The Week In Words

Posted on September 13, 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.

Also, if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

I am so very sorry to be so late with this today! I sometimes work on this post on Sunday evenings, but after Skyping Jeremy (or Skyping with Jeremy? Not sure how to say that) last night, I fell asleep on the couch until about 2 a.m., and then went to bed. Then this morning I laid back down for a little while…and then it turned into a long while. And then I woke up to several phone calls that needed attention. I hope I am not coming down with Jesse’s cold.

Anyway, on with the quotes!

From Janet‘s sidebar:

Goethe once wrote in a letter that “there are three kinds of reader: one, who enjoys without judgment; a third, who judges without enjoyment; and one between them who judges as he enjoys and enjoys as he judges. This latter kind really reproduces the work of art anew” (quoted in Alan Jacobs’ A Theology of Reading).

I don’t know how long you’ve had that there. Janet, but it just jumped out at me last week. I am not sure how “judging” is meant there, but I took it to mean thinking. analyzing, discerning, and I like to think I am the third kind of reader.

From this post via a friend’s Facebook status:

The gardener’s sharp-edged knife promotes the fruitfulness of the tree, by thinning the clusters, and by cutting off superfluous shoots. So is it, Christian, with that pruning which the Lord gives to thee. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

That, of course, echoes John 15:1-2: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”

From another friend’s Facebook status:

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps if you are not willing to move your feet.

I have to admit I too often do that. Sometimes a delay to pray about something can be a delay to obey what I already know the Lord wants me to do, or sometimes I am praying for guidance when I am reluctant or even not yet willing to go in the direction that might be the answer.

This was from Laura writing at Kindred Heart Writers:

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.

– Leonard Cohen

That cracked me up but also illustrated a great truth, that none of us is perfect and that God’s grace shining through the cracks can glorify Himself.

And finally, from Elisabeth Elliot‘s book A Lamp For My Feet quoted in one of her e-mail devotionals:

But my limitations, placing me in a different category from Tom Howard’s or anyone else’s, become, in the sovereignty of God, gifts. For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me.

I had quoted that once years ago in regard to physical limitations, but Elisabeth was mentioning it in regard to talents, abilities, and opportunities. It applies as well to time and any other type of limitation — whatever it is is allowed by God and is the framework in which He wants us to glorify Him, rather than chafing or wasting time wishing things were different.

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.

His Robes For Mine

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Barbara Harper

This is a recent hymn by Chris Anderson of Church Works Media which wonderfully expresses what Christ did for us. It is on the Promises CD by Soundforth — you can hear a snippet here and read more of the thoughts behind the text here.

His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!
Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage.
Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified.
In Christ I live, for in my place He died.

Chorus:

I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost:
Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God.
Bought by such love, my life is not my own.
My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.

His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread?
God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead.
Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine,
Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.

His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased.
Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased.
Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “‘Tis done!”
Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.

His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.
Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe.
He, as though I, accursed and left alone;
I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!

Laudable Linkage and Video

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Just a few links this week to some worthwhile reads:

Growing As a Homemaker. This is great encouragement for young moms who feel overwhelmed.

Wondering Why God Makes Life Impossible Sometimes. Jon’s Stuff Christians Like is usually funny and/or satirical (not always the same thing), but sometimes he comes up with a serious one that touches the heart. When I read this I had just been somewhat down because of problems or issues several friends or extended family members were facing, and though this truth is not new to me, I still have to go over it from time to time and adjust my perspective.

You Need a Mother Very Badly. Some of you may be familiar with Gregg and Sono Harris, pioneers in speaking and writing about the home school movement. Sono recently passed away, and this poem is a tribute by one of her sons. Keep the tissues handy, especially if you’ve lost your own mom.

From the ever helpful Tipnut: 12 Simple Sore Throat Remedies and 12 Home Remedies For Nausea.

It’s hard to believe all these people took the time to do this, but it’s pretty neat, for at least the first 45 seconds or so.

A one man quintet. This man has been to my church — but he didn’t do this then! This is one of my favorite songs.

I saw this at Nannykim‘s. I am not familiar with Francis Chan, but I can identify with this tendency to handling fears.

Book review: Hoping For Something Better

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Barbara Harper

I’m having a hard time knowing how to review Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. It doesn’t have a plot or characters, after all. 🙂 My first thoughts are just to say, “It’s good. Really, really good. You should get it.” But I’ll try to elaborate.

I was drawn to Nancy’s Bible study because I thoroughly enjoyed her compilations and introductions in Come Thou Long Expected Jesus:Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas and Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter, plus I saw her study highly recommended by people whom I trust.

This study takes the reader through the book of Hebrews. Though Nancy says Hebrews is a difficult book, I had found it quite refreshing when I first discovered it as a young Christian: it really helped put much of the Old Testament practices into perspective. And even though I have read it several times since then, this book helped me mine more of it and find treasures or perspectives I had missed before.

One of the key words in Hebrews is “better.” Jesus is better than the angels (1:4), provides a better hope (7:19), is the author of a better covenant (7:22),makes better promises (8:6), is a better sacrifice (9:23), and so on, with about seven more references which deem Him “better.”

In Nancy’s introduction, she writes:

There really is something better that is within our grasp. Better than living life with a merely sentimental, superficial spirituality. Better than going through life with a debilitating fear of death. Better than becoming bored and burdened by meaningless religious ritual; better than feeling like an unwelcome outsider or an unworthy hypocrite; better than being bound by shame and regret. There is something better that makes problems worth persevering through, something that makes heaven worth waiting for, something worth running to and dreaming of.

That something better is actually someone better: Jesus.

But even as I say it, whether or not you are a follower of Jesus, I know there is a voice inside you saying, Oh, Jesus again, or Just Jesus?…

Because some of us have been disappointed in Jesus, too — at least Jesus as we have understood Him and experienced Him to this point. Could it be that our desire for something better springs from our underestimation or devaluing of Jesus? Could it be that we’ve become so comfortable with the Jesus we’ve constructed that we just aren’t that awed by Him any more and we’ve become blinded to what He is truly worth?

Could it be possible to move from wherever we are now to becoming more solidly convinced that Jesus is worth our costly devotion, our intellectual energy, our emotional investment, our cherished reputation, our everything?

Nancy discusses those issues and others as she moves through Hebrews.Her personal illustrations are sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant.

I’ve shared several quotes from the book through The Week In Words posts and in “What Keeps us From Real Rest?”

This study is unlike any other ladies’ Bible study I have ever done. With most of them I could go through the assigned reading and questions in maybe an hour, and that’s fine, but with Nancy’s book it took several days to work through a chapter. She also recommends reading the Scripture passage and working through a series of questions before reading the material in the book in order to prepare our minds for the discussion there, and I found this very beneficial.

The book is set up for a ten week study. Since I went at my own pace, I am not sure how long it took me to complete the book, but I did read it again immediately after completing it to try to fix more firmly in my mind those things I had read.

If you’re looking for a meaty Bible study, or if you’re searching for something or someone better, I recommend Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual. I am hoping Nancy writes more Bible studies as well.

The Week In Words

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are some quotes that spoke to me:

From Diane‘s Facebook status:

“There is only one person holy enough to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law and it’s not you. Rest.” Elyse Fitzpatrick

I can’t tell you what immediate rest that gave my soul. Even though I know we’re both saved and kept by God’s grace through faith and not our own efforts, somehow there is still a part of me that strives to be “good enough” — and only Christ ever was. What a rest we find in Him.

Seen at Challies:

“Endurance and perseverance are qualities we would all like to possess, but we are loath to go through the process that produces them.” —Jerry Bridges

So true.

Seen at girltalk:

“It is faith that enlivens our work with perpetual cheerfulness. It commits every part of it to God, in the hope, that even mistakes shall be overruled for his glory; and thus relieves us from an oppressive anxiety, often attendant upon a deep sense of our responsibility. The shortest way to peace will be found in casting ourselves upon God for daily pardon of deficiencies and supplies of grace, without looking too eagerly for present fruit.” Charles Bridges

From an e-mail:

Loneliness is inner emptiness.
Solitude is inner fulfillment.
– Richard J. Foster

I’ve pondered the difference between loneliness and solitude often but had never quite thought of it that way. I think another simple difference is whether you want to be alone or not: when you want to be, it is blissful solitude; if not, it’s loneliness. 🙂

From Rita Vernoy‘s Facebook status:

Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.-H. Stanley Judd

One of the most life-changing message I ever heard was one on college on failure.

By the way, just as a disclaimer, I am not familiar with most of the authors quoted, and therefore please don’t take these quotes as an endorsement. I just posted them for the value of the individual quotes themselves and the food for thought they offered.

The Week In Words

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here are some that caught my eye this week:

A quote at the end of a Good Clean Funnies e-mail:

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.” ~ Robert Frost.

Good advice! In many ways! Some fences, both physical and immaterial, are there for very good reasons.

From Diane‘s Facebook status:

‎“Believe God’s love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.” – Samuel Rutherford

I love the imagery and the truth in that.

I have a few others in my file, but I think I will just keep it short this week.

Do You Have the Son?

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Barbara Harper

You may have wealth, a comfortable lifestyle, and all you would ever need of this world’s goods, but do you have the Son?

You may have good friends and good times, but do you have the Son?

You may have religious ritual, but do you have the Son?

You may have a clear conscience, but do you have the Son?

You may have respectability, but do you have the Son?

Your good deeds may outweigh your bad deeds, but do you have the Son?

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. I John 5:11-12.

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. John 3:16-19

How Can I Fear?

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Barbara Harper

When shadows fall and the night covers all
There are things that my eyes cannot see.
I never fear, for the Saviour is near.
My LORD abides with me!

How can I fear? Jesus is near!
He ever watches over me!
Worries all cease; He gives me peace.
How can I fear with Jesus?

When I’m alone and I face the unknown
And I fear what the future may be,
I can depend on the strength of my Friend!
He walks along with me.

How can I fear? Jesus is near!
He ever watches over me!
Worries all cease; He gives me peace.
How can I fear with Jesus?

Jesus is King! He controls everything!
He is with me each night and each day.
I trust my soul to the Saviour’s control;
He drives all fear away!

How can I fear? Jesus is near!
He ever watches over me!
Worries all cease; He gives me peace.
How can I fear with Jesus?

Lyrics: Ron Hamilton, 1982

Sexuality in Christian Fiction

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Barbara Harper

One of the issues that keeps many Christian people from reading a lot of modern fiction is the proliferation of explicit sexual scenes. Yet now I seem to be finding more sexuality in Christian fiction — not full-fledged descriptions, but more of a window into that activity than I really want to read and imagine.

It’s not that I and Christians in general don’t like sex. It was God’s idea, after all: He invented it not only for procreation but also for enjoyment, within the parameters for which He created it (within marriage, to one spouse, between a man and woman.) Enjoyed as He meant it, it is a wonderful expression of love and intimacy.

But as Quilly once so aptly put it, I don’t enjoy sex as a spectator sport. I think it is meant to be private.

I do understand that some Christian authors write sexual scenes to show show how a person could easily get into trouble sexually without meaning to. And I understand that some want to portray sexuality in a normal, healthy, marital way, reasoning that, 1) it is okay to do so since God created it, and 2) if all sexuality in literature is the “wrong” variety (illicit, adulterous, etc.), then that gives readers a warped view of what it is meant to be.

And Song of Solomon is in the Bible after all, as well as graphic verses like Proverbs 5:19. And I am glad they are: they helped immensely when, as a young wife, I had to change my mind set from thinking of sex as something I needed to avoid and resist as an unmarried woman to something I was now free to enjoy. I knew that intellectually, but there were times of going over these passages to assure myself that it really was ok now.

I don’t think I have seen anything as graphic as those passages in Christian fiction, but I have read some passages that made me feel uncomfortable in the sense of feeling aroused or feeling voyeuristic — and that’s not how I want to feel when reading! Especially Christian fiction!

My appeal to any author, Christian or secular, would be to remember the “less is more” principle. A hint in this area is usually better than a full-fledged description. Some of you may remember on the TV sitcom “Happy Days” that occasionally Mrs. Cunningham would head upstairs saying something about “feeling frisky,” and Mr. Cunningham would get a goofy grin on his face and rush upstairs after her. It was cute, it revealed they were happy in that area of their lives, and that was all we needed to know.

By contrast, in one Christian book I just finished, a couple’s wedding night was portrayed step-by-step until they actually got into bed, and though I would say it was tastefully done and not explicit, and it fit naturally into the story, I still didn’t want to be left with the mental image of a man undressing his wife even though in reality it is a normal and wholesome thing.

What do you think? Are you comfortable with the portrayal of Christian married couples as sexual beings in Christian fiction? Is it helpful to portray married Christian sexuality as normal, healthy, and fun? How much is too much? At what point do you close a book or avoid an author (or avoid recommending an author) because of sexual content?

The Week In Words

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Just a further note — if you’ve posted a quote on your blog this past week, feel free to link it here as well. You don’t have to save it for Mondays. And please do read and comment even if you’re not posting quotes.

Here are a few that stood out to me this week:

On several friends’ Facebook statuses:

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.

That speaks much to being content with such things as we have, as we’re instructed to be (Hebrews 13:5-6). It seems no matter how much we have, there is always a craving for more.

I saw this at Semicolon’s:

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations–something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”~Katharine Paterson, U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

I so agree with this! I am astounded when I hear parents or teachers say, “I don’t care what my kids are reading as long as they’re reading.” We don’t say the same about physical food: “I don’t care what my kids are eating, as long as they’re eating.” Why would we care less about what kids are putting into their brains? I am not talking about the extremes of censorship but rather teaching discernment and providing good books to read (for them and ourselves). There are so many good choices, we don’t need to read shoddy stuff just to have something to read.

Then in an article titled 10 Writing Tips at ChristianWritingToday.com (I got there via Semicolon’s link to 8 Writing Tips From C. S. Lewis on the same site) these first two were the ones that most stood out to me:

1. Write only when you have something to say. (Playwright David Hare).

2. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. (Jonathan Franzen)

That second one especially spoke to me: if writing is to be a means of communication rather than just self-expression, writers need to engage the reader, and then not be offended if a reader doesn’t “get” or like something, but rather look for ways to better communicate with the reader (though of course we all understand that we can’t please everybody. But pleasing and effectively communicating aren’t always the same thing.)

Then from an Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotinal from her book A Lamp For My Feet concerning Romans 12:1-2:

The primary condition for learning what God wants of us is putting ourselves wholly at his disposal. It is just here that we are often blocked. We hold certain reservations about how far we are willing to go, what we will or will not do, how much God can have of us or of what we treasure. Then we pray for guidance. It will not work. We must begin by laying it all down–ourselves, our treasures, our destiny. Then we are in a position to think with renewed minds and act with a transformed nature. The withholding of any part of ourselves is the same as saying, “Thy will be done up to a point, mine from there on.”

That is the sticking point, isn’t it? I want God’s perfect will in my life…unless it means that.

From the same source comes this quote:

If God is almighty, there can be no evil so great as to be beyond his power to transform. That transforming power brings light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow, gain out of loss, life out of death.

Sometimes we boggle at the evil in the world and especially in ourselves, feeling that this sin, this tragedy, this offense cannot possibly fit into a pattern for good. Let us remember Joseph’s imprisonment, David’s sin, Paul’s violent persecution of Christians, Peter’s denial of his Master. None of it was beyond the power of grace to redeem and turn into something productive. The God who establishes the shoreline for the sea also decides the limits of the great mystery which is evil. He is “the Blessed Controller of all things.” God will finally be God, Satan’s best efforts notwithstanding.

We tend to want bad things prevented rather than transformed. That day will come, but it is not now. A friend once said she realized that if God were to wipe out all the evil in the world, He would have to wipe out all of us, for we all sin. I am thankful He transforms us rather than just doing away with us, and and we can trust Him to limit what He allows of evil and trust Him to somehow work it together for good (Romans 8:28) until the day when it is taken out of the way completely.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post (not just to your general blog) with Mr. Linky below. Of course, it is fine to just leave a quote in the comments section if you’d rather. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants, too: this is a small enough meme so far that it is not hard to visit around with others who love to glean quotes from their reading as well.

The Week In Words Participants

1. bekahcubed

2. Susan

3. Jerrie

(Mr. Linky is closed for this post: Please see the current Week In Words post to put your new quotes in.)