Category Archives: Laudable Linkage

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some of the good reads found this week:

To the Older Woman in the Church: You Are NOT Obsolete. “Older women in the Body of Christ are not obsolete, and ‘so we do not lose heart.’ Though our outer self may be forgetful, less agile, and plumper than we’d like, our inner self is on duty, continuing in service to our God.”

Potential Dangers of “Applying Scripture to My Life,” HT to Knowable Word. “Imagine asking a friend how her day was and two minutes into her summary interjecting, ‘Wait, tell me how this applies to me?’ We’d never do this. And yet we do it to God. We exchange the feast of relational intimacy and holistic formation for the porridge of minor behavioral change and practical nuggets for our optimized life.”

What We Regard as Little, HT to Challies. “The lack of obedience in small things would always eventually lead Israel to idolatry, to drifting from the God who rescued them and made them His own people. We like the dramatic stories of walls falling and dry river crossings but deemphasize the daily obedience to God’s Word because that’s not as gripping or faith-growing.”

Obituary for a Quiet Life, HT to Susan. “When the notable figures of our day pass away, they wind up on our screens, short clips documenting their achievements, talking heads discussing their influence. The quiet lives, though, pass on soundlessly in the background. And yet those are the lives in our skin, guiding us from breakfast to bed. They’re the lives that have made us, that keep the world turning.”

At the Center of All Things. “Christians are prone to take a relatively minor point of doctrine, one we might identify as second- or third-order, and set it like the earth at the pivot point of Ptolemy’s universe. Their love of this doctrine and their conviction that it is key to a right understanding and practice of the Christian faith means that soon everything begins to orbit around it. It becomes the center of their beliefs in such a way that any other point of doctrine is understood only in relation to it.” Tim shares a better way.

The Danger of Playing God. I caught part of this from Stephen Davey’s Wisdom for the Heart program on the radio then skimmed through the transcript online.The part that grabbed my attention was the difference between critical thinking and judgmentalism. “The Christian is actually told, and I quote, to judge all things (1 Corinthians 2:15) – the same root word for judge that James uses here when he obviously tells us not to judge. So is the Bible confused? Not if you understand the context of this prohibition. What James is forbidding here is judgmentalism – a critical spirit that judges everyone and everything and runs everyone down. / Hughes, p. 196. There is a difference between making a discerning judgment and having a judgmental spirit. There is a difference between judging and judgmentalism.  There is a difference between thinking critically and being critical.”

The Assignment I Wasn’t Expecting, HT to Challies. “I once was an eager college student flush with conviction, laying my life out for Jesus. His love had captured and transformed me, and I was driven by the wonder of it. I would go anywhere, do anything, I vowed. And I did. It was difficult and painful and exhilarating and beautiful, while it lasted. But somehow I didn’t expect it all to come down to this.”

Why We Should Read Poetry, although the piece talks about literature, not just poetry. HT to the Story Warren. “Reading literature offers us profound solidarity with an author and admits us to a broader human community but it also holds up a mirror that allows us to see aspects of ourselves more clearly than we could have before.”

Why Build a Personal Library? HT to Linda.”Writing in the Guardian, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett recently took aim at ‘everything that is smug and middle class about the cult of book ownership.’ She clarified, ‘I don’t mean reading. . . . No, I specifically mean having a lot of books and boasting about it, treating having a lot of books as a stand-in for your personality, or believing that simply owning a lot of books makes one ‘know things.’ But, seriously: Who does that?” Joel J. Miller shares some good reasons *for* a personal library.

I enjoyed looking through several illustrations by Liz Fosslien, many about time management, HT to Redeeming Productivity. I especially liked this one about having a bad day and breaking the cycle.

It’s a good time for my occasional reminder that links do not mean 100% endorsement of everything on these sites.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. C. S. Lewis

Laudable Linkage

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Some of the good reads found this week:

Don’t Be Taken In by the Tolerance Trick, HT to Challies. “Real tolerance, I explained, is about how we treat people, not ideas. Classic tolerance requires that every person be free to express his ideas without fear of abuse or reprisal, not that all views have equal validity, merit, or truth.”

Quarantine Is Not a Good Option for parenting styles, HT to Challies. “As tempting as it might be, don’t move your family to a plot of land without internet, electricity, and running water. I’m suggesting that instead of being overwhelmed, we intentionally inoculate our children. Let me explain.”

The Lord Opened a Door for Me . . . So I Shut It, HT to Challies. I’ve included this mainly because it’s a great example of how to respond when a Bible passage doesn’t seem to make sense or seems to go against another passage. “When I find something odd like this in the Bible—when I’m apparently not on the same wavelength as God and his apostle Paul—the correct starting point is to assume I am the one who needs to adjust his thinking. So what can I learn here that might turn the ‘huh?’ moment into an ‘aha!’ moment?”

The Inefficient Church. HT to Challies. “I’m all for certain kinds of efficiency. I just placed an online order to save a trip to the store. But I’m for the right kind of inefficiency: the inefficiency of caring enough to slow down and treat people like people, to know their names, and to actually care.”

The Best Use of Your Short Life, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “Joni’s husband is gone. Her firstborn has passed. Her sister lived to 108 but left us last December. Her joints ache. She grieves over the dramatic moral collapse of our society. She’s ready to go home. So the question returns: ‘Why am I still here?'”

What Can You Do to Help Your Husband be the Best Dad? “In those first few months of parenting, the reality of our differences becomes more obvious than ever before. And with that, the temptation to nag is nearly unbearable. Trust me … even for those who thought we would never nag!”

10 Ways to Help a Musically-Challenged, Older Believer Worship Through Song. “I’m that person. I love to sing God’s praises, but I know nothing about music. I’m also old enough that I’m offered the senior discount at restaurants. Here’s how you might help people like me worship better.”

Laudable Linkage

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Some good reads found this week:

Does Maturity Still Matter? HT to Challies. “The spectacle of businesses, journalistic organizations, and even ministries catering to their ‘most emotionally immature’ members is familiar. Even more important is the dynamic Sayers describes, whereby those hyperactive members become ‘de facto leaders,’ because their actual leaders—and, by extension, their peers—come to see avoiding controversy as job number one.”

Forgiving Ourselves, HT to Challies. “If God’s forgiveness of us is to be the paradigm for our forgiveness of others, is it, therefore, also to be the paradigm for our forgiveness of ourselves? And could this then be a solution to all the problems we face in regard to our own failures and sins?”

Mama Bear, HT to the Story Warren. “As moms, our job is to raise these little people who have been entrusted to us and teach them to be capable, productive adults who chase after God. Perhaps the largest part of that is teaching them how to deal with when things in life don’t go the way they want,” whether due to their own shortcomings or someone else’s perceived unfairness. We need balance here–it’s possible to go too far one way or the other.

Beyond Safe: 6 Prayers for the Mom of the Graduate. This is good for moms in general. Our tendency is to pray and work for our kids to remain “safe.” But God may call them to take risks.

To Surprise Us at the Last Day. A lovely reminder that sometimes God’s work is hidden. Lesley touches on a similar theme with Whether Quickly or Not.

Beware the Leech’s Daughters. Insight on a puzzling verse in Proverbs and what it might mean.

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some of the latest good reads discovered this week:

God Is Eager to Forgive You. “God promises to show favor at the faintest whisper of a cry. He promises to answer ‘as soon as He hears.’ No probation. Just the ear of God, listening to the cry of a penitent sinner’s heart. He doesn’t see you as ‘damaged goods,’ a ‘second-class citizen,’ or a blight on His church. The sinner who has turned to Christ in forgiveness has the righteousness of the Savior credited to his account. It’s this righteousness, not the black mark of sin, that the forgiving Father sees.”

Emphasizing What The Bible Emphasizes. “When our issue of the moment begins to dominate our thoughts and conversations—to the exclusion of other healthy, worthy topics—what is missing is balance and proportion.”

Are You Casual with the Holiness of God? HT to Challies. “Imagine that, after suffering a loss on the battlefield, an American army general decided to galvanize his troops by taking the Declaration of Independence into battle. Sounds a little farfetched, I know. What kind of general would play so fast and loose with one of the most precious artifacts in the nation’s history? Though it may not seem likely to happen with American soldiers, this scenario actually did play out in Israel as the era of judges came to a close.”

To Rejoice with Those Who Rejoice, HT to the Story Warren. “As we pondered what we’d both seen, we concluded that often the people of God are better at mourning than rejoicing. Leaning into support, lifting up in prayer, and bringing a meal are actually easier than being a champion for, celebrating, and truly finding joy in someone else’s experience of blessing.”

The Ministry of the Pew: Sunday Morning for Normal Christians. “May I introduce you to what others have called the ministry of the pew? Ministry that you — normal Christian — perform every Lord’s day. Such is the ministry of the Not-Up-Fronts, the army sitting facing the pulpit.”

Anything Worth Doing, Is Worth Doing Badly, HT to Challies. “As Christians we should be those who work most excellently, because we are serving a better, more worthy, Master. And yet, I’m afraid this ideal of excellence often causes well meaning Christians to stop ‘doing’ altogether. They turn the adage into, ‘If it can’t be done well, don’t do it at all.’ And that is unbiblical.”

Willing Spirit, Weak Flesh: The Real Meaning of Matthew 26:41, HT to Knowable Word. “If willingness alone can’t overcome the weakness of our flesh, what will?”

Tagless, HT to Challies. A modern day parable with a good lesson.

Laudable Linkage

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There’s so much good writing on the Internet each week. Here’s some I found:

Opposition is Bad, but Hell is Worse, HT to Challies. “In the early centuries of Christianity, the Church understood that a false understanding of salvation was more dangerous than persecution. Persecution can only kill the body, but a false gospel can kill the soul. Today, many live as if political evils are worse than hell.”

How Do You Forgive the Unpardonable? Debbie covers several good aspects of this question.

Store Up Today for Tomorrow’s Crisis, HT to Challies. “The real application of Jesus’s saying lies further back. To take his words to heart, our focus should be not so much on what we should say as what we should store. To apply Jesus’s insight, if we want to be the kind of person who speaks words of wisdom and grace, then we have to begin by storing up wisdom and grace.”

The Funny Thing About Hope, HT to Challies. “Hope is a crazy thing. Without hope, life becomes very hard and difficult. With hope, people manage stress, pressures, and tough circumstances better. Yet, when in tough circumstances, one of the easiest things to lose is hope. When hope is lost, the circumstances only grow in magnitude. At this point, the tendency is downward. Light easily turns to darkness. Joy turns to sorrow. Stability turns to anxiety. Confidence turns to fear.”

A Response to an Employer’s Request for Pronouns, HT to Challies.

An Open Letter to My High School Self, HT to the Story Warren. I did something similar several years ago: Dear Me in 1973.

Laudable Linkage

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Here are several good online reads found this week:

7 Things Moms Will Always Need to Hear. “Throughout my mothering journey, I think I’ve learned more from fellow moms who are further down the parenting path than from any other source of wisdom besides the Bible.”

Counsel for Those Struggling with Assurance. “Christians wrestle with nagging doubts about their standing with God. In this article, I would like to define what assurance is, explain why Christians might lack assurance, and offer counsel for those who are struggling with worries about their salvation.” If you struggle with assurance of salvation, I invite you to read of my own battle with this in Blessed Assurance.

3 Powerful Ways the Holy Spirit Is Active In Our Bible Study. “Why do some Christians talk so much about Bible study? If we are truly led by the Spirit (Rom 8:13–17), some may ask, what need is there for something as dry and cognitive as study? Could we be in danger of quenching the Spirit and trusting our own efforts if we focus too much on rigorous, academically responsible study of the Scriptures? I cannot capture in a single blog post the sum total of the work of God’s almighty, infinite, and eternal Spirit. But perhaps I can highlight a few of the exceptionally clear and certain ways God has shown his Spirit to be at work in and through the Scriptures.”

Honour the King? HT to Challies. “‘I don’t understand how a Christian can agree to a proclamation declaring somebody other than Jesus to be our only king’. Well, it’s really not very hard. Jesus has the title ‘king of kings’ (Rev 17:14), not ‘the king who obliterates kings’! Jesus calls the kings of the earth to kiss him in Psalm 2, not to repent of their failure to introduce democracy. It’s very possible to be both in authority and under authority at the same time (e.g. the centurion in Matt 8:9). So, Jesus’ kingship isn’t an excuse to look at the British crown and say: ‘Not my king!'”

When Leaders Fall. “Then a few days later, I heard of allegations against another Christian leader – one I am less familiar with but whom I had respected from what I knew of him and his teaching. It brings up all kinds of questions: Why is this happening with so many Christian leaders? How many more? Who else? And how can we know who to trust? There is a lot I don’t know, and I’m still processing it all, but, here are a few things I do know.”

Please Don’t Weaponize Good-Faith Disagreement, HT to Challies. “In this new world, Christians seem increasingly unable to critique without canceling. We don’t see in our disagreements an opportunity to pursue truth together—to argue by appealing to Scripture, logic, reason, and tradition. Instead, disagreements devolve into quarreling. All heat, no light.”

A Plea for Fewer Metaphors in Children’s Talks, HT to Challies. Why teaching from metaphors isn’t effective for those under age nine and some alternative suggestions.

The Theology of Work, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “Many people today find themselves in opposite gutters along the highway of Biblical work; those gutters being laziness and idleness on the one side and workaholism on the other. Some people spend their lives chasing meeting after meeting or shift after shift and others spend their lives binging show after show, or scrolling reel after reel on their phones.”

Love Me, Love My Food. Very interesting article about how learning to love (or at least eat without a show of distaste) another culture’s food is a way of showing love to them.

When Mother’s Day Hurts. It can, for several reasons. But God sees, knows, loves, and helps.

Laudable Linkage

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Links of interest to Christians

Here’s my latest list if laudable links to good, thought-provoking, beneficial reading.

Staying on Your Feet is Really All About Grace. “God is not asking you to single-handedly plan a VBS, execute elaborate parties for your children, or maintain a spotless house.  He is not impressed by heroic efforts or long days or endless lists. He wants you to bend your knees.  He wants you to relax into the rhythm of his keeping.”

A Few Thoughts about Daily Devotions. “Taking time every day to draw near to God through His Word and prayer might be one of the most life-changing disciplines we can cultivate. Below are a few thoughts that I pray will help you develop the discipline of daily devotions.”

Read the Bible in Bigger Chunks, Too, HT to Challies. “Reading the Bible exclusively, or primarily, in small chunks is like that. When we do this, we’re spending our time focusing on the trees. And not only the trees, but the branches, and individual leaves of the trees. And we’re right to do this, of course. Those ‘small’ details matter. But when that’s all we focus on, if we don’t zoom out once in a while, we can miss the forest.”

7 Biblical Truths Countering the False Gospel of “Emotional Health and Wealth,” HT to Challies. We hear a lot about what’s wrong with the “prosperity gospel,” the false idea that God blesses those who obey Him with health and wealth. But sometimes we falsely believe that if we do everything “right,” God will take away any emotional distress as well.

Ten Diagnostic Questions for the Potential Ideologue, HT to Challies. “While boiling political positions and strategies down to binary choices may make for effective political campaigns, biblical faithfulness may not be so easily reduced.” Though this is mainly about handling differing political viewpoints with fairness and grace, the principles hold true for differences of opinion in any category.

When Your Kids Make Poor Parenting Choices, Do You Feel Like a Failure? “We forget that fulfillment for our kids and grandkids will be found only in obedience to God and not elsewhere. This may require that we get out of God’s way and trust his perfect parenting of our adult children.”

Laudable Linkage

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Here’s my latest list of good online reads:

My Grandmother Would Tell You That, HT to Challies. “I could write out my grandmother’s full name and you wouldn’t recognize it. She wasn’t famous, wealthy, accomplished, or well-known. But her unremarkable life was truly remarkable because of who Jesus was to her.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, April Witkowski & the Myth of the Wasted Ministry, HT to Challies. “Our lives today will not be defined by our dreams, hopes, or expectations of what is to come (of what may never come) but will be defined by our faithful execution of the life and ministry God has given us in this moment. If we are faithfully serving God today in accordance with his Word and our calling and gifting, our lives are not a waste but rather the very definition of success.”

What Pins Are You Juggling? A Parenting Story, HT to Challies. One of the hard things about children growing up: “‘I have all these pins that I’m juggling and I have to keep them all up in the air and I can’t let any of them drop.’ I ended with a little sob of self-pity and mom-guilt that I am oh so good at. She came over to my chair and looked me in the eye. ‘But they’re not your pins.’”

Evidence of God’s Faithfulness in Ukraine, HT to Challies. After praying for this country for months now, it’s good to get a peek at some ways God is working there.

From the Heavens to the Depths: Sparking Wonder for Him Through Science. “When we shy away from science, we miss a breathtaking opportunity to open our kids’ eyes to the true majesty, the wonder, the artistry, and the magnificence of our Creator. The very foundations of science require acceptance of our universe as ordered, discoverable, and characterizable — a philosophy that lends itself to a higher, intelligent power who put it all into order in the first place. When we guide our kids through the mysteries and splendors of creation, we give them a glimpse of the brilliance, mastery, and goodness of the Creator, a glimpse that complements rather than contradicts the attributes He reveals through Scripture.”

5 Steps to Break Free from To-Do List Overwhelm. “As Christians we want to be faithful in the tasks the Lord has given us. But often we mistake busyness for productivity. We think if our to-do lists are full, and we are frantically working on them each day, surely we must be on the right track.”

How to Create an Effective Weekly Schedule, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “Every Monday for the past 5 years, I’ve taken the first 15 minutes to plan the week ahead. For me, this has been my single greatest productivity routine.” Great tips here for how to implement.

The Art of Moving On: When and How to Disengage from a Goal, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “When discussing goals, we typically talk about employing perseverance and persistence, even in the face of adversity and setbacks. ‘Quitters never win, and winners never quit,’ and all that. While grit is essential to goal achievement, Wrosch argues that an equally important part of successful living is knowing when to give up and disengage from a goal. “

Laudable Linkage

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Here’s my latest list of noteworthy reads found this week.

What Do You Do When You Are Spiritually Dry? HT to Challies. “Often when we feel dry, we are tempted to neglect the one thing that will satisfy our souls. Think about it: When you feel dry, what things do you want to toss out? Bible reading, prayer, fellowship. But this is the problem. If you are dry, spiritually thirsty, the worst thing you can do is go to the desert! You need to go to the fountain! God calls Himself “the fountain of living waters” (Jer 2:13). If we do not desire God, we need to go to God!”

When We Fear the Worst, HT to Challies. “Friend, I don’t know what fears and worries weigh on your soul today. But I do know that they can feel heavy—sometimes debilitatingly so. They can nag at you and trip you up and keep you discouraged and despairing. But there is a sure foundation we stand on, a God who holds us fast even while the winds and waves beat down. And he will not let us go. Not now. Not ever.”

Where Do I Find the Grace to Forgive? “Christians should be the most gracious of people. But when we forget what we’ve received from God or minimize our need for salvation, we become bill collectors. We go through life trying to collect the love, respect, appreciation, apology, or attention we feel others owe us.”

Standing on the Promises Is More Active than it Sounds. “‘Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord/…Overcoming daily with the Spirit’s sword…’ Standing on a promise requires knowledge of what has been promised. Do you have a sufficient base in Scripture for your heart to rest upon?”

The Art of the Ebenezer, HT to the Story Warren. “He looked into the past and remembered Israel’s defeat and anguish. He wanted to memorialize their repentance, prayer, fasting, fighting, and victory. But by erecting the stone of remembrance, Samuel also looked toward the future, wanting to remind the next generations to look at that stone and remember God’s faithfulness and power when the next tough trial came their way.”

The Strangeness that Stands Out, HT to the Story Warren. “If we give up essential truths of the Christian faith in order to be culturally relevant, we make ourselves eternally irrelevant. We make the church boring. The world needs a church that does more than offer an echo of our own times.”

Ron Hamilton Has Come Forth as Gold. I wrote about Ron earlier this week, and I’m sure many tributes will be written. But I enjoyed this one from Chris Anderson about ways Ron ministered to us. And he rightly includes a note about Ron’s wife, Shelly, at the end.

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a super-busy week, so I have just a few links for you. But I think they’re good ones.

Why We Follow Some Old Testament Laws But Not Others, HT to Challies. “Critics accuse Christians of conveniently picking and choosing from Old Testament laws. We’re quick to ‘clobber’ gay people with verses from Leviticus, they say, yet we don’t keep kosher ourselves. The complaint, though, is based on a misunderstanding about the Mosaic Covenant that even Christians fall prey to.”

“Where Is Your Faith?” HT to Challies. “How do you cling to belief amidst such turmoil of the heart? How do you survive the death of a child? I can tell you, it is not what happens in that moment of complete darkness or even in the months and years that follow. Survival is forged in the pew every Sunday. It is built on the truths of Scripture that you fill your mind with day by day. It comes through knowing Who God is.”

We’re Missing It. “He wants time to love us that way and it can’t happen if He is a ‘to do’ list item, or in sound bites only throughout our day, or only while we grab coffee on our way out the door.”

Well-Worn Boots. Lessons from a pair of faithful old work boots.