of my blog anniversary give-away of Not By Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God by Layton Talbert is Amy at Hope Is the Word!
I want to say a heartfelt thank-you to all who posted very kind comments there. I was not anticipating that. My heart was very touched and blessed. You all really make blogging a joy and I feel so blessed that anyone reads anything here.
The Together on Tuesdays topic last week was backyard fun, but I didn’t post because we don’t have much of a back yard now and haven’t spent much time out there in ages, except when my husband grills food.
But over the next few days, some backyard fun from earlier days came to mind.
I’m not sure how old the boys were when they wanted a treehouse. Just buying lumber from a commercial store was beyond our means at that time, but somewhere Jim found a place with a bunch of old wooden pallets, and he asked for them, took them apart, sanded them, and built a treehouse, compete with trap door. To my chagrin, it doesn’t look like we have any photos of it. But they and the neighbor kids spent hours out there.
I found a couple of other photos of their backyard activities:
These little scooters were all the rage at one time.
They pulled each other around in the wagon, and this time it looks they cooled off by adding water. 🙂 (The boys are mine, the girls are neighbors).
There was a little rise at the back of the property that allowed just enough of a thrill for small boys when it snowed to sled down or use an inner tube, or in a pinch, a flattened cardboard box.
Once my husband built a teepee for them.
I think a few times they camped out in the back yard.
We had a sandbox for several years, and when we got the dog, she was always someone to play with in the backyard. They blew bubbles, played ball, constructed mazes out of big cardboard boxes. They had a kiddie pool at one time.
And the trampoline was a big hit, but the pièce de résistance was when Jim put together some PVC piping and punched holes in it to make a sprinkler for the trampoline:
You’d think the water would have made it slippery, but it actually slowed down the bounciness some. It combined running through the sprinkler with jumping on the trampoline. And it looks like it made a handy water fountain, too.
I had always wanted a swing set, and we never had one, but I don’t think they missed out. 🙂 They associated swings and slides with the park which we visited often in those days.
I enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Thanks, Annette and Dorie, for the prompt!
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
Jeremiah 15:16
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63
May you find joy and life as you partake in His Word today.
Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.
Here are some favorites from the last week:
1. Jeremy’s coming home today! For a whole week!
2. Jesse’s job. Jesse hadn’t found work this summer except for a man from church who called him on an as-needed basis. But this man recently had an opening come up for more regular work and offered it to Jesse, and the hours are flexible so it will fit around his college classes .
3. Sleep. I usually wake up once or twice in the night and usually have no trouble going back to sleep. But for the past few weeks whenever I’d wake up, I’d be awake for an hour or so. That provides a nice time to pray or think, but then it makes me sleep later or else drag through the next day. This week has been more back to normal and has felt so good.
4. Kind comments on my sixth blog anniversary post. Almost made me cry!
5. God’s help — every day! But specifically in a situation last week. The ladies’ newsletter for church needed to be printed out by Friday, and I didn’t find out til Tuesday that the lady who writes up the testimonies and information for our “Getting to Know You” section for new ladies wasn’t going to be able to do that this time. It’s a highlight of the newsletter so I hated to leave it out, but wasn’t sure I could find someone who would be willing to share their testimony and such in such a short time frame. We usually “introduce” two ladies per newsletter and I was hoping to at least have one — but God provided two! And for a number of reasons I didn’t get to actually working on the newsletter until Thursday, though I had been thinking and planning what to do before that. Yet, by God’s grace, it was done by Friday afternoon. (I debated whether to go into all that or just say “God really helped me in a pinch this week,” but then I decided it may be an encouragement to you in your ministries.)
Bonus: Our pastor’s message last Sunday from Romans 16, where Paul lists a number of people who ministered in various ways other than what we think of as the “main” ones of teaching and preaching. He discussed some of those people as well as some of those folks in our church and ended with “interviewing” a lady from our church who teaches English in a closed country and has various ministry opportunities. That was a blessing to me.
Have a great weekend!
I’m joining in the “Reading Classics Together” at Challies‘ place for the first time. I’ve always liked the idea: a group of people reads a chapter of a book a week and discusses it. But this is the first time the title they are discussing appealed enough to me for me to jump in.
The Disciplines of Grace by Jerry Bridges attracted me for a couple of reasons. I’ve heard Bridges favorably mentioned and recommended for years but just have never gotten to one of his books. And the title of this one seemed to explore what I was pondering in a post a while back, Of grace, law, commandments, rules, and effort (who knew someone had already written a book about it? 🙂 ) As I said there, people often seem to go too far one way or the other, either emphasizing grace to the point of having a laid-back attitude toward sin and obedience and even accusing those who emphasize obedience of legalism (I’ve seen this so many times in online discussions), or emphasizing obedience so much that they get caught up in their own performance and think they have to earn favor with God.
The first chapter, “How Good Is Good Enough?” deals with those two sides and illustrates them by contrasting two days, a good one where we’ve done pretty well by our standards, and a bad one where we failed at the starting block and can’t seem to get back on track all day. Bridges emphasizes that we can never earn God’s grace — by its very nature grace is undeserved, and though God wants us to obey (by His grace), even if we do, it’s only by His grace. He also emphasizes that depending on God’s grace every day doesn’t negate the need for vigorous personal effort in the pursuit of holiness.
Here are just a few quotes from the chapter that stood out to me:
The pursuit of holiness requires sustained and vigorous effort. It allows for no indolence, no lethargy, no halfhearted commitment, and no laissez faire attitude toward even the smallest sins. In short, it demands the highest priority in the life of a Christian, because to be holy is to be like Christ — God’s goal for every Christian (p. 12).
When we pray to God for His blessing, He does not examine our performance to see if we are worthy. Rather, He looks to see if we are trusting in the merit of His Son as our only hope for securing His blessing (p. 19).
It is only the joy of hearing the gospel and being reminded that our sins are forgiven in Christ that will keep the demands of discipleship from becoming drudgery. It is only gratitude and love to God that comes from knowing that He no longer counts our sins against us (Romans 4:8) that provides the proper motive for responding to the claims of discipleship (p. 21).
And my favorite:
Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace (p, 19).
More discussion on this chapter is here.
I first became vaguely aware of the mini-series of Roots when it came on TV back in 1977. I didn’t watch it then. According to Wikipedia it came on in January of that year, so I was probably back in college by the time it aired, where we did not have TVs nor the time to invest in a mini-series. I knew it made a sensation, but I was never interested in pursuing it. Videos of commercial films and home video players were not quite so prevalent then. And the whole subject of slavery is awful and cruel and a blight on our national history, and I had no desire to spend several hours watching a film about it.
Some years later, our pastor happened to mention a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a message, and commented, “Uncle Tom is the kind of Christian you always wanted to be.” I had not read it for the same reasons I hadn’t watched Roots, but I hadn’t known it had a Christian perspective to it. Curiosity piqued, I picked it up one day, and after reading it agreed very much with my pastor’s assessment. Though some scenes were horrible, the way Uncle Tom met them was inspiring and admirable.
Fast forward a few years later: I was watching some black comedy from the 80s, and I heard someone derisively called an “Uncle Tom.” Derisively, I thought? They don’t like and admire him? Didn’t that book lay the groundwork for the Civil War? Didn’t it lend a voice to back people when they were not allowed to have one? Why wouldn’t anyone like Tom?
I didn’t know. But just a few weeks ago, as I was scrolling through the classics listing at Audible.com looking for a new book to listen to, I came across Roots. It wasn’t on my radar at all, but in October I’m hosting the reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at Carrie’s book club, and I began to think: “Kunta Kinte from Roots is held in high regard and Uncle Tom is not, at least from what little I have heard. I wonder why.” So I decided to listen to the book and find out. I’ll come back to that thought a little later.
The book opens with Kunta’s birth in the small village of Juffure in the Gambia in the 1700s. The description of family and village life as he grows up is fascinating. Everyone has a responsibility: the youngest boys greet visitors passing the traveler’s tree and invite them in; boys a little older herd goats;, after “manhood training” they go on to other responsibilities, until they’ve established a home, built up their flock of goats and land, and desire to marry. The religion is primarily Islamic but some superstition is mixed in. At first it seemed kind of idyllic, but gradually the problems and dangers of life crowded in (drought, near-starvation before harvest, people disappearing, captured by slavers.) And some of the customs themselves seemed cruel. Men were not to show emotion, and when a boy excitedly runs to greet his father during manhood training, he is beaten. Children and wives could be beaten for many reasons. Women were even lower in social standing than teen-age boys. So it wasn’t perfect, but it was home, and there was much admirable about it outside of those things.
Knowing that Kunta was eventually going to be captured, every time he went off by himself I was afraid for him, and one of the saddest parts of the book is when he is actually captured by slavers. He endures a grueling and horrid few months in the hold of a ship with scores of others, chained together, eating poor food, being beaten at a whim, having to sit in their own filth with festering wounds, being at the mercy of disease that spreads rapidly in the close conditions.
When he is sold to a Virginia plantation owner, he makes several attempts to run away, but is captured and cruelly treated each time. The last time was especially horrid, and he is taken, bleeding and broken, to a doctor’s home, where the doctor and his maid nurse him back to health. The doctor eventually buys him from his first owner, who happens to be the doctor’s brother. The doctor is not what I would call a kind man, but life on his place is a heap better than the first place Kunta had been.
But Kunta holds himself aloof from the other slaves. He comes across as proud, and indeed he does look down on them because they don’t do things in the “superior” way he is accustomed to, but especially because they seem to have forgotten their heritage. But he can no longer run, and eventually he marries and has a child.
The rest of the book traces the next couple of generations and what happens to them, each of them passing down the story of their ancestor, Kunta.
The book is aptly named for several reasons: Kunta’s trying to hang on to his own roots, his ancestors passing down his story, the other blacks having forgotten theirs, and the setting of new roots down in this country.
One caveat: the book is very….frank about Kunta’s awareness of his budding sexuality as he grows up, and in its description of a couple of rapes and of one master’s leeriness. But I didn’t think any of it was meant to be sensationalized or titillating. It was just matter-of-fact.
Overall the book was wonderfully told, though heartbreaking in places.
The book was inspired by Alex Haley’s grandmother telling stories of her ancestors. He began to research and believed Kunta was his ancestor. That research is disputed now, but Haley defended it.
A shadow is cast over the book with the accusation of plagiarism. Haley first denied it, then settled in court and released a statement that he did use material from Harold Courlander’s book, The African.
I must say that Avery Brooks’ rich timbre greatly enhanced the audiobook. During the African section of the book, I almost felt like I was sitting on a log at the evening fires listening to a master storyteller passing along the oral traditions and history of the village’s forefathers, and then when Kunta is taken to Virginia, Brooks ably displays an amazing variety of Southern accents.
I’ve watched the first hour or so of the mini-series on YouTube. I definitely prefer the book so far. But I do hope to see it all at some point.
Back to the question: why does Kunta Kinte seem to be held in high esteem and Uncle Tom does not? I’ll be better able to think about this after I refresh my memory by rereading Uncle Tom’s Cabin in a few months, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Kunta never did fully settle in to life here, and he continued to have a hatred of white people (understandably). Uncle Tom, by contrast, was a Christian and as such was governed by admonitions to love his enemies and overcome evil with good. That looks like “kowtowing” to those who don’t understand, but the meekness of Uncle Tom is the same meekness Christ showed, not the meekness of a sycophant or of the conquered. There is a difference.
Interestingly, Kunta’s grandson married a Christian girl, and late in the book the story of Joseph in the Bible is a comfort to her and to others when she shares it.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
..flew by without me noticing it all. I can’t believe it has been six years since my first blog post on July 27, 2006.
In that time I’ve gone from “40-something” to “50-something,” one son has gotten married, two have left home, the last has graduated from high school and will start college in a few weeks, my mother passed away, my mother-in-law came to live near us, we’ve changed states…..it’s been a busy six years, full of changes, yet “through every change He faithful still remains.”
Blogging has been an outlet, a growing and stretching experience, and a lot of fun. I’ve been blessed to get to know many dear friends along the way, and I miss many who are no longer blogging.
I often like to do a little something special for my readers on my blogiversary, this year I’ve decided to give away a copy of the book I reviewed yesterday, Not By Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God by Layton Talbert. I believe it will be a faith-strengthening blessing to anyone who reads it. I may tuck in an extra little something if I can come up with an idea. 🙂 To enter the drawing for the book, just leave a comment below and let me know how long you’ve been reading here and how you found me, if you can remember. The drawing is open to everyone: I don’t think it’s too very expensive to ship a book out of the country. I’ll draw a name using random.org a week from today.
Thank you for journeying along with me! Your comments have been encouraging, enlightening, and thought-provoking, and you’ve made blogging immensely more enjoyable.
As I mentioned when I reviewed Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job by Layton Talbert, my husband and I have known Dr. Talbert for years, back before he was a PhD., before he was married….when he still had hair. 🙂 He was one of the adult Sunday School teachers at the church we attended when we were first married, and sitting under his teaching plus reading his columns in Frontline magazine, have caused me to trust his treatment of Scripture. But that trust did not come just from knowing him, but rather because of attitudes such as this:
The Holy Spirit is not capricious or careless in His use of words. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to handle the text of Scripture attentively and accurately. If we are to form a correct understanding of the facts of the story (and, consequently, to arrive at sound theological conclusions), it is vital that we carefully observe the details — and confine our conclusions to the information explicitly communicated by those details (p. 87).
And:
We are not at liberty to draw inferences that contradict other explicit statements of Scripture. And we must be tentative about defending apparently logical inferences that carry us beyond explicit statements of Scripture (p. 252).
Though he would not claim infallibility, nor would I claim it for him, Dr. Talbert’s detailed study and respect for the Word of God and carefulness and balance in teaching it makes his books trustworthy.
I first picked up Not By Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God years ago mainly because it was his with the thought, “Yes, I should read that some time.” I believed in God’s sovereignty and providence and was often comforted by it, so I wasn’t quick to plunge into a book about it, even as much as I respected its author. But like I suspect is the case for many of us, it’s when something bad or seemingly incongruous happens to shake us up that we begin to wonder about God’s providence, not to question it per se, but to wonder how this or that fits into it.
Dr. Talbert begins by discussing what providence means and thoroughly examining Scripture concerning God’s providence over man, creation, weather, opportunities…and multitudes of other things. By the end there is no escaping the fact that God is in control. And while that’s a comfort on one hand, it’s a conundrum on the other: what about the bad things?
Dr. Talbert covers that well, too. Notice I didn’t say he explains it. There are some things about providence that we can’t understand or fully explain, just like we don’t thoroughly understand the Trinity, or the fact that Jesus is both fully God and fully man at the same time, and other mysteries. But he does shed as much light on it from Scripture as he can, and it does help. For instance, in dealing with a mistaken logical inference, he says:
We often assume that all good things come from God and all “bad” things come from Satan. That is a false and unbiblical assumption that gives Satan far too much credit and attributes to him far more power than he actually possesses. Contrary to popular misconception, Satan is not God’s evil counterpart, but Michael’s. Satan, like Michael, is “only” an angel; so he is an evil angel, not an evil God. Jehovah Himself claims that He is the only God and the ultimate ruler over all our circumstances, both the “good” and the “bad” (p. 12).
And here:
God guides and governs all events, including the free acts of men and their external circumstances, and directs all things to their appointed ends for His glory.
Notice that this definition does not say that God initiates or causes all events. If we are to maintain Biblical precision in our understanding and application of Scriptural truth, the terms we choose to state it are vital (p. 62).
And from a study of the life of Joseph:
God also providentially superintends and often uses the unfairnesses of life to accomplish His purposes in and for us and those around us (p. 66).
This is something many of us wrestle over:
Part of the mystery of providence resides in the fact that God rules and reigns over all things according to His will and pleasure (Ephesians 1:11), yet man is still fully responsible and accountable for his choices and actions. In other words, God exercises His providence and accomplishes His will through the free and voluntary choices and attitudes of men and women. Were this fact limited to God’s persuasive working in believers, that would be amazing enough. But it is equally true of the wicked. God never prompts evil men to sin, yet even their rebellion against Him and their hostility against His people is providentially governed and employed by God. (The clearest example of this…[is] found in the events surrounding the Crucifixion) (p. 86).
Sometimes pondering providence can lead us to think that it doesn’t matter what we do since God is in control anyway. But Dr. Talbert reminds us that God has assigned certain duties to us in Scripture and providentially works through them.
The providence of God is never intended to lull us into a lackadaisical attitude of fatalism, as if our actions don’t really matter because God rules and overrules however He wants anyway. It is revealed to maintain a glow of energizing trust that, despite all appearances to the contrary, God is governing for His glory and for my good — a trust that inspires me to stay faithful, obedient, loyal and devoted to Him, and confident in Him…God’s providence, then, encompasses and incorporates the faithfulness and obedience of His children (p. 70).
There are chapters on God’s preserving providence, governing providence, the mystery of providence, the means of providence, silent providence, the problems of providence, providence and prayer (why pray when God is in control? this is an excellent chapter) and case studies from Biblical characters illustrating the truths being taught. Plus there are chapters on God’s providence displayed in the incarnation and passion of Christ and the church. There is a wonderful section in the study of Joseph about why God sometimes allows delays and what He accomplishes through them. There are several appendices, one being the two sides salvation: God’s determination and man’s responsibility.
I marked over 60 quotes that especially stood out to me, so there’s no way I could share all of them here. But here are just a few more:
When we are willing to submit to and practice only what immediately makes sense to us, and ignore what doesn’t (even when it is clearly commanded), we have substituted ourselves — our finite mind — as the sovereign (p. 215).
[God] is the Maestro of providential orchestration, of split-second timing, of perfect point and counterpoint (p. 249).
We dare not construct a system of theology that helps the Holy Spirit by refining or redefining the words He selected or by interposing words He chose to omit so as to tweak out of it, ever so gently, a slightly modified meaning that better fits the system (p. 259)
One of the absolute best statements I’ve ever heard as to why God’s providence allows for hard or painful things was quoted from Steve Estes, in When God Weeps with Joni Eareckson Tada:
“God permits what He hates to achieve what He loves.”
In short (although I guess it is too late to say that, huh? 🙂 ) I do very highly recommend this book.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Here are a few noteworthy reads from the last week:
Truth, Grace, and My Father’s Conversion at age 84 by Randy Alcorn. Moving story and a reminder not to water down the truth.
Free to Live. What “living free” does and does not look like. Dr. Olson was my class chaplain four years in college.
To My Gay Angry Friend written by a former homosexual who became a believer in Christ and turned from the lifestyle.
Missionary Wives Furlough Q&A, HT to Kim. Missionary wives answers questions about what has helped and hurt while on furlough. Excellent reading if your church supports missionaries!
Spoiler Alert: What God Is Teaching Me Through the Olympics. It’s hard not to hear or see headlines about the Olympics when you’re trying to wait to see the broadcasts. Here’s what one woman learned as a result of knowing ahead of time what would happen.
Bully Is As Bully Does. One gay man’s perspective on the Chick-Fil-A controversy.
Two Persistent Lies About Chick-Fil-A in the Press.
Janette Oke Canadian West #1 book When Calls The Heart free for Kindle apps for a limited time. Janette Oke started my love for Christian fiction.
Seen on Facebook:
A needed reminder when I want to stay safely in harbor.
Have a great weekend!
Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.
It’s been a very full week. Here are a few highlights of the week:
1. The Olympics!
2. Jason’s birthday party. We’d had a family get-together earlier in the month, but he wanted to have a party inviting all his and Mittu’s friends from church and work. Mittu planned it, but they had it here because we had a little more space. It was fun working with Mittu to get ready for it, meeting Jason’s friends from work that I didn’t know, and learning a new party game.
3. Mini trifles. Mittu had me put these together as one of the party foods, and they were soooo good! And very nice for a get-together. It was just a piece of brownie in a small plastic cup, a dollop of vanilla pudding, another piece of brownie, whipped topping, and chocolate drizzle. I thought I got a closer picture of them, but the only one I got was this one: they’re on the right.
4. Winning a free lunch…that I didn’t even know I was entering for! I “liked” a local restaurant on Facebook, then later in the day a friend alerted me that I had been their 1,000th “like” and therefore entitled to a free lunch there. Very nice!
5. A new pictorial church directory. They had published one just before we came almost two years ago, and many new people have joined since then. It’s nice to get updated addresses, phone numbers, and e-mails, plus to connect names and faces with the people we don’t know yet.
I’ve got a busy day in store, but I’ll be able to spend some time visiting with you all later on. Hope it’s a good day for you!
Stray Thoughts 