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.
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.)
I don’t usually do these three weeks in a row, but I have come across a lot of good reading lately!
An Army Without Supplies. The people on the “front lines” – of either military or spiritual endeavors – are needed, but so is the support system behind them.
Instant Coffee, Instant Faith. “It is not the massive floods that cause a tree to grow; it’s the steady stream of water day after day, month after month, year after year. The Christian life does not consist only of great breakthroughs; it consists mainly in mundane, steady obedience.”
A Blog on Worship, HT to Proclaim and Defend. “Worship God, not just with your voice, but with your obedience, your devotion, your service, your time, your resources, your priorities, your thoughts, and your actions. Jesus bought all of you, so worship with all of you. Worship: It’s more than you think. ”
The Not So Simple Life. “No matter where you land on this simplicity spectrum, all of these endeavors don’t satisfy the peace we hope to gain from the ‘simple life’…Even simplification is a vain pursuit when it takes up so much room in our minds and our hearts.”
Don’t Take This Personally. “We each cast ourselves as the star (and director and producer) in our own movie. All our life’s plots revolve around us. And all the people in our relationships are supporting actors. But here’s the catch: The supporting actors in our movies are actually busy starring in their own movies.”
Dear Girl: Please Don’t Marry Him. “Your fear of breaking off the relationship should be obliterated by the fear of making a foolish marital choice which is far, far worse.” I don’t know anything about this author, but thought this was a good article.
Is the ESV Literal and the NIV Gender Neutral? HT to Challies. Very little, if any, translation from one language to another is literally word for word the same, due to differences in sentence construction, words for which there are no equals, etc.
I saw this on a friend of a friend’s Facebook, and I don’t know who originated it, but I think it’s great. The OT is so much more than moralistic stories.
(Links do not imply 100% endorsement of site or author.)
Another month nearly done! And it’s time for another Nightstand post so I can assess what I have been reading plus plan for the next few books in the lineup.
A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay, reviewed here. An inherent “fixer” moves to Italy with her new husband after a whirlwind romance and discovers some things aren’t hers to fix. Enjoyed very much.
It’s a busy time of year, but I’ve discovered several thought-provoking reads online the last couple of weeks. Perhaps some of them will pique your interest as well.
Even If He Doesn’t. “When the bad things come, when the kind of rescue we think we need just isn’t part of our story, will we be able to testify before a watching world that God can do it, that He will do it, but even if He doesn’t, we won’t turn away.”
Immanuel. From a friend’s whose 25 year old daughter is fighting yet another setback in her cancer battle. God is with us, even in the hard places, even in bad news.
Jesus Isn’t Threatened by Your Christmas Gifts. Loved the practicality and balance in this. “The implicit messaging is that Christmas is a kind of either/or proposition in which we can either emphasize Jesus or emphasize gifts. But one always threatens to displace the other. I disagree with this.”
It’s Time to Take Your Medicine. “As we read the letters of Paul we find he always frames things this way: ‘God has done this for you in Christ, therefore you should respond in the following ways.’ ‘Thus the motivation, energy, and drive for holiness are all found in the reality and power of God’s grace in Christ.'”
Words That Shimmer. “For Christians, isn’t it amazing that our gracious God chose something as powerful as words to communicate to us His glorious truth? Everything pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). What a gift! What a treasure! Collectors of words take heart:”
(Re)Remembering What We Mean. “Fairy tales employ the tool of the fantastic to jar us back to a truer vision that sees that all things are fantastic. Wonder is an appropriate response to all things because all things are wonderfully made.”
On parenting:
Should Parents Lay Down The Law Or Give Grace? “Grace is not rejecting authority. Grace is not walking away from the need of my children to have boundaries in their life—grace is about the way that I do that.”
And finally, I loved this video of a deer and rabbit playing. At least the deer is playing – it takes a while for the rabbit. Someone posted this on Facebook with the caption “Bambi and Thumper are real!”
I found quite a bit of good reading the last couple of weeks. Hope something here piques your interest:
Grace Incognito. “What if the point isn’t sprinting across the finish line in record time, but knowing God in every halting, baby step along the way?”
Grace-paced Living in a Burnout Culture. The “Mrs. Grace” illustrations were probably the best I’ve seen showing what life lived with an overflow of God’s grace to us is looks like.
Did you know they were making a new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast? With Dan Stevens (Matthew on Downton Abbey) as the Beast? Here are some photos from it, HT to Carrie. This is one of my favorite fairy tales and the Disney film one of my favorite Disney movies. I hope they do this well and don’t toss in anything objectionable. Looks good so far.
And finally, my oldest son posted this video called “Unsatisfying,” and right at first I thought it was frustrating, but before long I was laughing. Some of the little touches, like the squeaky windmill, are great and the soundtrack, though I love the piece (Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings), is perfect.
I’ve discovered some great reads around the Web recently. Here are the latest:
Treat Yourself to the Voice of God. “We’re prone to take one of the single greatest gifts available to us and treat it as a life-sucking obligation rather than a life-giving opportunity.”
Waiting to Die, HT to Challies. Working through the dark thoughts and emotions that come with a terminal diagnosis.
On Empty Nests, Christian Mommy Guilt, and Misplaced Identity by Jen Wilkin. “It’s as if our love is a cosmic batch of heart-shaped cookies we must divvy up. Give anyone more cookies than Jesus and your identity is misplaced. But shouldn’t there be a way to give Jesus all the cookies without depriving our families as well?”
A Prayer For Kindred Spirits. “The nurturing of just one kindred spirit can be enough to keep the voices at bay. It’s as if this secret I’ve been carrying around, afraid to share, has been loosed into the world, and it’s okay. There’s nothing like the deep, soul hug which takes place when realizing you’re amongst those who know the kind of person you really are. And it’s okay.”
Permission Not To Change a Thing. With all the nice photos on Pinterest and plethora of decorating and house-flipping shows, sometimes we feel a constant urge to do something to our homes. It’s certainly not wrong to redecorate or freshen things up or even do a grand remodeling. But it’s also ok not to.
Stray Thoughts 