Laudable Linkage

Posted on August 28, 2021 by Barbara Harper

Here’s another list of good reads I cam across recently.

Gentle and Lowly Book Club. Linda is hosting weekly discussions of Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly: the Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers from September 12 through October 3. I haven’t read the book yet, but I have heard many good things about it. Reading with others always enhances the experience and brings out more than I gleaned on my own.

Afghan Pastors Ask for Prayer, HT to Challies. “As Taliban forces have swallowed up Afghanistan and even now the capital city of Kabul, pastors in the country have been emailing and messaging me over the last few days, even hours, anxious for prayer.” See also Pray for Afghanistan.

The Situation in Afghanistan, and Ways to Pray and Help, HT to Challies. “Jesus is literally all they have left.”

What Does It Mean to Be Filled with the Spirit? It’s interesting that this post came up just after reading about the same topic in the ESV Study Bible notes and Warren Wiersbe’s “Be” commentary on Acts and a Bible study discussion at church on the first five chapters of Acts—and they all agreed.

Perfect Courtesy Toward All in the Worst of Times, HT to Challies. “Paul tells Titus to remind his flocks of seven important Christian virtues. Their need to be reminded implies a tendency to forget. Apparently, top-to-bottom cultural corruption creates a need for repeated conscience re-calibration.”

How to Experience Peace in Spite of Unsafe People. “We think if we can escape their presence and any reminders of them, we’ll have peace. My experience in Switzerland reminded me peace doesn’t come from distance from them but from closeness with Jesus.”

5 Ways to Reflect Christ’s Character in Contentious Conversations. “God tells us that we are to seek peace, not contention. Peace isn’t simply the absence of conflict, and it isn’t a passive act. We have to pursue it with an active and committed determination, searching for ways to maintain peace with others.”

Mom Guilt and the God Who Sees, HT to Challies. “Mom guilt. Moms today are well acquainted with the term. We use it as a kind of shorthand to express an all-too-common feeling we face in the everyday events of mothering.”

Dear Next Generation. Though this is addressed to young people, the advise is good for any age. “I didn’t really think about the gospel all that much. At a young age, I believed that Jesus died on the cross for my sin, but that’s where the story ended for me. I had never considered that the gospel should impact my everyday life. Why would I need to hear the gospel anymore?”

This is interesting: four cellists play Ravel’s “Bolero”—on one cello. I wonder how many practices it took to coordinate without bumping into each other. I like the first comment on YouTube: “When everyone except the cellist forgets their instruments: It’s ok guys, we can make it work.”

Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Barbara Harper

Here are some thought-provoking reads discovered recently:

How Should Christians Respond to Racism? HT to Challies. “We have so confused Christianity with politics that people often assume Christian equals the stuff political conservatives identify with and non-Christian equals the stuff progressives talk about. And since racial justice often tends to be at the forefront of the discussion in politically progressive circles, we shy away from them because we think that to discuss the evil of racism is to identify with the liberal left. But here’s the thing. When we call out the evil of racism, we’re identifying with the word of Almighty God.” (Update: I removed the link to this one because evidently it was taken down from the Core Christianity site. The quote is included in the show notes of this podcast of the same title. Perhaps what I originally saw was the transcript that was later taken down. That’s too bad—it was a good article. Probably a lot of people who would have read the article would not take the time to listen to a podcast.)

Three Thoughts on Current Events.

Three Tips on Teaching Your Children about Racism, HT to The Story Warren. “Parenting is hard, but learning how to parent as a white mom to black, white, and biracial children and discuss racial issues with them has been quite the journey. They are not naïve to the realities of living in a broken society.”

Canceled: How the Eastern Honor-Shame Mentality Traveled West, HT to Challies. “Today’s cancel culture is the 21st-century Western version of the Eastern honor-shame paradigm.”

How to Walk with Jesus When Your Kids Are Little. This is one of the hardest times to have any time with God. But it doesn’t have to be quiet, solitary, or lengthy.

How to Care for Your Pastor, Part 6: Rewarding. I’ve known people who didn’t believe pastors should be paid by the church, or at least supported full time by the church. But that’s not Biblical, as Dan Olinger shows in this sixth post in a series on caring for one’s pastor.

What It’s Like to Get Doxed for Taking a Bike Ride. This is scary. A man was misidentified as someone who was racist and assaulted someone. The Twitter mob turned on him, threatening him, with someone even publishing his address. “We must align in the fight for justice and equality — but not at the cost of due process and the right to privacy and safety.”

This is an engaging video explaining the concept of peace, or shalom in Hebrew. As often as I have heard this word, I don’t think I have heard it explained this way. HT to The Story Warren.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Barbara Harper

These are some noteworthy reads discovered this week:

To Redeem ‘Cancel Culture’, There Must Be Room for Redemption, HT to Challies. “But now to the most apparent deficiency of secularism as a religion: the absence of any explicit provision for redeeming and restoring to acceptance by the community those judged guilty of violating its moral code.”

Peace in the Beforehand. “If I dread an upcoming difficulty, as well as suffer through it, I’ve doubled my misery.” And, Sandy goes on to say, if we dread something, but then everything goes fine, we’ve wasted all that angst. Such a helpful perspective.

My Heart Is a Featherweight. I’ve enjoyed Laura Ingalls Gunn’s blog for many years. Yes, she’s related to the real LIW. But this might be my favorite post: a true story about how God brought two people to the exact same spot, one with a longtime desire, one looking for just the right person to give a treasured item to.

Dear Teenage Daughter: You Aren’t Entitled.

Protecting Digital Accounts After Death.

And a thought for the day:

. . . or sunrises or seasons or growth.

Happy Saturday!

Active Faith

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Barbara Harper

The verbs in the first few verses of Psalm 37 (one of my favorites) stand out to me:

Fret not

Trust in the Lord

Do good

Delight yourself in the Lord

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him

Be still before the Lord

Wait patiently for him

Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath

Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

The repetition of “fret not” indicates the Israelites were in a situation that could cause them to fret, namely, the encroachments and threats of the wicked. Later in the chapter God assures them that He will take care of them, provide for them, protect them. Their faith was not passivity nor naiveté, not sticking their heads in the sand: rather, it was characterized by active trust, patient waiting (v. 7), and focusing on doing good to others (v. 3).

Peace is a part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), but we’re also to “keep in step with the Spirit” (v. 25). We can work against peace of heart by fretting, magnifying the problems, spending too much time with swirling, fearful thoughts. Or we can work with God to promote peace of heart by focusing on Him, committing our way to Him, delighting in Him, trusting Him to take care of the issues, and getting out of our own heads to see what we can do for others.

It’s counterintuitive to pray for or expect peace of heart without taking the means God provided to take our thoughts captive. When we find ourselves fretting, fearful, downcast, we seek God and remind ourselves of His truth in His Word.

(Sharing with Inspire Me Monday, Literary Musing Monday, Tell His Story, Woman to Woman Word-filled Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Porch Stories, Faith on Fire)

Book Review: A Wreath of Snow

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Barbara Harper

In Scotland during the Victorian era, a “wreath” meant not just a circular decoration for your front door, but a drift, like a snowdrift. In A Wreath of Snow: A Victorian Christmas Novella by Liz Curtis Higgs, a wreath, or giant snowdrift, has not only stopped but also damaged the train leaving the small town of Stirling. An invisible wreath of mistakes, pain, and deception has halted and damaged the lives of two of its passengers.

One of them, Meg Campbell, had fled from home in a hurry after an altercation with her brother, who had become churlish, moody, and demanding after an accident that left him without much use of his legs years ago. Now she will have to go back home and face him again.

Gordon Shaw is a newspaper man passing through Stirling. He used to live there but a thoughtless and harmful act on his part hurt someone else there several years ago, and he has been living under its shadow ever since.

At first Meg and Gordon do not recognize each their or their shared histories, and once they do, they feel it best to cover it all up again with lies to Meg’s family. But deception never leads to healing. Is there any chance this wreath, this impasse, in the lives of all involved can be removed?

This book was a perfect Christmas read. Since it is a novella, it’s not overly long or involved, but the characters and plot are well-developed. The ending is what you would hope, without being sappy. This season when we sing of peace on earth and goodwill to men can be fraught with conflict and a long history of hard feelings, and the truths of this story encourage readers to seek peace with each other.