It’s been another good week for online reading! Here are posts I have learned from lately – maybe some of them will interest you as well.
Routine Bible Reading Can Change Your Life, HT to Challies. “But the way the Bible does its work on our hearts is often not through the lightning bolt, but through the gentle and quiet rhythms of daily submission, of opening up our lives before this open Book and asking God to change us. Change doesn’t always happen overnight. Growth doesn’t happen in an instant. Instead, it happens over time, as we eat and drink and exercise. The same is true of Scripture reading.”
Advent Reading Plans. Several doable, workable plans for reading from the Christmas-related passages of Scripture during December.
Don’t Downplay Your Suffering, HT to Challies. “One of the biggest mistakes believers can make when facing a tragedy is to minimize it. I think so many of us do it because we are lacking a robust theology of suffering.”
Should We Stop Publicly Shaming People? HT to Lisa. Yes, indeed. Sometimes a public outcry helps, like the reaction to the Dove commercial a while back. But often instead of letting people learn from their mistakes, they are run into the ground and ruined for the rest of their lives.
Join Me on a Ride to Malvern, HT to Challies. A favorite childhood memory, a reminder that “all of these ‘small moments’ have the potential of eternal significance for your child.”
There’s always something to look forward to just beyond the horizon.
When we were children, we looked forward to high school and driver’s licenses. Then we couldn’t wait for dating and college. Then we longed for marriage and children.
Perhaps your life track has run a different course: perhaps your goals were tenure at your university, or making partner at your firm. Personal and professional goals intertwined.
And if God grants all of those gifts, we look forward to still more.
When we reach somewhere between age 40 and 50, we realize we’re at about the halfway point, if everything goes well. Soon we’ll be in the “second half” of life, with more days behind us than ahead of us. But there are still things we want to do. Some look forward to traveling during the “empty nest” years. Others finally projects off the back burner. We want to see our grandchildren grow, develop, learn, marry, and have children. We want to be here to have a part in influencing them for the Lord.
A few weeks ago, I was arrested by a couple of verses in the psalms reflecting the writer’s purpose for his remaining years:
O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.
Psalm 71:17-18, ESV
I recently read of a man who was active in public ministry all his life. When his wife developed Alzheimer’s, he took care of her as long as he could at home. When she needed more care than he could give, she went to an assisted living facility. But he did not want the two of them to be separated: he joined her. He has an active ministry there leading Bible studies and services and talking with residents.
When my mother-in-law was in a memory care unit, I would feel somewhat down long after leaving the facility after visiting her. I can’t imagine voluntarily living in such a place while still in your right mind.
I think of this man’s national and even international ministries contrasted with his life now. His ministry is not evaluated by how many people he is reaching. He is faithfully serving the Lord right where he is supposed to be.
Many of us find that our “older years” turn out quite different from what we had expected due to illness (ours or our spouse’s), parents’ or children’s needs, financial considerations, or any number of issues. But wherever He has put us, we can proclaim His might and His power. We can share those with everyone, but the psalm above particularly speaks of “another generation…those to come.”
One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
Psalm 145:4-7, ESV
Psalm 78 also speaks of “things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us,” telling “to the coming generationthe glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,and the wonders that he has done,” “that the next generation might know them,the children yet unborn,and arise and tell them to their children,so that they should set their hope in Godand not forget the works of God,but keep his commandments” (verses 2-7).
We can tell the next generation (whether our own descendants or others God brings across our path) the history of how God has worked in the lives of His people, as Psalm 78 goes on to do. We can share His Word, His law, His grace. And we can also share our Ebenezers, testimonies of how He ministered to us and provided for us. We can assure them that He is not just a God afar off in history, but He is God here and now, active in our lives and theirs.
Moses’s prayer in Psalm 90 asks God in the midst of the flying years (verse 10) to “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (verse 12). Moses concludes:
Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!
Psalm 90:16-17, ESV
It was down at the feet of Jesus, O the blessed, happy day! Where my soul found peace in believing, And my sins were washed away.
It was down at the feet of Jesus, Where I found such perfect rest, Where the light first dawned on my spirit, And my soul was fully blest.
It was down at the feet of Jesus, Where I brought my guilt and sin, That he paid my debt and forgave me, For He died my soul to win.
Refrain:
Let me tell the old, old story Of His grace so full and free; Let my heart keep giving Him the glory For His wondrous love to me.
Here are several thought-provoking reads found in the last week or so.
Every Testimony Is Dramatic and Miraculous. “There is nothing basic or boring about the life-transforming power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The angels throw a party every time someone comes to Christ, and the parties aren’t less enthusiastic for the freckle-faced eight year olds. Salvation is never small. It is big and dramatic and miraculous, every single time.”
Give Children All of Your Attention. Some of the Time. HT to True Woman. I remember as a young mom struggling with guilt when I did not give my children my full attention, yet feeling it was good for them to learn to entertain themselves sometimes. I thought of women in Bible times or even a couple of hundred years ago who had to do so much from scratch and could not have possibly sat on the floor playing with their children eight hours a day. But it is good to set everything aside for one-on-one time together sometimes. This post has some good thoughts along these lines.
3 Reasons Contemporary Worship Is Declining, and What We Can Do to Help the Church Move On. I don’t agree with every point here, but I especially like this: “We’ve done ourselves and the church a disservice by insisting that there are two kinds of worshipers, traditional and contemporary…Our musical tastes don’t dictate how we worship, our theology does. Both of these extremes are toxic. All worship is historic because it recalls the creative and redemptive acts of God. All worship is contemporary, because we’re doing it now. All worship is future, because it foretells the coming resurrection.”
And, finally, a smile found on Pinterest. This is close to how I really think now, except I say 20. 🙂
Who Is the God of Mormonism?, HT to Challies.“One thing you’ll discover as you’re talking with your Mormon (LDS) friends is that though we use the same terms, we often mean very different things. Mormons have different definitions of Gospel, repentance, salvation, grace, Hell, and nearly every term you’ll be using in your conversation.”
My Son, Withhold Judgment, HT to Challies.There are some times we need to act quickly; there are other times to realize we don’t know all the facts and need to wait.
How Do I Fight Pride When Competing in School, Business, and Sports? HT to True Woman. “If we are better in some subject than someone else, God made us better. And his reasons for doing so are not pride and boasting and elitism. His reason for doing so is that we might use our competencies for the good of others.”
In Defense of Evangelicals Who Support Trump, HT to Proclaim and Defend. Interesting, whichever side you’re on. Not written by an evangelical but by a Jew who acknowledges that “It is usually easier for an outsider to defend a person or a group that is attacked than for the person or group.” As he also says, “Character is a complex issue.” I’m not willing to say it’s not a factor at all – far from it, and I don’t think he’s saying that, either – but it’s true that some people with awful personal lives can be good leaders. But if we acknowledge that on one side of the ballot, we need to concede it for the other as well.
The Benefits of Listening to the Elderly, HT to Challies. “Why might the Lord, in his grace, cause the aged to repeat themselves as they do? What is the Lord showing us through it? Rather than rolling our eyes or thinking ‘Here goes Grandma again,’ what can be gained from these times?”
The Incredible “Mehness” Of Social Media, HT to Challies. An aspect we don’t often think of. Even if much of what we do there is harmless or even interesting, how does that impact our everyday lives and responsibilities? Do those things impact those with whom we have to do or take our attention away from them?
And in the “Seriously?” category: There’s a Reason using a Period In a Text Makes You Sound Angry, HT to Lisa. I never knew this was an issue – and it shouldn’t be. A period is just the end of a sentence, not the end of a conversation or an indicator of anger, disinterest, or insincerity.
Most of Life Is Waiting. “I feared my circumstances more than I feared God. I had lost sight of the reality that both trials and triumphs are part of the good story God is writing through me.”
The Simple Beauty of Wisdom. The ladies at Do Not Depart have been studying through Proverbs in January and end with the last two chapters. I thought the comments about the “virtuous woman” in particular were very practical and encouraging.
Just a few this week, but since some of them had to do with Christmas themes, I thought I’d go ahead and share them.
How God Used A Christmas Carol to Resurrect Literature in My Life. “People can be tempted to think that books are meant to take us away, meant to give us a mental holiday from our lives, but that is not true. Great books, living books, are not meant as an escape from life, but a passage into life.”
End of Year Evaluation. This is not a recent one – I’ve had it in my files for years and think about doing it but haven’t yet. I have trouble choosing superlatives and tend to over analyze all of that. My friend Susan isn’t actively blogging currently, sadly, but thankfully she has left her old posts online.
I mentioned recently that Phil Vischer’s Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables was on my top 12 books read this year. I recently discovered this video of a speech he gave which is kind of a condensed version of the book. It’s fun at first because he does some of the different characters he voices in the Veggie Tales programs. But then he gets to the meat of the matter. Personally I don’t care for the phrases about God “showing up” and calling Jesus “the Big Guy,” but if you can look past that, this is well worth the 56 minutes.
If you like writing about imagination, children’s literature, and families, you might be interested in writing for Story Warren: they’re looking for new contributors.
Finally, I was looking for this yesterday in talking about my young grandson’s imagination. I couldn’t find it then but found it later in the afternoon.
When one of my sons was a baby and was intently staring at the ceiling, as babies are wont to do, my mother-in-law remarked that she thought when babies did that, they were looking at their guardian angels. We smiled – I think we even chuckled. I think she got a little embarrassed, but insisted, “No, really, I think they do see them!” We always kept that as a sweet memory of a sweet thought, and often when we saw a baby staring at the ceiling, we’d observe, “There they go looking at their guardian angels again” with a smile.
When we brought my mother-in-law home from the nursing home four years ago, we thought we were bring her home to die. She was down to 90 lbs., very fuzzy-minded, and not very responsive. But one-on-one care, especially in relation to feeding, and getting her off the narcotic drug we had not even known she was on until we brought her home, all improved her general condition dramatically. She’s 89, though, and one can’t stop the ravages of time. After maybe her first year or so at home, she began to decline more and more, moving less, sleeping more. Over the last year or so, she has become less interactive. She stopped speaking about a year ago, but we could tell by her eyes that she recognized us and followed what we were saying. She’d smile, nod, or shake her head. Though sometimes she still does, more and more lately there’s no light in her eyes when she looks at us, no response.
As we got her ready for bed last night, I noticed her staring intently at the ceiling, and that old sweet thought came back: maybe she’s watching her guardian angel.
There is a sense in which all who know the Lord are getting closer to heaven every day, but the older and more frail one gets, the more imminent it seems. “For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:2, ESV). Some day she’ll cast off this silent, crumpled frame and see, not just angels, but the One she has loved and faithfully served for decades, the One who loved her, died for her, redeemed her, and made it possible that she and the family she so loved and prayed for could be with Him.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5, ESV
Faith Going Forward: A Midlife Following. “If the Proverb is to be trusted, and my mostly silver hair is to be seen as a crown of glory and wisdom, don’t let me be guilty of false advertising.”
And, this is the night!!! Daylight Savings Time ends tonight, so don’t forget to turn your clocks back before going to bed. I hate losing the hour in the spring but I love getting it back in the fall!.
(Links here do not imply 100% endorsement of site or author)
It’s been a little while since I have been able to share interesting reads found online lately, so I have a longish list. But first I have a question.
I used to save all my links on Del.icio.us.com, but they’ve not been up to par for some time now – being bought by various companies, relocating, changing their url. etc., and now they’re “read only” – I can’t add new links to them. I liked that the tags were searchable: if I wanted to look up a link I had saved about the Bible, I could search for “Bible” and find all my links on that subject. Lately I have been saving new links to a draft in my gmail account since I always have that open, but sometimes either the draft itself or the content disappears (maybe when it gets too long?) So my question, or actually two questions are: Is there anything else like Delicious out there, and is there an easy way to import the links I already have over to something else? It would take ages to place all those years of links individually, so I probably just would not do that and hope the read-only version of Delicious stays up, or maybe I’d just do it for a couple of the most important categories. I’d love hearing any suggestions!
Ok, on to the most recent rewarding reads:
Hermeneutics for Parenting: Study the Word, HT to Story Warren. Though this is in the context of teaching one’s children, when it gets to the part about Bible study, it’s good basic, concise Bible study truth for anyone.
Empty Tables: Singleness and Barrenness. “I had to learn my purpose could not be put on hold until I was married. In the same way, I have to learn I am not less than, being withheld from, incomplete, or unable to learn what God has for me to learn in barrenness.”
Do I Want My Children to Be Careful or Take Risks? HT to Story Warren. This is a hard one to balance. I think I erred on the side of carefulness probably too much, but I can see the need to encourage and allow for some degree of risk-taking as well.
Lessons from the Otter on Doing Hard Things, HT to Jessica. Randy Alcorn draws some observations from an otter afraid to go into the water and then finding it’s “what he was made for.” I’ll include the video below. I love this because this is so me! “Sometimes we need to just get our shrieks out of the way as God lowers us toward the water, finally just jump in that water, and discover the wonderful things God has for us!”
Happy Saturday!
(As always, linking to a particular site does not include 100% endorsement of that site.)
Stray Thoughts 