Laudable Linkage

Posted on December 30, 2023 by Barbara Harper

This has been another light reading week, at least for online posts. But here are a few that stood out to me. A couple are related to Christmas, but still useful.

Christmas and the Reliability of God’s Words. “Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he reads, even when it’s a passage he has seen many times before. As I was rereading (for the fifth or sixth time this Christmas season) Luke’s nativity narrative, I was surprised by a repeated emphasis on the utter certainty of God’s words.”

The Weary World Rejoices, HT to Challies. “With the increase of mind-numbing songs that passed for Christmas music, I noticed a few years ago a hunger in me for a melodic reminder of what Christmas was all about (cue the stage lights for Charlie Brown and Linus). Like pink aluminum Christmas trees, contemporary Christmas songs seemed so far from celebrating the birth of our Savior! I began to listen more closely to versions of traditional carols played during the Christmas season, paying attention to the words rather than just humming along with the familiar melodies.”

32 Random Thoughts About Church.

Just a Stay-at-Home Mom, HT to Challies. “Whenever I’m around professionals, I feel shame prickle my neck and cheeks. As they tell me about their journey from college to working their way to this position they’re currently in, I cringe when the silence comes—because we all know the next question.”

Drawing Near: Loving Your Adult Children and Grandchildren, HT to Challies. “When children move from reliance on their parents toward the independence of adulthood, it can be disorienting. Initially, parents set the guidelines for behavior and schedules in the home, but adult children grow toward autonomy by moving out, pursuing careers, and establishing households — households with a culture of their own. These shifts can be accompanied by strong opinions and feelings.”

Finding Grace in Infertility and Loss, HT to Challies. “Goodness knows I’ve sat in the abyss for hours, days, months, wondering where all the light went or if it ever existed at all. The happy bow at the end of the story doesn’t erase the tormented nights, the weeping until no tears are left, the engulfing losses. The Christian life is far more mysterious than we are comfortable with.”

Many people start the new year planning to read the Bible more regularly. A couple of previous posts here might be helpful to you: Planning to Read the Bible More this Year lists several reading plans, and Making Time to Read the Bible shares tips.

Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love,
and the future to His providence. Augustine

Laudable Linkage

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Barbara Harper

I don’t want to “laud” my own links here, but I did want to call attention to an older post titled “Christmas Hope, Christmas Grief, Christmas Joy.” Both of my parents, my grandmother, a college friend, and even our only family dog all died in December, though in different years. Every year, someone I know is facing a first Christmas without a loved one who passed away that year. Grief may cast a shadow over Christmas, but Christmas gives us hope and joy to carry on.

All We Have to Do Is Turn. “It’s comforting that it’s all we’re asked to do, no matter how far we may have wandered from God. We’re not called to find our own way back. We’re not called to fix it all ourselves, which is reassuring as there is no way we could ever fix it by ourselves.”

Is There a Place for Ambition in the Life of a Christian Woman? “I began to think carefully about ambition—my own aspirations as well as the place ambition might play in the life of a Christian woman, a servant of God. Was it wrong for me to long for more opportunities for service—wrong for me to long for a broader reach?”

I Need Sundays, HT to Challies. “Jesus loves his Church. It was His idea. The abuses and failures of the church do not negate the commands of Scripture to gather as a body of believers. We will not always get it right, that’s for sure. But that doesn’t mean that we can toss the proverbial baby out with the bath water. The commands of Scripture are still ultimately for our good, our growth, our sanctification. If one of God’s very means of grace for our endurance in the Christian life is the church, then Christians will struggle to flourish in faith apart from it.”

When Going Through the Motions Is the Best Way Forward. “I feel like I’m just going through the motions. Perhaps you’ve heard people say this about a relationship, their work or their spiritual lives. Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself. Chances are, it was presented as a negative. If you’re going through the motions, something is wrong, right? Not necessarily.”

Pain Needs Interpreting, HT to Challies. “Rather than just react to pain, the Bible calls us to act towards it. We’re not to just be subject to our pain, blown about in every direction by it. Rather we’re to respond to it, and subject it to the light of God’s word.”

It’s So Easy, HT to Challies. “The world can be a hard place. We are all the walking wounded at times. The voices around us are not always kind, and many of us can find ourselves on the margins, overlooked. It is these times when even the smallest word of encouragement can turn our hearts from sadness to hope.”

Stop Calling Them Names, HT to Challies. “[T]he Bible teaches us to directly confront theological error. It even has a category for using harsh speech with wolves who pervert a church’s fidelity or lead people into eternal destruction (cf. Acts 13:8–11). But neither should Christians engage in the worldly practice of name-calling or employing theological slurs, especially when speaking of brothers and sisters in Christ.”

This is really cool: a graphic showing where things in the Bible are mentioned in more than one place. The bottom line lists the chapters from Genesis to Revelation, with Psalm 119 in the middle. Though the Bible was written over hundreds of year by several authors, it’s a coherent whole

Occasionally someone will ask me what the “HT” in some of my listings means. I used to see that abbreviation frequently, but not so much any more. It means “hat tip,” meaning I saw that link at someone else’s site that I want to acknowledge.

Once in our world, a Stable had something in it
that was bigger than our whole world.
C. S. Lewis

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 11, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Here are some of the posts that resonated with me this week:

Don’t Forget the Gospel During Bible Study. “We tend to hear this exhortation about remembering the gospel and think immediately of our moral behaviors—our successes or failures in the realms of pride, anger, lust, jealousy, and the like. But we need reminders about God’s love, Jesus’s work, and our new identities throughout our lives, and we need to connect these truths to our every endeavor, including studying the Bible.”

The Unexpected Blessing of a Rural Church, HT to Challies. “Though the preaching of the Word changed my heart, the people drew me in to hear it. The love of these Christians made this outcast feel welcome and enabled me to let my guard down and Christ in.”

Scripture Over Systems. “While these various systems can be helpful, I would suggest that adherents to them should not be so anchored to their system that they ignore or misrepresent Scripture that seems to challenge or contradict their systematic understanding. They must be wrestled with and humbly acknowledged.”

Avoiding Quick Repairs in Counseling, HT to Challies. “We all wrestle with the challenge of wanting to fix anything and everything. That’s true not just in terms of our broken ‘stuff’ but also in our broken lives and relationships. If we are honest with ourselves, we can probably admit to times when we have crudely applied spiritual duct tape to situations that needed more skill, love, patience, and grace.” Though this was written to professional counselors, we can all benefit from it.

Merciless in the Name of Mercy, HT to Challies. “It’s a mark of the church to embody a fierce commitment to welcoming sinners and exalting the Father who lavishes grace on the prodigal. But what form should mercy take? What does mercy look like? What does it require?”

Dare to Be a Daniel, HT to Challies. “Maybe you’ve been exposed to the kind of teaching from the Old Testament that uses its stories to highlight moral examples. Is that kind of teaching bad? Should we do such a thing? Should it be avoided for the sake of christological interpretation?”

Ambitious for the Quiet Life. “I find myself thinking a lot about 1 Thessalonians 4:11, ‘make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you.’ I love the juxtaposition of ‘ambition’ with ‘quiet life’ in how the NIV renders it. It almost feels oxymoronic. How can you be ambitious for a quiet life? But notice that it doesn’t say to be ambitious for a lazy life, though; just a quiet one.”

When You Feel Cast Aside. I love this account of Gideon’s army from the viewpoint of a rejected soldier.

Christ is the way to Holiness. Spurgeon quote

Holiness is not the way to Christ;
Christ is the way to holiness.
– C. H. Spurgeon

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Barbara Harper

I’m a bit behind in my blog reading, but here are some of the thought-provoking posts found this week:

Crowned, HT to Challies. On being a grandparent: “This is miles apart from mothering. At first blush, you would not think so: filling sippy cups, opening snacks, picking up toys, readying baths, reading books, kissing those chunky cheeks, swinging, collecting rocks, frolicking, and singing.”

Your Faithfulness Affects Us All: A Plea to Empty Nesters to Continue to Pursue Their Marriages, HT to Challies. “The problems that are often swept under the rug while the kids are at home have a nasty way of coming back with a vengeance after the kids have left the home. The call to pursue your husband or wife is just as crucial three or five decades into marriage as it is in the first couple of decades of your covenant. Here are three ways to pursue faithfulness in marriage during your empty nest years.”

How to Get the Most Out of Your Pastor’s Preaching. “Do you ever find yourself: Waking up on Sunday morning and wishing you didn’t have to go to church? Having a hard time staying awake in church? Daydreaming during the message, or making a mental ‘to-do’ list while the pastor is preaching?”

Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. “Raechel and Amanda reflected on where in their lives they are seeing beauty, goodness, and truth, and challenged their listeners to consider that too. As I thought about that question, I was surprised by how much it encouraged me.”

3 Times You Should Disobey Authority, HT to Challies. “What are the limits to our moral obligation to submit when someone possesses an ostensibly legitimate authority over us, like a parent over a child? Certainly there are limits. Remember, no human authority is absolute. Authority is always relative to the assignment given by the Authority Giver.”

5 Things at the Heart of a Pastoral Visit, HT to Challies. “Pastoral visitation is a powerful means of spiritual encouragement and a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ to his people. . . . While I have written before about the benefits of visitation to the life and work of a Pastor, this post will seek to lay bare some of the basic principles of visitation which could be of help to those on the receiving end of it.”

Is It More Important to Read the Bible Together or Alone?

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Barbara Harper

What’s more important: having regular personal time alone with the Lord or hearing the Bible read and taught in community at church?

You might respond, “We need both. Why pit them against each other?”

That’s my question. Why, indeed?

Nevertheless, I’ve seen a couple of recent articles positing that the church service is to be our main spiritual meal.

One author’s reasons for her premise was that in Scripture, God spoke to groups through a prophet or preacher, and the New Testament epistles were written to churches.

But God spoke to individuals as well. And many NT letters and books were written to individuals (Luke, Acts, Titus, Philemon, 1 and 2 Timothy).

I suspect this idea that we need to hear the Word gathered together more than we need to read it on our own arose for a couple of reasons. One is the drifting away of many from church and the desire to stress to believers the importance of meeting together.

Another is the almost universal guilt people feel about their time in the Bible. Every time this topic comes up, I hear disappointment or frustration or disillusionment. People feel guilty if they miss a day (or several days), if they fall asleep or get distracted while praying or reading the Bible, if they didn’t particularly get anything out of it or felt bored.

It’s true there’s nothing in the Bible that tells us to read it every day or prescribes exactly how a quiet time or devotions should be practiced.

But Psalm 1 tells us that the stable, fruitful person meditates on God’s law day and night. God specifically told Joshua to meditate on the book of the law day and night. We’re told throughout Scripture to remember what God said. We can’t meditate on (think about, turn over in our minds) what we have not heard or read.

The psalms in the Bible are songs which were sung by the children of Israel. Some of them have plural pronouns, but many have personal pronouns. That means even though the congregation is singing about the truths of the passage together, the passage was written by someone’s experience with the Lord alone. Psalm 119:148, the writer actually anticipates “the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word.”

Our time alone with God should feed into our time together, and our time in the Word together should edify our inner souls and equip us in our daily walk.

Time with other believers learning God’s Word is vital and wonderful. But we only meet together once or twice a week. The Bible is our spiritual food, and we need to eat more than that.

We don’t relate to God only as “one of the kids.” In a family with multiple children, each child relates to the family as a whole. But each child also relates to the father and mother as individuals.

We’re to meet together frequently (Hebrews 10:25), “stir one another up to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24), learn from the incredible gifts God gave to the church in pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13), sing worshipful, Scripture based songs together (Colossians 3:16).

But just as children are born into a family individually, no matter who else might be there, we’re born again by personal repentance and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. We get to know Him by spending time with Him, listening to Him, alone and with others. Though our brothers and sisters in Christ are great encouragements, sometimes we stand with God alone and encourage ourselves in God alone, like David did. We praise and meditate on Him alone in the middle of the night (Psalm 63:5-7). We’ll each give account of ourselves to God (Romans 14:11).

What about the disappointment we feel when our devotional time is less than stellar?

We need to remember the point of a devotional time is not to get through an assignment, to feel proud that we’ve completed our plan for the day, or to turn in a great performance. The point of a devotional time is to get to know God better.

When we get to know other people, we spend time with them, learn about them, listen to them, talk with them. Just like with others in our lives, those conversations will vary. Some interactions are long and deep, some are hurried and surface-level.

I like to think of it this way: every time in the Bible is not going to be like a Thanksgiving feast, where we’re filled to bursting with all our favorite things. But every meal nourishes us, even the tuna casseroles or peanut butter sandwiches and their spiritual equivalents.

God knows we’re only human. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14).

And feeling sleepy, bored, or not with it on a given day happens in church as well as home alone with our Bibles.

When the Bible was being written, no one had a completed copy of it. And most people did not have their own copy of any part of it. Listening to the Bible being taught was the main way, often the only way, they were exposed to it. Even when the Bible was completed, it was a long time before individuals had their own.

But we do have the completed Bible. And most of us have several copies, as well as apps to read or listen to. William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, and others gave their lives to provide people with copies of the Scripture they could read in their own language.

If every word in the Bible is God-breathed, shouldn’t we spend time taking it in as much as we can?

A couple of older saints inspire me to read God’s Word for myself:

Above all theologies, and creeds, and catechisms, and books, and hymns, must the Word be meditated on, that we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts and in assimilation to its models. Our souls must be steeped in it; not in certain favorite parts of it, but the whole. We must know it, not [only] from the report of others but from our own experience and vision. . . Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for us.—Horatius Bonar from They Walked With God

You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with having so much knowledge as is thrown in your way, and as you receive in some sense unavoidably by the frequent inculcation of divine truth in the preaching of the word, of which you are obliged to be hearers, or as you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.—Jonathan Edwards

Granted, the articles I mentioned earlier did not say we should only read and hear the Bible in church and never read it on our own. They encouraged private devotions as well, but elevated church reading and teaching above them. However, I would say reading and studying the Bible alone is not second fiddle to hearing it taught at church. Both are good and needed ways to get to know our God and His will better.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly - Colossians 3:16a

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on July 15, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Here are some good reads found this week:

He Gives to His Beloved Sleep, HT to Challies. “It was two o’clock in the morning and my newborn was asleep in the bassinet next to me. Most of the time, a newborn sleeping is cause for celebration and slumber but on this particular night, fears about my son’s life plagued my mind.”

The Character of Revival. “Apparently, the essential ingredients of revival are not sincerity, passion, zeal, emotion, organization, expense, unity, sacrifice, effort. Apparently, you can have all that, and yet not have revival.”

When Healing Hurts. “In my life, I’ve had to trust God to heal many things. It’s been painful as He’s had to break me and allow me to hurt to remove sins of pride and addiction from my life. Do I trust him still? Absolutely. In fact, because He has healed me from mental, physical, and spiritual needs, I trust Him more.”

Another Great Consequence. Dan Olinger has been working his way through the consequences of God’s work in us, and this week details why we can have joy in trials.

Humble Words, HT to Challies. “Articles, blogs, and books give us great encouragement, but we cheat ourselves out of so much encouragement when we expect the same kind of counsel from every saint around us. Most often the answers we seek can’t be summed up in key takeaways anyway. Our lives are so much more complicated than that.”

Hospitality Is an Everyday Endeavor. “When we think of hospitality as an event, we lose a lot of the meaning behind its purpose. Hospitality is about showing kindness to others, whether we know them well or not, without grumbling or complaining. (1 Peter 4:9) It’s more than an event. Practicing hospitality is cultivating a spirit that is generous, welcoming, and warm, and its purpose is to show what the love of Jesus is like.”

Angry and Holy: How Your Anger Can Be Righteous. “When I started therapy, however, I was taught that anger isn’t an enemy to squash. As I, in turn, searched Scripture, the Holy Spirit guided me to see that he’s not anti-anger either. All anger isn’t sin. Rather, anger is a good emotion when rightly used. As a professional emotion-stuffer, this has been a hard lesson to learn and one that God, in his good patience, is teaching me over and over again as I parent my children and re-teach myself.”

Going to Church Is Hard but Worth It, HT to Challies. “Sundays never fail to be tough. The plan is always to have the house clean and organized on Saturday, to do family devotionals, to set out and iron clothes for the morning, to go to bed early, and have a big happy breakfast together Sunday morning. Things never go according to plan.”

When You Don’t Like Your Wife, Love Your Wife. “The thing about love is that it is more likely to grow cold when you fail to give it than when you fail to receive it. The one sure way to fall out of love with your wife is to stop loving her—to stop doing deeds of love and speaking words of love and otherwise displaying a heart of love. Love is like a muscle that atrophies with disuse and that strengthens with exercise.” These things are true for wives with their husbands as well.

Is Manifestation a Worthwhile Pursuit? (Short answer: No.) I’ve seen manifestation pop up in conversations here and there. Lauren explains what it is, what’s wrong with it, and a better way to think.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Barbara Harper

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

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Here are some great reads found this week:

God’s Word and a Scalpel. “God’s word can be comforting. We often buy wall art and home decor plastered with passages about God’s love and care for us. We create or share memes for social media with verses about God’s good plans for us or encouragement to be strong and courageous. And I would never want to diminish these expressions of God’s great grace and mercy for us. But we can’t grasp on to the tender promises and ignore the instruction and conviction the Bible contains.”

Surviving the Winter of Suffering, HT to Challies. “During a blizzard of suffering, I drew the blinds down in my heart. I pulled inward so I could survive. I eked out a small corner for myself and gave the bare minimum to the world. I didn’t know any other way forward. I met the needs of my family, I checked off the homekeeping list, and then I crawled back into the darkness.”

Shepherds Feed the Sheep, HT to Challies. “This is something you hear over and over in certain kinds of churches and discipleship cultures—the notion of self-feeding. ‘You need to learn to self-feed.’ Do maturing Christians need to take responsibility for their personal growth? Do they need to take ownership (as it were) of their spiritual disciplines? Absolutely. You aren’t saved or sanctified by somebody else’s faith. But in the dim light of modern evangelicalism, I still find it glaringly clear in John 21 that Jesus does not say to Peter, ‘Teach my sheep to self-feed.’ He says, ‘Feed my sheep.'”

On What Are You Basing Your Value, Your Hope, Your Being? “What challenging circumstances are you navigating today that seem to have altered your life to the point where it’s unrecognizable? Do you ever question your value because your productivity is ‘unacceptable?’ (At least by your own standards…)”

Keep the Romance Alive in Your Relationship. “Knowing how to keep the romance alive in your relationship or marriage on a day to day basis can be hard. You know, when the washing machine is broken again, the kids are playing up and work hours are long and exhausting. Sometimes it can feel like we are ships that pass in the night, only coming together when both partners are tired and maybe feeling just a tad grumpy.”

The Resilient Mother: How We Bend Without Breaking. “When mothers are brittle and fragile, we snap, and the sharp edges of our breaking wound our families and leave us full of regret. Perseverance in strong habits of holiness keeps us connected with God’s word and rooted in what is true about God’s character.”

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 5, 2022 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few good reads found this week:

Ordinary Chores, Extraordinary Love: Imaging God’s Care for Us, HT the Story Warren. “If God himself works every single day in billions of small, repetitive ways to care for his creation and his children, then maybe our mundane to-do lists are more important than we realize.”

There Are No Insignificant Christians, HT to Challies. “The person sitting in the other pew at church is more glorious than you realize. It is easy for us to look at some of the other people in our church and think, ‘I am glad they are part of this church, but they are not that significant.’ If we feel like that, it exposes a biblical blindness on our part that we need to correct as soon as possible.”

Top 10 Things I wish Worship Leaders would Stop Saying. Yes! I don’t hear all of these, but the ones I do hear bug me. I wrote a post on #3 a while back: God does so much more than show up.

The Body Is Bigger Than You Think, HT to Challies. “One of the best things that could happen to the rank-and-file churchgoing Christian is to get a better sense of the bigness of the Body of Christ. The Church is bigger than your church. The kingdom is bigger than your denomination. God’s people are all over the world, united by a shared love for Jesus and confession of his lordship.”

Four Ways to Help Your Children Love the Church More, HT to Challies. “It pays to ask the question, before our children drift away, how we can help them love the local church. Here are a bunch of ways we might do that.”

The Scariest Story and the Greatest Hero. I haven’t read the book or seen the movie mentioned, but I appreciated these thoughts on helping kids navigate and learn from scary things.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Barbara Harper

Here are some of the good reads found this week:

5 Effects of Expository Preaching, HT to Challies. “To publicly herald God’s Word is an act of worship (2 Tim. 2:15), and a stewardship for which we’ll give an account. Here are five ways expository preaching beautifies Christ’s bride.”

Growth: Potential vs. Actual. A tale of two fig trees, one flourishing and one not, and what we can learn from them.

3 Ways to Turn Against Your Pastor, HT to Challies. “How do otherwise good Christians turn against otherwise good pastors? Here are three very common ways it happens.”

Not as the World: Finding Peace in Motherhood, HT to The Story Warren. “The sun dips and light filters through the back window, washing my kitchen in a warm shade of orange. It would be peaceful, except for the teething baby screeching in his highchair. The sizzling of a half-cooked dinner on the stove. The drumming in my head from sleeplessness. Fading light reminds me that the day is closing, but my responsibilities are endless.”

Why We Must Teach Our Kids Safety Skills, HT to Challies. “Young people are growing up in an increasing godless world, while also in deep need for wisdom and discernment to navigate it. More than ever, they need to know how to traverse the dangers around them.”

Truth and Story, HT to The Story Warren. “‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein…’ Psalm 24:1 (ESV). This verse applies to books and readers, too. This is the foundation of why we read to the glory of God, because we have Him to thank for excellent literature.”

I’ve read parts of The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Poems and Devotions, but not the whole book. Hope’s review mentions an interesting article about who collected and edited the prayers in the book.

I heard a great message from Adrian Rogers on the radio yesterday while working in the kitchen. The overall message was about burdens, but the section on today’s broadcast was about restoration after one has fallen. The audio is here and an outline and transcript are here.