Faith

Faith is not a power; it is merely acquiescing to the power of God.
-John Hannah

On Trials & God's Discipline

Life is like a Bajaj Scooter. It takes a few hard kicks to get it running.

Stop Talking, Start Listening

"Listen once in a while. It's amazing what you can hear. On a hot summer day in the country you can hear the corn growing, the crack of a tin roof buckling under the power of the sun. In a real old-fashioned parlor silence so deep you can hear the dust settling on the velveteen settee, you might hear the footsteps of something sinister gaining on you, or a heart-stoppingly beautiful phrase from Mozart you haven't heard since childhood, or the voice of somebody — now gone — whom you loved. Or sometime when you're talking up a storm so brilliant, so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are, pause just a moment and listen to yourself. It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamelessly foolishly."

-Russell Baker, 1995 Connecticut College Commencement Address

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;
when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

-Proverbs 17:28

Economy of Scale

If you tried to name them, one a second, naming all the stars in our galaxy...I don't mean all the stars in the universe, just this galaxy here...it takes 3000 years. And yet, that's not a very big number. Because if those stars were to drop one dollar bill on the earth during a year, each start dropping one dollar bill, they might take care of the deficit which is suggested for the budget of the United States.

- Richard Feynman, Physicist, from a 1983 interview.

Speaking from a more directly spiritual point of application, think of this scale in terms of a man's faith:

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:5,6

This is the account of a 90+ year old man with a wife who was aged and barren. To believe that God would provide a single child is faith enough. But God did not stop there in pushing Abraham beyond the realms of probability. The Lord outlined a plan that was beyond believable, and used a metaphor that even today is incomprehensible - "so (as the number of stars) shall your offspring be".

When Abraham is said to have believed God, it is a synonym for faith (in other words, trust). Faith can be then explained as to come to a point where your mind and heart and soul agree with reality; and reality is that the resources to accomplish God's righteous will are completely outside one's capacity. It is the realization that God alone can accomplish what He wills of you. Therefore, the only right human response is complete abandonment of oneself to God. This is the faith that God counts as righteousness, the opposite of work - absolute dependence.

Worship is Holistic

"For to worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open up the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."

William Temple, late Archbishop of Canterbury

Paul Washer on Finding a Mate

I ran across a random clip today, from a Paul Washer message, not even sure what the message was from. But a friend and I had a conversation and this quote (mostly word-for-word, I was transcribing from audio) from the message got my attention, so I share:

God does not search around to find a mate that's totally compatible with you. Most probably he's going to find you a mate that's incompatible with you.

He's going to give you a mate in all the areas that you need them to be strong so that "you are not tempted more than you can bear" but he's also going to give you a mate who fails in some of the areas that you most do not want them to fail so that you become like Jesus... what does that mean? So that you learn to love someone unconditionally that does not meet the conditions.

Interesting thoughts... and based on an understanding of the fatherly discipline of the Lord and the incisive work of the Holy Spirit, I believe it is biblically consistent, even if humanly we fight the idea (because especially in this case, we're looking for a "soul-mate", not a walking spiritual Bowflex (a workout machine)). No one willingly walks into a situation that promises intense humbling. However, just like the old saying goes, "it's good for you". That sounds stoic, but it's meant to challenge you, measure it up to scripture and then do as you see fit.

A God Who Suffers is a God Who Loves

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after awhile I have had to turn away.

And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wretched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me!

He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross of Christ... is God's only self-justification in such a world as ours.

John Stott, "God on the Gallows"

Don't sweat the small stuff, for the sake of the long run.

You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went
You can swear and curse the fates;
But when it comes to the end,
You have to let go.
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Hide not Thou Thy face from me

Who, O Lord, will grant that I may repose in Thee? Who will grant that Thou mayest enter in my heart and inebriate it, that I may forget all my wicked ways and embrace Thee, my only good? What art Thou unto me O Lord? Have mercy on me that I may speak to Thee. Or what am I to Thee, that Thou shouldst command me to love Thee; yea, and be angry and threaten to lay huge miseries upon me if I love Thee not? Is it perhaps of itself no great misery, if I do not love Thee? Woe be unto me. Tell me, even for Thy mercy's sake, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation," but say it so that I may hear Thee. Behold the ears of my heart are set before Thee, open Thou them, O Lord, and say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation." I will run after the sound of that Voice and thereby lay hold on Thee. Hide not Thou Thy face from me; let me die, that I may see it, lest otherwise I die because I see it not.

from The Confessions of St. Augustine, Chapter V

OK, let's balance the last post

A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Missions is about Worship

Anyone familiar with John Piper's landmark work knows this already... but it's worth a post.

The passion of a missionary-as distinct from that of an evangelist-is to plant a worshiping community of Christians in a people group who has no access to the gospel because of language or cultural barriers. Paul was one of those "frontier" missionaries: "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named... But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions... I go to Spain" (Rom. 15:20, 23-24)

Then this:

The first great passion of missions, therefore, is to honor the glory of God by restoring the rightful place of God in the hearts of people who presently think, feel and act in ways that dishonor God every day, and in particular, to do this by bringing forth a worshiping people from among all the unreached peoples of the world. If you love the glory of God, you cannot be indifferent to missions. This is the ultimate reason Jesus Christ came into the world. Romans 15:8-9 says, "Christ became a servant to the circumcised... in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." Christ came to get glory for his Father among the nations. If you love what Jesus Christ came to accomplish, you love missions.

That, right there, is the heart of the book, Let the Nations Be Glad. And if you want to know more, the entire book is his case for every aspect of those statements.

The urgency is such when you study this issue, that individuals and churches who are not in some explicitly involved way (prayer? money? GOING? supporting? encouraging others to go? informing others? studying? networking? All the above?) a part of God's global undertaking are badly missing the point of God's purposes for all of creation. Read Revelation 5 (the last revealed chapter of God's story of redemption) to get some idea. And then get out of your neighborhood, and hop on the global missions bandwagon.

Like Hacking a Path Through the Amazon Forest

What is Indian Red Tape like? A great anecdote from a book I'm in the middle of, made me laugh it's so ridiculous but having lived in the system it's totally believable. As Luce says, it's like hacking a path through the Amazon; by the time we have proceeded a hundred yards, the undergrowth takes over again. The author, Edward Luce, recounts a story from Arun Shourie, minister of administrative reform in New Delhi from 1999 - 2002.

Shourie also provided an example of the farce that sometimes results from efforts to reform a system that will go to great lengths to thwart even the smallest of changes. In April 1999, India's ministry for steel submitted a formal query to Shourie's ministry for administrative reforms. The grave matter, which would take almost a year to resolve and would consume the valuable time of some of India's most senior officials, was about whether civil servants should be allowed to use green or red ink, as opposed to the blue or black normally used to annotate documents.

After several weeks of meetings, consultations and memoranda, the IAS (administrative) officers in Shouries' department concluded that the matter could be resolved only by officials at the bureau of printing. Another three weeks of learned deliberation ensued before the bureau of printing returned the file to the department of administrative reform, but with the recommendation that the ministry of training and personnel be consulted. It took another three weeks for the file to reach the ministry of training, since the diligent mandarins at administrative reform needed time to consider the expertly phrased deliberations of the bureau of printing.

And so this question of state meandered for weeks and months, in meeting after meeting through ministry after ministry, before the following Solomonic compromise was struck: "Initial drafting will be done in black or blue ink. Modifications in the draft at the subsequent levels may be made in green or red ink by the officers so as to distinguish the corrections made," said the new order. Hierarchy also had to be specified. "Only an officer of the level of joint secretary and above may use the green or red ink in rare cases [duly set out, with appropriate caveats]." As Shourie noted: "A good bureaucratic solution: discretion allowed but circumscribed!"
Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India

It's interesting to me, but this kind of management (to misuse the word) is visible to some level at every level of Indian practice, whether in the private or governmental sector, religious or secular. Procedure most often trumps common sense, with the result that things move forward arduously but upward (in terms of stacks of paperwork and procedure) most earnestly.

Worship and the Work of God

"I am of the opinion that we should not be concerned about working for God until we have learned the meaning and the delight of worshiping Him. A worshiper can work with eternal quality in his work."

"Christ saves us to make us worshipers and workers. But we evangelicals ignore the first altogether so that we are not producing worshipers in our day. Workers, yes, we're producing workers. Founders, yes, they're a dime a dozen. Promoters, producers artists, entertainers, religious DJs, we've got them by the thousands. Beat a bush and there will be two artists to hop out and a DJ." (Sermon to Youth for Christ, National Convention of YFC in Chicago, 1960)

"To try to get souls saved at the expense of the glory of God is to cheat God of His glory and not get souls saved anyhow. We just make proselytes who aren't Christians but something else." (Sermon, "Prayer," Chicago, 1956)

Tozer on Worship & Entertainment, Compiled by James L. Snyder

For Valentine's Day

Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.

STEPHEN LEACOCK
humorist and economist

The Beauty of Christ

Every time I read this it grips me. And I'm reading it over and over again. The Pearl of Great Price, explained like no other can.
I quote:

But Christ Jesus has true excellence and so great excellency, that when they come to see it they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in him; it sees that till now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean. The excellency of Christ is an object adequate to the natural cravings of the soul, and is sufficient to fill the capacity. It is infinite excellency, such a one as the mind desires, in which it can find no bounds: and the more the mind is used to it, the more excellent it appears. Every new discovery makes this beauty appear more ravishing, and the mind sees no end; here is room enough for the mind to go deeper and deeper, and never come to the bottom. The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it. The mind never has any satiety, but Christ’s excellency is always fresh and new, and tends as much to delight, after it has been seen a thousand or ten thousand years, as when it was seen the first moment…. The soul that comes to Christ, feeds upon this, and lives upon it; it is that bread which came down from heaven, of which he that eats shall not die: it is angels’ food, it is that wine and milk that is given without money, and without price. This is that fatness in which the believing soul delights itself; here the longing soul may be satisfied, and the hungry soul may be filled with goodness. The delight and contentment that is to be found here, passeth understanding, and is unspeakable and full of glory. It is impossible for those who have tasted of this fountain, and know the sweetness of it, ever to forsake it. The soul has found the river of water of life, and it desires no other drink; it has found the tree of life, and it desires no other fruit.

Jonathan Edwards

Oh. Experientially I'm at the fringes of what he's saying... but even from that point I still know that all this is infinitely true. You see, even just a taste of infinite gloriousness is infinitely satisfying.

Acceptable Worship

One of the great things about getting a theological education is exposure to writers that have been around for literally ages: It's like finding diamonds in the dust. Here's a quote about the role of emotions in worship:

That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising up but a little above a state of indifference: God, in His Word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, "fervent in spirit," and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts...unless they be lively and powerful! In nothing is vigour in the actings of our inclination so requisite as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious.
Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

So let's be vigorous. On any given Sunday, with the household of God - leaving the drudgery, the baggage of life behind, let us take our eyes off ourselves and look toward Him: he is the author and benefactor of our faith. In acknowledgment of his all-sufficiency specific to our lives, let us pour out our hearts. Let the response that we give to him in song, in public exaltation, be worthy in some measure, of praise befitting The King.

For world outreach, passion.

Jan Comenius was a missionary pioneer born in in Moravia in 1592, one of the first to begin developing a world scope for missions. The following is a quote from a short biography, which challenged me.

In 1461 Comenius visited England in the hope of gaining support for one of his more idealistic scheme, an encyclopaedic 'pansophic' college. This would embrace all knowledge, including scientific knowledge and biblical, and would teach the peoples of all nations the truth which would bring an end to war and discord! His optimism knew no bounds though we may feel he was rather naive in his expectations! The programme as he envisaged it would start with Christian nations and go from there to Muslims, pagans, and finally to the Jews, who, as the apostle Paul hoped in His Letter to the Romans, would come to faith in Christ through jealousy, when they saw the gentiles enjoying God's blessings. As he says in The Way of Light:

The result of that light which is promised is the conversion of all peoples to the Church, so that Jehovah shall be king over all the earth... Then the Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole circle of the world, for a witness to all the peoples, before the end shall come... Then the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the sea is covered with waters... And then there will be universal peace over the whole world; hatred and causes of hatred will be done away, and all dissension between men. For there will be no ground for dissenting, when all men have the same Truths clearly presented to their eyes.

And he closes the book with the following paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven, may thy name be hallowed in the whole world! let Thy Kingdom come even now to the whole world! May Thy will be done even now in the whole earth as it is in whole Heaven! through the whole of Europe, of Asia, of Africa, of America, through the Magellanes [the southern parts of present-day Chile and Argentina], and through all the islands of the sea, may Thy kingdom come, may Thy will be done!... Raise up men to write Thy purpose in books, but books such as Thou Thyself mayest write in the hearts of men; make schools to be opened in all parts of the world to nurse Thy children! And do Thou raise up Thine own school in the hearts of all men in the whole world that they may ally themselves together for Thy praise; be Thou Thyself leader of the choir of Thine elect.

Whatever we may think about the viability of Comenius' hopes there is no doubt about his worldwide vision and missionary zeal.

From A Heart For Missions: Five Pioneer Thinkers
Ron Davies

...to live in Him as the fish lives in the sea...

If we do not see beyond the visible, if we cannot touch that which is intangible, if we cannot hear that which is inaudible, if we cannot know that which is beyond knowing, then I have serious doubts about the validity of our Christian experience. The Bible tells us:

"eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the hearts of men the things that God has laid up for them that love Him" [1 Cor 2:9]

That is why Paul goes on to remind us that God has revealed these mysteries to us by the Holy Spirit. If we would only stop trying to make the Holy Spirit our servant and begin to live in Him as the fish lives in the sea, we would enter into the riches of glory about which we know nothing now.

Too many want the Holy Spirit in order that they may have the gift of healing. Others want Him for the gift of tongues. Still others seek him so that their testimony may become effective. All of these things, I will grant, are a part of the total pattern of the New Testament. But it is impossible to make God our servant. Let us never pray that we may be filled with the Spirit of God for secondary purposes. God wants to fill us with the Holy Spirit in order that we should know Him first of all and be absorbed in Him. We should enter into the fullness of the Spirit so that God's son may be glorified in us.

A.W. Tozer
From "Faith Beyond Reason"

Prayer

Let me be the evidence of what Your grace can do
To a generation struggling to find themselves in You
May they come to know the love of God,
May their eyes be made to see-
Give me the opportunity to share the truth
that sets them free
And may unity in all things
Be the banner of Your church,
And let revival's fire begin to burn:

This is my prayer,
Lifted to You
Knowing You care so much more than I do
This is my prayer,
In Jesus' name
Your will be done, I humbly pray.

[Bob Hartman - 1990]

Three Lessons From Lewis, CS.

John Piper, talking about reading and books that have influenced him, stopped to mention the impact CS Lewis had on his life and his thinking. I thought it was worth mentioning. These are lessons worth thinking about and imbibing.

1) He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he has shown me that "newness" is no virtue and "oldness" is no fault. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. He said one: every third book you read should be from outside your own (provincial) century.

2) He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not inimical to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively, even playful imagination. He was a "romantic rationalist." He combined what almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. In shattering these old stereotypes for me, he freed me to think hard and to write poetry, to argue for the resurrection and compose hymns to Christ, to smash an argument and hug a friend, to demand a definition and use a metaphor.

3) Finally, Lewis has given (and continues to give) me an intense sense of the "realness" of things. This is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things (quidity as he calls it). He helped me become alive to life. He helped me to see what is there in the world--things which if we didn't have them, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He convicts me of my insensitivity to beauty. He convicts me of my callous inability to enjoy God's daily gifts. He helps me to awaken my dazing soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt.

Piper later makes the point that it's not the reading of many books that is important. It is reading good books well... "Meditative reading, reading which stops and ponders, reading which sees deep into reality - that is the kind of reading which profits." With his life and mind as an example... he speaks words we would do well to heed.