself give. A much higher love...desires the good of the object...from whatever source that good comes...
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp76
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp76
"The Whole of You, Brains And All"
God is not fond of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But fortunately, it works the other way round. Anyone who is honesty trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world.
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp78
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp78
"Depriving Misfortune"
Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power.
Seneca
Seneca
"A Child's Heart, But A Grown Ups Head"
He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp77
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp77
"The Purpose of Life And What To Do Instead of Building Larger Barnes"
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"For Those in A Miserable Relationship"
The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church and give His life for her (Eph. V, 25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is...least loveable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bridegroom gives her; He does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and suffering of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labours to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs...To say this is not to say that there is any virtue or wisdom in making a marriage that involves such misery. There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martyrdom or deliberately courting persecution; yet it is, none the less, the persecuted or martyred Christian in whom the pattern of the Master is most unambiguously realised.
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp.148-149
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp.148-149
"Direct Your Instincts"
...there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at the one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.11
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.11
"My God, I Love You"
My God, I love you not because I hope for heaven thereby, nor yet because who love you not are lost eternally. Not with the hope of gaining anything, nor seeking a reward; But as you have loved me, Oh Lord, ever loving, even so I love you, and will love, and in your praise will sing, soley because you are my God and my eternal King
Anonymous 17th century prayer
Anonymous 17th century prayer
"Make No Opportunity"
Keep thou from the opportunity, and God will keep thee from the sin
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"Handling The Relentless Critic"
Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been a statue erected to a critic
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
"Mistakes"
More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying they had made them
Anonymous
Anonymous
"Suffering in Fierce Love"
God hates the cancer of sin and pours out his wrath on it. But how does God's chemotherapy work? How did the father kill the sin in the prodigal son's heart? By suffering in love on his son's behalf. By taking the pain of the boy's hatred into himself and burying it forever. By bleeding for him. The revelation of this fierce love killed the sinful son stone dead, and a new son rose from the ashes.
Allen S
Into The Wardrobe Website
Allen S
Into The Wardrobe Website
"Bright Because The Sun Shines"
…the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life within him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.63
C.S.Lewis
Mere Christianity pp.63
"One Way Ticket, Please"
After our ages-long journey from savagery to civility, let's hope we haven't bought a round-trip ticket
Cullen Hightower
Cullen Hightower
"Poisonous Antidote"
To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"How Can I Tell If I Love God Most?"
It is probably impossible to love any human being "too much." We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinacy...the question whether we are loving God or the earthly Beloved "more" is not, so far as concerns our Christian duty, a question about the comparative intensity of two feelings. The real question is, which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, or choose, or put first? To which claim does your will, in the last resort, yield?
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp.170-171
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp.170-171
"You Cannot"
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.
William J. H. Boetcker
(not Abraham Lincoln)
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.
William J. H. Boetcker
(not Abraham Lincoln)
"Wretched And Needy"
The more you see how wretched and needy you are, the less the question "How much should I pray?" is an issue for serious debate.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"Our Hunter, King, And Husband: He Is Wonderfully Alive"
It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out!' we cry, 'it's alive'. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back - I would have done so myself if I could - and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God' -- well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap - best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('Man's search for God!') suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis
"In Spirit And In Truth, With Every Purpose And Passion Of Your Heart"
God is a Spirit: this is one of the first, the greatest, the most sublime, and necessary truths in the compass of nature! There is a God, the cause of all things-the fountain of all perfection-without parts or dimensions, for He is ETERNAL-filling the heavens and the earth-pervading, governing, and upholding all things: for He is an infinite SPIRIT! This God can be pleased only with that which resembles Himself: therefore He must hate sin and sinfulness; and can delight in those only who are made partakers of His own divine nature. As all creatures were made by Him, so all owe Him obedience and reverence; but, to be acceptable to this infinite Spirit, the worship must be of a spiritual nature-must spring from the heart…and it must be in TRUTH, not only in sincerity, but performed according to that divine revelation which He has given men of Himself. A man worships God in spirit, when…He brings all his affections, appetites, and desires to the throne of God; and he worships him in truth, when every purpose and passion of his heart, and when every act of his religious worship, is guided and regulated by the word of God.
Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke
"Forbidden Hurt And Commanded Benefits"
Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful. Nor is a duty beneficial because it is commanded, but it is commanded because it is beneficial
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"Be Astonished, O Heavens! At This: Perhaps The Second Greatest Story Ever Told"
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"Just A Temporary Assignment"
Ask God to help you see life on earth as He sees it…your homeland is heaven. When you grasp this truth, you will stop worrying about “having it all” on earth… it’s easy to forget that the pursuit of happiness is not what life is about. Realizing life on earth is just a temporary assignment should radically alter your values. Eternal truths, not temporal ones, should become the deciding factors for your decisions...In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life- longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity…You will never feel completely satisfied on earth, because you were made for more.
Rick Warren
The Purpose Driven Life pp 47-50
Rick Warren
The Purpose Driven Life pp 47-50
"The Better Dowry"
The plan is that as the woman's first beauty wanes, a ripening comes that is the second beauty. It is by this that men may still love their wives, even as the bridal dowry of physical allure is exchanged, over time, for the better dowry of an inner glow.
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business 92-93
Andree Seu
Normal Kingdom Business 92-93
"Our True Beloved"
When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His...By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do...God is our true Beloved.
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp190-191
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp190-191
"Liberate That Splendor"
When God planted a garden He set a man over it and set the man under Himself. When He planted the garden of our nature and caused the flowering, fruiting loves to grown there, He set our will to "dress" them...And unless His grace comes down, like the rain and sunshine, we shall use this tool to little purpose...While we hack and prune we know very well that what we are hacking and pruning is big with a splendor and vitality which our rational will could never of itself have supplied. To liberate that splendor, to let it become fully what it is trying to be, to have tall trees instead of scrubby tangles, and sweet apples instead of crabs, is part of our purpose.
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp.164-165
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves pp.164-165
"Benjamin Franklin on Love And Marriage"
* Beauty and folly are old companions *
* Marry above thy match, and thou'lt get a master *
* Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards *
* Let thy maid-servant be faithful, strong, and homely *
* You can bear your own Faults, and why not a Fault in your Wife *
* Marry above thy match, and thou'lt get a master *
* Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards *
* Let thy maid-servant be faithful, strong, and homely *
* You can bear your own Faults, and why not a Fault in your Wife *
"Friendship 101"
Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in a common interest...true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth...Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God...Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden)...The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends...Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers...If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is "about", we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him."
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp.91-104
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp.91-104
"Delightfully Disarmed"
If we are any good we must always be working towards the moment at which our pupils are fit to become our critics and rivals. We should be delighted when it arrives, as the fencing master is delighted when his pupil can pink and disarm him.
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp. 77
C.S.Lewis
The Four Loves pp. 77
"God Makes Plans"
…all of life is a test. You are always being tested. God constantly watches your response to people, problems, success, conflict, illness, disappointment…He even watches the simplest actions…you will be tested by major changes, delayed promises…undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies...The good news is God wants you to pass the tests of life… every time you pass a test, God notices and makes plans to reward you in eternity.
Rick Warren
The Purpose Driven Life pp.43-44
Rick Warren
The Purpose Driven Life pp.43-44
"Repose Thyself in Him"
Concerning the abundant satisfaction which those have, and will have, who make God their confidence, who live by faith in his providence and promise, who refer themselves to Him and His guidance at all times and repose themselves in Him and His love in the most unquiet times. The duty required of us-to trust in the Lord, to do our duty to Him and then depend upon Him to bear us out in doing it-when creatures and second causes either deceive or threaten us, either are false to us or fierce against us, to commit ourselves to God as all-sufficient both to fill up the place of those who fail us and to protect us from those who set upon us. It is to make the Lord our hope, His favour the good we hope for and His power the strength we hope in…
Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry
"Worldly Goods"
If worldly Goods cannot save me from Death, they ought not to hinder me of eternal Life.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"Invisible Monkeys"
"They’re on our backs, and getting them off will unleash creativity | Andrée Seu
When my husband died and this kept woman was hired for her first paying job in 20 years, managing the café of a seminary, I felt anxious and insecure until my mother said the following: "Look at it this way, your goal is to make a decent sandwich."
Why was this so helpful? Why did it dispel the paralysis and release a burst of productive energy? Because it replaced amorphous anxiety with a concrete goal, a goal ("decent sandwich") from which I could mentally work backwards to list the steps toward its accomplishment.
If you have the same problem I have—walking around in a cloud of vaguely nagging uncompleted tasks—management consultant David Allen has suggestions for Getting Things Done. Look at the book as an elaboration of "doing the next thing," which, in its Christian application, involves acknowledging the following division of labor: Trust the loving and omniscient God to protect your life; you, attend to the next required action.
The fact is that 80 percent of everything in every drawer in your house never gets used. And you know in your heart that every new paper you throw on the pile on your desk renders the paper directly beneath it exponentially less likely to be dealt with. So you have started another pile in another area of the house for "urgent-urgent things," to distinguish them from "urgent things" languishing in the first pile.
All these are invisible monkeys on your back, not unlike Pilgrim's burden in the John Bunyan tale, except it's not sin but mental clutter that robs your peace. God would have you free of this ("We have the mind of Christ"—1 Corinthians 2:16). It's not a moral issue, of course, except in the sense that everything under the sun is a moral issue, in a cosmos owned by God. Keeping your rafters from sagging is a moral issue (Ecclesiastes 10:18).
Jesus tells us not to worry (Matthew 6), and David Allen says much worry comes from a mental traffic jam of "inappropriately managed commitments." He says, "Your mind will keep working on anything that's still in an undecided state." Get things off your mind by getting them done, and see the creativity it releases. Get them done by taking 10 seconds to identify what's bugging you and making front-end decisions: do, delegate, or defer. Allen defines a "project" as "an outcome requiring more than one action," and reminds us that no one ever did a project; he did an action.
Is it bugging you that you haven't read your Bible in about six months? Okay, either live with the gnawing discomfort or take the next action. Maybe the next action is, "Where's my Bible? Honey, do we own a Bible?" Or maybe what's shipwrecked your good intentions is something as small as the looming imagined hassle of not knowing where to start in your reading—Old Testament or New Testament? Make an intuitive stab at that decision, then break the Bible open to the place on your night table, so that tomorrow morning you won't be waylaid by that other psychological barrier of having actually to thumb through for the right page.
Having a clear goal is of first importance, and you should review your projects from a series of different heights, from the bottom at "current actions" to the "50,000-foot altitude level"—or Life. "I'm often stunned by how many people have forgotten why they're doing what they're doing," says Allen. If anyone has a mandate to engage in this kind of reflection, it's the Christian, who has as his aerial view of life the building of the kingdom of God. How do my present "projects" fit into that view?
I just took mental inventory and noticed something that's been bugging me and stalled all summer: I want to have a dessert night for all my neighbors. I want to spend a few days baking cakes and pies and then see people stream in and be delighted and meet folks they've never met in 20 years on the street. The 10,000-foot altitude goal is "summer dessert for neighborhood." The 50,000-foot altitude goal is the advancement of the kingdom of God. The sticking point is step one: What's the next action?
I'm going outside right now to count the houses on the block and decide how many invitations to buy. See ya."
Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
August 26, 2006, Vol. 21, No. 33
When my husband died and this kept woman was hired for her first paying job in 20 years, managing the café of a seminary, I felt anxious and insecure until my mother said the following: "Look at it this way, your goal is to make a decent sandwich."
Why was this so helpful? Why did it dispel the paralysis and release a burst of productive energy? Because it replaced amorphous anxiety with a concrete goal, a goal ("decent sandwich") from which I could mentally work backwards to list the steps toward its accomplishment.
If you have the same problem I have—walking around in a cloud of vaguely nagging uncompleted tasks—management consultant David Allen has suggestions for Getting Things Done. Look at the book as an elaboration of "doing the next thing," which, in its Christian application, involves acknowledging the following division of labor: Trust the loving and omniscient God to protect your life; you, attend to the next required action.
The fact is that 80 percent of everything in every drawer in your house never gets used. And you know in your heart that every new paper you throw on the pile on your desk renders the paper directly beneath it exponentially less likely to be dealt with. So you have started another pile in another area of the house for "urgent-urgent things," to distinguish them from "urgent things" languishing in the first pile.
All these are invisible monkeys on your back, not unlike Pilgrim's burden in the John Bunyan tale, except it's not sin but mental clutter that robs your peace. God would have you free of this ("We have the mind of Christ"—1 Corinthians 2:16). It's not a moral issue, of course, except in the sense that everything under the sun is a moral issue, in a cosmos owned by God. Keeping your rafters from sagging is a moral issue (Ecclesiastes 10:18).
Jesus tells us not to worry (Matthew 6), and David Allen says much worry comes from a mental traffic jam of "inappropriately managed commitments." He says, "Your mind will keep working on anything that's still in an undecided state." Get things off your mind by getting them done, and see the creativity it releases. Get them done by taking 10 seconds to identify what's bugging you and making front-end decisions: do, delegate, or defer. Allen defines a "project" as "an outcome requiring more than one action," and reminds us that no one ever did a project; he did an action.
Is it bugging you that you haven't read your Bible in about six months? Okay, either live with the gnawing discomfort or take the next action. Maybe the next action is, "Where's my Bible? Honey, do we own a Bible?" Or maybe what's shipwrecked your good intentions is something as small as the looming imagined hassle of not knowing where to start in your reading—Old Testament or New Testament? Make an intuitive stab at that decision, then break the Bible open to the place on your night table, so that tomorrow morning you won't be waylaid by that other psychological barrier of having actually to thumb through for the right page.
Having a clear goal is of first importance, and you should review your projects from a series of different heights, from the bottom at "current actions" to the "50,000-foot altitude level"—or Life. "I'm often stunned by how many people have forgotten why they're doing what they're doing," says Allen. If anyone has a mandate to engage in this kind of reflection, it's the Christian, who has as his aerial view of life the building of the kingdom of God. How do my present "projects" fit into that view?
I just took mental inventory and noticed something that's been bugging me and stalled all summer: I want to have a dessert night for all my neighbors. I want to spend a few days baking cakes and pies and then see people stream in and be delighted and meet folks they've never met in 20 years on the street. The 10,000-foot altitude goal is "summer dessert for neighborhood." The 50,000-foot altitude goal is the advancement of the kingdom of God. The sticking point is step one: What's the next action?
I'm going outside right now to count the houses on the block and decide how many invitations to buy. See ya."
Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
August 26, 2006, Vol. 21, No. 33
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