Winner!

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Barbara Harper

The winner of my giveaway for I’m Outnumbered!: One Mom’s Lessons in the Lively Art of Raising Boys by Laura Lee Groves is….

Ann!

I’ll send you an e-mail in just a moment to request your contact information.

The Week In Words

Posted on October 18, 2010 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.

Here are a few that especially spoke to me this week:

From a friend’s Facebook status:

‎“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”

That caused a laugh as well as a reflection on its truth. There is a time for dreaming, but those dreams will never come to fruition without action most of the time — excepting those times, of course, when the Lord wants us to just wait on Him.

From another friend’s Facebook:

‎“Fundamentally, our Lord’s message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, ‘I am the bread.’ He did not come merely to shed light; He said, ‘I am the light.’ He did not come merely to show the door; He said, ‘I am the door.’ He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, ‘I am the shepherd.’ He did not come merely to point the way; He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ ~J. Sidlow Baxter

I am most blessed when teaching, admonition, etc., points me straight to Christ Himself.

The following two come from the October 14 reading of Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer, commenting on Galatians 6:2: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

But sin is not the only burden we are to bear with our brethren. The young man or girl who fails to make good; the business man who meets with sudden reverse; those who suffer bitter disappointment; when faces are averted, and tongues are busily engaged in criticism–let us seek out the one who has consciously disappointed everybody, and help by our strong and tender sympathy. It is like the coming of the good Ananias into Saul’s darkness, with the greeting: “Brother Saul!”

And:

Sympathy means suffering with; and as we endeavour to enter into the griefs and sorrows of those around us, in proportion to the burden of grief that we carry do we succeed in lightening another’s load. You cannot bear a burden without feeling its pressure; and in bearing the burdens of others, we must be prepared to suffer with them.

I have to confess sometimes I want to help in a way that doesn’t cause me too much pressure or time or other expenditure of energy or attention. This reminds me of David’s declaration that he wouldn’t give to the Lord that which cost him nothing. To truly bear one another’s burden does cost, and I am so thankful the Lord chose to bear ours to the point of taking on human flesh, suffering, and dying for us. May I be willing to feel that pressure of bearing another’s burden just as others have done for me. And the first is a reminder to reach out to others especially when they’re feeling ostracized.

This last one comes from Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word commenting on Joshua 1:6, 7, 18:

‎“Be strong!” is much more than an admonition, for God’s commands are God’s enablements.

In that passage God is speaking to Joshua just after Moses had died and Joshua was named the new leader, and just before the Israelites’ entry into Canaan. If I were in Joshua’s situation, I’d feel a good bit of trepidation, but the rest of the chapter is filled with God’s promises and admonitions. Implicit within God’s commands is the ability to obey, not in our own strength, but in His. I think of the lame person whom Jesus commanded to rise and walk and the man with the withered hand whom Jesus commanded to stretch forth his hand — things they could not do — yet they did not argue with Him about why they could not obey: they just did, at His Word, and found in the command the ability to obey. In Joshua 3, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant had to step into the waters of the Jordan River first before God parted the waters. Those situations are all such a rebuke to me, because I tend to want to experience the promises and know how things will work out before obeying.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it 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 do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down Thy head upon My breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place, and He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one, stoop down, and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s Light;
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy day be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found in Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I’ll walk, till traveling days are done.

~ Words by Horatius Bonar

This has been put to several tunes and I can’t find the one I’m most familiar with, but this one by Ralph Vaughan Williams is lovely:

Booking Through Thursday: Rewrite

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme centering on the subject of books. The question for this week is:

Suggested by Joy:

If you could rewrite the ending of any book, which book would it be? And how would you change it?

I wouldn’t really rewrite an ending: I respect the author’s decision to end things as he or she sees fit. But I have wished for a different ending some times. The only one that comes immediately to mind is Angela Hunt’s Uncharted, reviewed here. Of course, I can’t reveal the ending without spoiling the book, but it is very sobering. It fits with what the book is portraying, and the warning that choices have consequences, some of which cannot be undone, and that we only have a short time in life to make the right choices or rectify wrong ones. The ending does reinforce the gravity of the message, so it is justified and understandable. I guess there is a part of me that wishes the characters could have somehow had a wake-up call and have been allowed to make changes based on what they learned, yet I understand that a happier ending might have taken away from the message of the book. God does warn that “My spirit shall not always strive with man” (Genesis 6:3), and some day an end will come for each of us, with no do-overs, and we need to be prepare for that now.

The Week In Words

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that caught my eye this week:

From a friend’s Facebook:

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

Seen at Challies:

I will stay in prison till the moss grows on my eyebrows rather than make a slaughterhouse of my principles. —John Bunyan

From I’m Outnumbered!: One Mom’s Lessons in the Lively Art of Raising Boys by Laura Lee Groves in a chapter about media, p. 117:

A reader is an understander — he knows what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes.

She goes on to talk about how reading can develop empathy, compassion, and understanding by experiencing another’s viewpoint. I don’t think I had ever thought about it quite like that, but I agree.

From Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God by Noel Piper, in a chapter about Esther Ahn Kim, quoting from her book If I Perish,

Wherever Mother was, it was like a chapel of heaven around her.

I don’t think my kids could say that of me, but I wish they could. This was particularly remarkable because they were surrounded by idol-worshiping relatives, and her mother did not have church or a Bible but tried to live by what she was taught as a child by a missionary.

My Father’s Love

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Barbara Harper

The world’s wealth and riches can be bought and sold.
But I possess a treasure far greater than gold;
‘Twas a gift passed down to me from heaven above,
‘Twas the gift of my Father’s love.

And my Father’s love is strong and true,
Always believing, always seeing me through.
So no matter what happens in His grand design,
I’ll be fine with my Father’s love.

Safe and secure now in His love alone,
I find here my place of worth as one of His own.
And I don’t need ev’rything this world wants to give,
‘Cause I live with my Father’s love.

And my Father’s love is strong and true,
Always believing, always seeing me through.
So no matter what happens in His grand design,
I’ll be fine with my Father’s love.

So, no matter what happens in His grand design,
I’ll be fine with my Father’s love,
with my Father’s love.
I have my Father’s love.

Text and music by Amy Susan Foster, Mike Harland and Niles Borop, recorded by the Soundforth Singers on their CD A Strong Tower.

The Gospel and Christian Fiction

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I have commented many times in book reviews on authors’ treatment of the gospel. After one author recently took me to task for my comments in several e-mails, I thought perhaps I should explain myself further.

A novel is a work of fiction. It’s primary purpose is to tell a story. The very best witness a Christian fiction author can have is to tell his or her story well, just as a painter’s best witness is to do his absolute best job painting rather than inscribing John 3:16 somewhere in it. A story that is a thinly-veiled sermon, doctrinal treatise, or tract will likely turn away readers, especially lost readers who most need the message. Some stories will hopefully be a springboard to awaken a thirst or a need in the reader which will then lead him or her to seek out someone to talk further, but a full exposition of the gospel is a rarity just because of the nature of story-telling.

In addition, the style of writing most prevalent in this era is the “show, don’t tell” variety. Subtlety, suggestion, nuance, illustrating what is going on in the characters’ hearts through their actions are all considered a better form of story-telling than spelling everything out for the reader. The Bible even does this in some places; for example, the book of Esther does not mention God’s name at all, but He is clearly evident in the events. Thus the gospel might be only suggested or referred to, or the author might show the character’s change of belief in the change in his or her actions rather than sharing the details of that character’s conversion.

I do understand and agree with those points. What I have sometimes criticized in book reviews is not so much the amount the the gospel that is presented in a book, but rather the clarity of the gospel. Whatever there is of the gospel in a work of fiction needs to be accurate and not misleading. For example, in one work of Amish fiction, a girl who had gone to live among the Amish to find answers for her own heart is told, when she finally opens up to talk to someone about her need, to keep living as they are living and following their rules, and eventually it will come to her. I can understand encouraging someone who does not yet understand to keep coming to church and hearing the gospel in the hopes that it will eventually become clear, but the advice given in this book seemed more like, “Keep living like a Christian and eventually it will become real to you.” That is unbiblical advice and confusing to one who is searching.

In another book I read recently, a seeking soul is told that “Jesus invites you to join him on the journey.” There is a sense in which that might be said, but as a stand-alone sentence, I feel that is confusing and misleading.

In other books, a Christian’s faith is attributed to having been in church “all her life.” If that’s the only evidence of a person’s faith, it can be misleading because a lost person would obviously conclude that church attendance is what makes a person a Christian rather than a relationship with Christ, and an unbeliever who attends church might think they’re all right spiritually.

Christian fiction has been criticized in some instances for being formulaic and predictable in that the main character has some crisis of faith and “sees the light.” I don’t really have a problem with that in one sense, because each genre has a certain amount of predictability: you expect the guy and girl to declare their love for each other in a romance, or the good guys to win in a western, or the detective to solve the mystery and find the criminal he is searching for. It’s how each of those things happens which makes them interesting and keeps us reading even when we have a good idea of what will happen in the end. But I do understand how some readers would be turned off by a blatant formula. However, now it seems some authors have swung the pendulum so far the other way that often the gospel is so buried in subtext that it is almost completely hidden. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,” Paul says in II Corinthians 4:3. Even if the context of the story precludes a full explanation of the gospel, what is included needs to be correct, accurate, and clear rather than so shrouded it is unclear at best, or at worst, misleading.

I was accused of being insular by the author I first mentioned, of wanting Christian fiction to be such that it would only appeal to Christians. That is totally untrue. Christians are those who would pick up on the nuances of the gospel even when it is not spelled out. It is the lost who wouldn’t understand.

I was also told that to include a gospel presentation would mean writing on a fifth grade level. Again, I disagree. I have seen some wonderful salvation stories in fiction told in an effective way within the context of the story that was beautiful and fit very well in the flow of the story. Not every piece of Christian fiction will have a salvation story: some will deal with those who are already believers, with their problems and issues and growth. But for those involving a conversion experience, it can be done and done well.

I think perhaps I am sensitive to this issue because for many years I sent my mother copies of Christian fiction books I enjoyed, and she loved them, even though she was not a believer at that point. She did want to learn more, and she did benefit from seeing how Christians interacted in books. I did not send her only “conversion story” books: she probably would have gotten turned off if every book was like that. Yet there are some books that I would not have sent to her, not because it was not a “salvation story,” but because it was misleading, and I felt she would have gotten the wrong idea from it.

Rather than being insular and wanting Christians books written just for those who already believe, on the contrary, it is precisely for those who don’t yet understand or believe that I want the gospel to be clear and accurate, as well as for the glory of the Lord who gave us the gospel. Understanding, conceding, and supporting everything I mentioned in the first paragraphs about the nature of fiction, I still do believe and expect that whatever allusion there is to the gospel should not be misleading. I know it can be done: I have read wonderful examples of it.

St. Francis is supposed to have said “Preach the gospel; if necessary, use words.” I agree that a life should back up and reinforce the words we speak, but someone likened this to saying, “Feed starving children, when necessary use food.” Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). He also said, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). Paul said, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Words do matter; words are necessary to convey the gospel. Within the medium of Christian fiction those words may not take the same form as a tract or a sermon, but they ought to at least not obscure the truth.

The Week In Words

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I only have one today, from an Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotional:

If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine! ~ Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart

It’s absurd that we do that, isn’t it? We fear the possibility of some major catastrophe, or something serious happens to a loved one, or God allows something we don’t understand, and then we somehow feel we can protect ourselves better than He can. This set my thoughts running back through a previous post about being afraid to surrender all to Him. I hope it doesn’t sound self-indulgent or self-promotional to quote myself, but I tend to have to go back over some of the same lessons learned, and something I said in that post along these same lines was a good reminder to me:

There have been whole books written about reasons for suffering, and we hear testimonies of God’s grace through those times. Yet that lurking fear or reluctance can still snake into our thoughts.

As I was pondering these things this morning, the thought came, “What’s the alternative, really?” Suffering will come to most of us in some form or another. We live in a fallen world and deal with its effects; we’re not in heaven yet, where there are no tears, sorrow, pain. We’re not going to stop these things from coming into our lives if we don’t surrender to God. We can’t somehow insulate ourselves or protect ourselves from any pain or trial.

But if we are the Lord’s, we can trust that He has a purpose in what He has allowed. We can trust Him for His presence, peace, grace, and help. If we’re surrendered to Him, we can face these things in a way that we can’t otherwise.

I’m thankful we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

Exposing kids to evil

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Jesse’s English teacher is requiring his junior students to read six books during the course of the year and write a report on them (and this book-loving mama is cheering!) The genre they needed to choose from this month was a non-fiction book that was not a biography. As we perused our bookshelves and I made recommendations, the book he chose was Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story by Mark Ritchie (my review of the book is here). I forewarned him that the first couple of chapters were very hard to read: the book is written from the shaman’s point of view, and his conferring with his spirits is disconcerting as is the brutal attack of one village on another. But I told him it was recommended by a missionary we knew and trusted and supported and it did get better as you went farther along.

But it had been almost three years since I had read it, and I had forgotten exactly how graphic it was until he shared some parts of the book that disturbed him. As I picked up the book and flipped through it again, I wondered if I had made a mistake letting him read this book and whether he should switch to something else.

I was still pondering that yesterday morning as we drove to school, and I asked him if the book was getting any better. He said yes, and we discussed some of the good aspects, some of the reasons I had recommended the book in the first place — the need the Indians felt within themselves for change, the difference they saw in the lives of others, both white people and other Indians, who believed once the gospel began to be spread. We discussed the presence of evil spirits and how they operate behind the scenes in our culture as well as primitive cultures though they are mostly unrecognized here. We discussed the sickening exploitation of the Indians by others who wanted to prey on them. We even discussed the funny parts, such as how the Indians came up with their names for each other, wondering what names would be attributed to us if we followed their example.

Something we didn’t have time to talk about this morning but I want to bring up soon is what missionaries have to face when they go to such fields — and, really, not just such fields where demonism is open and obvious and rampant, but any area where the gospel is opposed. The admission that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” in Ephesians 6 is immediately followed by the admonition “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (verses 12-13). I want to discuss how that truth is not just for missionaries; it is for all of us.

I shared with him a familiar verse from A Mighty Fortress Is Our God which stood out in bold relief to me as we sang it in church Sunday:

And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us.

Though, if I had it to do over again I probably would not have recommended this book yet, I am glad that his exposure to some of these things came from a book headed in the right direction such as this one and that we could discuss these issues.

I don’t think we have to wonder how and when to expose our children to the darker side of life. I think somehow it breaks out upon their awareness all too soon — a news report, an awful happening in the community, something that comes up in a TV show that we’re not expecting. I wish we could keep them innocently sheltered in the Hundred Acre Woods much longer, but unfortunately that is not real life.

Sometimes the weight of the evil in the world is so heavy and oppressing. I cannot fathom how Christ bore it all on the cross.

And we have to be careful not to just lament what we think of as excessive evil “out there” while we excuse what we think of as our relatively minor sins. Some of the things the Bible says the Lord hates are pride, lying, wicked imaginations; envy, strife, and divisions are what the Bible calls carnal. Those added to that weight of evil Christ bore as well.

“If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” the Psalmist asks in Psalm 130:3. Thank God he answers, “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.” And “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:57). “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (I John 4:4).

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Barbara Harper

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. Song of Solomon 2:3

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Author Unknown

Music composed by Elizabeth Poston.