The Last ‘Week in Words’

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

I’ve been thinking about discontinuing the Week in Words for some time now, for several reasons. Only a very few people participate in it, and maybe a few more than that read it. I thought I’d be posting more quotes from books, but I tend to want to save those for when I review the book. I have a file where I put the quotes I collect through the week, and the last couple of weeks I haven’t put any in there and have had to go looking for something for the WiW. And sometimes I’ll have something else on my heart I want to post on Mondays, but I don’t like to have more than one post a day.It’s starting to feel more like a chore or a weight than a joy.

I have enjoyed it so much. Those of you who have joined in have provided some good food for thought to start off the week. If someone else wants to take it over, that’s fine with me. If you want to rename it, post it on a different day, or whatever, once it’s yours you can shape it as you want to. If you do, let me know and I’ll post a note to that effect so that others who might want to continue with it will know where to go.

I’ll probably still post quotes from time to time, just because I like them and want to share them. Before the WiW I would occasionally post a handful of quotes on one topic, and I might do that some times.

As for today’s quotes:

This was from Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts by Bob Schultz which I mentioned before in my review here, but in case anyone didn’t see it:

If you find yourself frustrated because you’re losing, don’t lash out in anger. Discover why you’re getting beat. Let it motivate you to learn new skills or develop more strength.

He goes on to mention wrestling with one guy repeatedly through the years and never beating that guy, but learning things he could use in other matches. I had a similar experience with Scrabble on Facebook: one friend used to beat me every time when we first started, but now I’ve learned some of her tricks and win about as often as she does now. In the larger issues of life, whether a besetting sin or not achieving victory in some area, instead of just getting discouraged, we can ask the Lord for wisdom about what we should do differently. Sometimes we might new new skills or strength or methods: sometimes we might need more dependence on Him.

And this was from Don’t Mistake Doing What You Love With Doing What’s Important, HT to A Holy Experience:

The difference between doing what’s important and doing what you want is that the important stuff is usually harder. It’s not so much fun. It generally won’t fulfill all of your deepest personal longings. Working a boring job to provide your family with financial security often gets a bad rap from motivational wonks who would have us drop everything to pursue our dreams, but I believe there’s something valiant, even noble about it.

That’s kind of the lesson in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” (which I saw on TV and was relatively clean but may have been edited for TV). Each had a dream that was never fulfilled as they had envisioned it, and had a job they didn’t really like, but each touched various lives in ways they hadn’t realized. There is a time and a place for stepping out on faith and dropping everything to pursue your dreams, but that’s only under God’s leading. Moses in the desert, David as a shepherd, Joseph in prison, even Christ as a carpenter, each had to be faithful for years in one place before it was God’s time to step into a larger area of responsibility and the ministry they would become known for.

And finally, my last quote for the Week in Words:

And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. Acts 20:32.

Though I love gleaning wisdom from others, the most important source is the Word of God itself.

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.

Thank you all, once again, for your interest in The Week in Words.

Book Review: Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts is the fourth and last of Bob Schultz’s books for boys and young men. I read it with my youngest son. The author passed away before this book was completed and his daughter got what he had ready for print and added an epilogue.

Bob covered a lot of ground in the book, from confrontations, chastisement, fightings within, refuge, and more. One chapter discussed why some OT battles came about when the temple of God was neglected or filled with abominations and what lessons that has for us. You would expect some discussion about the armor described in Ephesians 6, but only a couple of pieces are mentioned. I don’t know if he meant to get to the rest of it before he passed away. He discusses how a good, loving, wise and kind God allows battles.

His overall theme is that God has something to teach you during battles: something about yourself, but mainly something about Himself.

One quote I especially liked was in the context of boys wrestling. He discusses why he thinks it is okay to allow it, right and wrong times and places for it, and then he says:

If you find yourself frustrated because you’re losing, don’t lash out in anger. Discover why you’re getting beat. Let it motivate you to learn new skills or develop more strength. I wrestled a guy called Herfy for years and never won a match, yet I gained many tricks I’ve successfully used since (p. 15-16).

There is a lot of wisdom there that can be applied to many areas.

This quote bothered me a little at first:

The one thing I want to learn in life is to understand and practically experience abiding in Christ. I’m not looking for some Bible lesson to discuss or some theory to question. I want to live in harmony with the One who created the universe while I’m building houses, driving my truck, walking hand in hand with my wife or my daughters. I want to hear His voice, watch Him work, and follow Him in every adventure He wants to lead me through (p. 31).

At first reading it sounded to me like he was downplaying Bible reading and study in favor of seeking God through experience. But as I thumbed through several pages while preparing for this review, I was reminded that he referred to the Bible often, much more than I had remembered, and drew much of what he taught from the Bible. So I think perhaps what he is getting at here is that he doesn’t want his spiritual experience to be all academic, but rather he wanted it to carry through to the rest of his life.

I also expected to see some discussion on what we commonly hear of as the enemies of Christians and how to combat them: the world (I John 5:4-5), the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17), and the devil (James 4:7-8, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:17). There was some mention of fighting the flesh, but not much. Again, I don’t know if that’s something he would have included if he had lived long enough to complete the book, but my son and I are discussing some of these passages in the aftermath of reading the book.

My feelings immediately after the book were disappointment at what he didn’t include what I would have, but then if you get any five people, even any five Christians to write a book on one topic, you’re probably going to end up with five very different books though they might cover some of the same ground. And as I went back over parts of the book for review, I was reminded of many good aspects of it and good things he did bring out. The book isn’t necessarily a manual for how to fight battles, though he discusses some of that: it’s mainly an encouragement to seek the heart of God and draw close to Him through the battles He allows.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week in Words

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Sorry to be a little late with this. I try to have it up before bedtime the night before, but we played a new game with the family last night, got done around 11, and my brain was fried. 🙂 It was fun, though.

Here are some poignant quotes from the last week:

I mentioned this one in Saturday’s post, but wanted to highlight it again here. From Praying Past Our Preferred Outcomes.

To go deeper than praying only for deliverance means that we approach prayer not as a tool to manipulate God to get what we want, but as a way to submit to what he wants. ~ Nancy Guthrie

The gist of the article is that we usually pray for deliverance from trials and problems, but sometimes God has something He wants to teach us or accomplish first. Another quote:

What would happen if we allowed Scripture to provide the outcomes we prayed toward? What if we expanded our prayers from praying solely for healing and deliverance and success to praying that God would use the suffering and disappointment and dead ends in our lives to accomplish the purposes he has set forth in Scripture? Scripture provides us with a vocabulary for expanding our prayers for hurting people far beyond our predetermined positive outcomes. Instead of praying only for relief, we begin to pray that the glory of God’s character would be on display in our lives and the lives of those for whom we are praying. We pray for the joy of discovering that the faith we have given lip service to over a lifetime is the real deal. We ask God to use the difficulty to make us less self-reliant and more God-reliant. Rather than only begging him to remove the suffering in our loved ones’ lives, we ask him to make them spiritually fruitful in the midst of suffering he chooses not to remove.

And from the song “See, What a Morning” about Resurrection Day:

Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered!

That’s been ringing through my mind through yesterday and this morning.

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.

Happy Easter!

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Barbara Harper

See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, “Christ is risen!”
See God’s salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

See Mary weeping, “Where is He laid?”
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It’s the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow’r and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

~Keith and Kristyn Getty

(Graphic courtesy of Made 2 B Creative.)

Just popping in…

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Barbara Harper

…to say hello. I’ve been pretty scarce the last few days, both here and at your places. I’ve been keeping up with my Google Reader but not commenting as much. Nothing wrong or going on — the first part of the week was super busy, then maybe because of that I just felt like I had brain burn-out yesterday. Usually I have more blog ideas than time to write them out, but I’ve felt pretty blank blog-wise the last few days.

I was thinking that I had a good bit of time for everyday stuff before the next spate of busyness, but then remembered I need to get graduation announcements for Jesse addressed and mailed in a couple of weeks, and I had wanted to make a scrapbook for him for his graduation reception. So I’d probably better get started!

I’ve also been pondering how to best commemorate the time leading up to Easter. I’ve read Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter (linked to my review) compiled by Nancy Guthrie a few years in a row, but just didn’t feel like getting that out again this year. My regular through-the-Bible reading has me in the gospels just now — finished Matthew and Mark and started Luke — so that has helped keep my focus on the life and death of Christ.

I have a meeting in the morning and was thinking of heading out to the mall afterward and thought how incongruous it was to go shopping on Good Friday (though I think Christ was actually probably crucified on Thursday, but be that as it may…). On the other hand, we know the outcome, and we celebrate that with joy on Easter, so I don’t think we need to spend all day Friday (or Thursday) in hiding and sadness. But the cost of our sin was so great, and Christ did so much to redeem us from it, it seems like we should somehow acknowledge that day especially though we acknowledge it throughout the year. I just haven’t worked out quite how to do so.

I’ve often felt the struggle between grief over Christ’s death versus gladness that He gave Himself to that death to redeem me. Chris Anderson‘s chorus in the song “My Jesus Fair” sums it up quite nicely:

O love divine, O matchless grace-
That God should die for men!
With joyful grief I lift my praise,
Abhorring all my sin,
Adoring only Him.

I hope you have a good week blessed with some time to meditate on and thank Him for His sacrifice for us.

The Week in Words

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that spoke to me:

From ivman:

“If all we show people is our high standards, we offer them no hope.” – Drew Conley

Our standards may be a part of our testimony, but if that is all people see, if they don’t see Christ in our lives, as Dr. Conley said, we don’t offer them hope.

This was actually from a few weeks ago, from With the Word by Warren Wiersbe, p. 609, commenting on Haggai 2:1-9:

Beware that golden memories do not rob you of present opportunities.

In that passage in Haggai, the Israelites were rebuilding the temple after their Babylonian captivity, but it seemed “as nothing” compared to Solomon’s temple that some of them remembered. Yet Haggai prophesied that “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.” The Lord of glory Himself would minister in that temple during His ministry on earth. Memories are wonderful, but we can’t let them obscure the present.

Also quoted in With the Word by Warren Wiersbe, p. 591:

“To fear God is to stand in awe of Him; to be afraid of God is to run away from Him.” ~ Carroll E. Simcox

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.

“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light”

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Barbara Harper

A couple of weeks ago I came across an article that horrified me titled “After-birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Two authors promoted the proposition that babies could be killed during their first few days of life using the same reasoning as that used to justify abortions.

They use such chilling statements as:

“Fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons.”

“We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.”

“The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense.”

“It is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense.”

“Failing to bring a new person into existence cannot be compared with the wrong caused by procuring the death of an existing person. The reason is that, unlike the case of death of an existing person, failing to bring a new person into existence does not prevent anyone from accomplishing any of her future aims.” Note that they are not talking about failing to bring a new person into existence in the sense of deciding whether or not to have a baby or whether to use contraceptives: they are saying that a newborn is a potential person rather than an actual person and therefore it is not wrong to kill it.

They want to call it “after-birth abortion” rather than infanticide.

As Carrie said here, though this is horrifying, it shouldn’t be surprising. We had been warned for years that if people started justifying abortion in their thinking, it wouldn’t take long before such devaluation of life spread to increased euthanasia and now newborns. According to this article, one of the authors once gave a talk at Oxford titled, “What is the problem with euthanasia?” No wonder he has no problem with killing babies. I can’t fathom a career in encouraging the taking of life that he deems not worthy.

And that’s one of the problems. The main problem, of course, is the intrinsic devaluation of life. The second is that, once a society decides it’s okay to take a life, then whose standards and morals will decide such a thing? How many people have lived with serious health issues who would not have wanted their life snuffed out just because someone else didn’t think their quality of life was good enough?

The deadline for my next newspaper column was coming up just three days after I read this article. Normally I like to have a column mostly ready a week or two before it is due, and then every time I look at it, I think of better ways to say something, something to include, something to cut out, etc. I had two other columns nearly ready and was trying to decide which one to use when I saw this article. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I really wanted to address this in a column. It would probably have been a better column if I had waited til my next turn, but that’s six weeks away, and I really wanted to address this while the original article was still fairly recent. So this is what I finally came up with.

I received a few supportive comments and e-mails, but as you can imagine, some of the comments were quite vicious. All that some could see is that I am against abortion, and they unleashed all their animosity against the whole pro-life movement. I knew to expect some negative reaction, but I can’t say it didn’t hurt, especially when they extrapolate that since I said this I must mean that and get into name-calling, etc. I tried to answer some of them, but it’s clear there is no reasoning with some of them.

And that raises another issue. How do we talk to these people? I don’t think Christians are the only ones who are pro-life, though our conviction that life is a gift of God is the foundation of our beliefs. But it seems even thinking, reasonable people who might not be Christians could see the fallacies of abortion, euthanasia, and killing infants.

Years ago our former pastor’s wife mentioned Romans 1:28 in a class: “Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” I used to think “reprobate” meant a really bad sinner. But she explained it meant “unable to make sound judgement.” Other version use “depraved” or “debased.”

Though I believe it is right to speak out and take a stand on issues, ultimately what people need is a new heart. Even if they have a right position on abortion and related issues, what affects their standing with God is what they do with Christ. And none of us can “think right” without Him. How we need to pray for Him “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith” (Acts 26:18).

The Week In Words

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that spoke to me:

From our youth pastor’s wife’s Twitter:

“Worship that is not based on God’s Word is but an emotional encounter with oneself” ~ Erwin Lutzer

And from a friend’s Facebook:

Any attempt to produce love, joy, peace, endurance, and so forth apart from the Spirit of God is reliance upon strategies that are in competition with God. – Jim Berg

They both are similar in theme: our worship and our spiritual lives must be based on God’s Word and enabled by His Holy Spirit, or else they’re just…emotionalism or worse.

From Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Twitter, retweeted by John Piper:

“Sin has been pardoned at such a price that we cannot henceforth trifle with it.” ~ Spurgeon

If we could keep that perspective, that would keep us from many a misstep, I think.

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.

I am not skilled to understand

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Barbara Harper

I’ve been enjoying a new arrangement of this on the Soundforth CD God of Mercy.(It’s listed there as “My Savior.”

I am not skilled to understand
What God hath willed, what God hath planned;
I only know that at His right hand
Is One Who is my Savior!

I take Him at His word indeed;
“Christ died for sinners”—this I read;
For in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my Savior!

That He should leave His place on high
And come for sinful man to die,
You count it strange? So once did I,
Before I knew my Savior!

And oh, that He fulfilled may see
The travail of His soul in me,
And with His work contented be,
As I with my dear Savior!

Yea, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this Spring;
That He Who lives to be my King
Once died to be my Savior!

– Dorothy Greenwell, 1873

The Week in Words

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that stayed with me recently:

Seen at Challies:

“Pride can look like arrogant self-confidence, or it can look like timid self-pity. Real humility is courageous un-self-consciousness.”~ Jared Wilson

I don’t know who Jared Wilson is, but this rang true and echoes a C. S. Lewis quote about humility.

The Ink-Slinger posted several quotes from G. K. Chesterton. A few of my favorites:

“Feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”

“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.”

“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.