An Update

I always hesitate to give personal updates in this space. First, it seems a little conceited to assume that anyone is actually interested in what I am doing privately. Second, it might be good to actually keep my personal doings hidden in obscurity, lest you all find out just how boring I really am. And third, since familiarity breeds contempt, and since the contempt part already comes fairly easily, it might be good not to add familiarity to the mix.

However, my normal writing activities have dwindled considerably, and it might be helpful to let you in on the reason. Summers are always busier than the school year, believe it or not, and this summer has compounded the busy-ness. In addition to losing out on all the benefits that routine affords, there are additional activities (like camp and Vacation Bible School) – activities that devour the time. But this summer, our family had one other major event that has swallowed every solitary spare moment that wasn’t already designated for some other duty. We are selling our home: our one hundred twenty-year-old home.

Now, one hundred twenty-year-old homes present challenges that the average home couldn’t imagine. Needless to say, we have been working day and night to accomplish this, with the help of some wonderful people in our church. I thank God for every one of you that helped – from teen-ager to seasoned carpenter. You were and are a great blessing to this pastor.

I’d love to fill you in on all the details. It has taken much energy and effort, and has cost more in both money and time than I ever would have imagined. If you were wondering why I have not been writing, you have your answer. Hours that would normally go to writing have instead been spent wondering the aisles of Home Depot, looking for someone with an orange vest. And, of course, even more hours have been spent looking for someone with an orange vest that actually knows where to find the grout sealer. And, not less than a few hours were spent trying to find someone with an orange vest who knows where another person in an orange vest is that knows where to find the grout sealer. The hard part of home projects is not actually the home project; it is shopping for the materials needed to do the home project. But that is another story.

Anyway, in case you are interested, we are now officially finished with the repair. We put our house on the market on July 1, showed it 12 times in the next 11 days (skipping July 2, 3, and 4), and sold it on the 12th day! Better yet, when all is said and done, we stand to make $10,000 more than we thought we could get for it just three months ago. God answered our prayer, more than we asked or thought.

The day after the house went under contract, we went to make an offer on the home that we wanted to buy. It sold the day before. So, we started the hunt all over again.

House hunting takes time, especially when you need to find a place pronto. Our fifth child will be born in mid-September, our house will close in mid-August, and we needed to dedicate a significant amount of time to finding the next homestead. We think that we might be done with the hunt, but we won’t know for sure until we hear back on a couple of offers we put out this week. Then, of course, comes the fun job of packing up our life and moving it to a home nearby. Needless to say, we have surrendered our summer to making this move.

So, when will I get back to my routine of daily writing? Good question. Let me consult my list of weasel words here for a second. Let’s see… eventually, I might possibly find some spare time not taken up with starting this next school year, training our staff, conducting our family camp, and preparing sermons, to maybe possibly have a little time to feasibly, wind and weather permitting, think a little about conceivably thinking about kinda sorta trying to find some time to think a little about maybe trying to write again.

You wanted something more definite, did you? Well, so-o-o-r-r-r-y! I’m definitely too busy to definitely tell you if I definitely will start writing again, but I definitely will try to definitely think about definitely telling you if I will definitely get back to definitely doing it again. In the meantime, would you just definitely hold your horses? I mean, come on, a guy can definitely only do so much before he definitely runs out of daylight hours. Definitely.

So, I’ll be seeing you around. Definitely. Hopefully somewhere around here. Be sure to check back… definitely sooner than later.

As Plain As the Nose on Your Face

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. Psalm 139:14

Should you run short of reasons to praise Jehovah, you won’t need to look past the end of your nose. In fact, your nose would be a good starting point. After all, your nose itself is fearfully and wonderfully made. Your nose is a marvel of creative power and wisdom. It reminds you that dinner is ready, allows you to eat with your mouth closed, and lets you enjoy flowers at a whole different dimension. Your nose tells your head that you are hungry, and tells your stomach to get ready to work. Your nose recognizes your wife or your child. Your nose warns you that the dinner might be burning, better than any smoke alarm. But usually your nose will remind you to check long before the dinner burns.

But those are not all the wonders of your nose. Your nose distinguishes you from all other people. It is one of the marks of your individuality. Your nose has memory. It can recognize and remember scents and odors, and it can distinguish between them. Isaac’s nose could tell Jacob from Esau. Your nose enhances your ability to taste, to speak, to see, and to love.

When we lose our “wonder of the world”, we grow cold in our praise and adoration of the Most High God. We have good reason to praise the Creator --- we are fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works. Do you know that? Do you know that right well?

Or are you one of those vain fellows, strutting your stuff for the mirror, admiring your profile, gazing in admiration at your own image, thinking that it gives cause for self-glory? Does the fact that you are fearfully and wonderfully made cause pride? Do you think of yourself as marvellous? Does your physique inspire praise for God or self? I will praise thee (not me); for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…

My soul knows that God’s works are marvellous, and knows it right well. I’m no agnostic. All thy works shall praise thy name. We need not look far for a reason.

Faltering

I came across this from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening in my devotions this morning. It was an encouragement to me, and describes my experience better than I could. If we are honest, this precisely describes our Christian life. But if we are not careful, we will pretend it isn’t so, we will deny that we have ups and downs, and in hiding our sins, we will not prosper. I trust this will bless and encourage you as it did me.

“The ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven wellfavoured and fat kine.” — Genesis 41:4

Pharaoh’s dream has too often been my waking experience. My days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry; my seasons of coldness have frozen all the genial glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm; and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean praises, lean duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat up the fat of my comfort and peace. If I neglect prayer for never so short a time, I lose all the spirituality to which I had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven, the old corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in my soul. When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms of worldliness, and the palmerworms of self-indulgence, lay my heart completely desolate, and make my soul to languish, all my former fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me nothing whatever. How anxious should I be to have no lean-fleshed days, no ill-favoured hours! If every day I journeyed towards the goal of my desires I should soon reach it, but backsliding leaves me still far off from the prize of my high calling, and robs me of the advances which I had so laboriously made. The only way in which all my days can be as the “fat kine,” is to feed them in the right meadow, to spend them with the Lord, in His service, in His company, in His fear, and in His way. Why should not every year be richer than the past, in love, and usefulness, and joy?—I am nearer the celestial hills, I have had more experience of my Lord, and should be more like Him. O Lord, keep far from me the curse of leanness of soul; let me not have to cry, “My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!” but may I be well-fed and nourished in thy house, that I may praise thy name.

Faith and Freedom

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.Psalm 32:7

Liberty is not an invention of man. Men invented slavery and made it into an institution, but God proclaims liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. The God of all truth guides us into truth, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

There is a liberty that really is slavery. Much of America’s modern idolatry, the idolizing of freedom, has made slaves of us all. Ralph Dunkley’s State Farm Agency has a quote on their sign: Faith in freedom can keep us free. Wrong! Faith in God, the true and living God, will make us free and keep us free. But as it turns out, “faith in freedom” is really idolatry. Making freedom into your newest idol will bind us into slavery. And when we turn freedom into an idol, we lose that thing we worship.

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me… thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Think about it. God makes us free, or we are not free. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

When we look to God for our deliverance and our salvation, when we rest on Christ, and have a relationship with God through Christ alone, then we have freedom. Our freedom, then, depends on Christ, not on the Federal Government, the Constitution, the Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, or Fox News.

With Christ, we have more freedom then any human institution could possibly give. Without Christ, we live as slaves in a free country.

As we worship, we celebrate our freedoms in Christ. American, don’t be lifted up in pride at the greatness of your country. Rather, be humbled by the freedoms and privileges God has granted you. Thank the Lord, and hide in him. He will preserve us from trouble. He will compass us about with songs of deliverance.

Prairie Wisdom

While reading to our kids, I came across this passage in Little Town on the Prairie. I enjoyed reading it, commenting on it, teaching it to my children. I hope you will enjoy it as well.

It was a Fourth of July celebration in a prairie town. The townspeople gathered to hear the Declaration of Independence recited, and a fifteen year old girl takes it all in. Hear the wisdom of Laura Ingalls Wilder as she shares her thoughts on that day.

The recitation finished, the crowd was silent…

No one cheered. It was more like a moment to say, “Amen.” But no one quite knew what to do.

Then Pa began to sing. All at once everyone was singing,

My country, ‘tis of thee ,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing…

Long may our land be bright
With Freedom’s holy light.
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought; God is America’s king.

She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to bos himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little olde4r, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn’t anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted uip by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. “Our father’;s God, author of liberty -” The laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.