God Is Good

A year ago today, God chose to bless Natalie and I with a special gift.  This gift came with a fear of the unknown: of what would be our new reality and what would never be the same again.  God through His sovereignty and grace, chose to give us Mackenzie Grace.  Early in the morning on October 5th, Natalie and I were excited and scared - as the day continue to evolve and the difficulty of birth developed, my fears where intensified and emotions overwhelmed me.  I can honestly say that on this day last year was one of the greatest strengths in my prayer life; I feared for both my wife and my future daughter with the difficulties of the delivery - but once again God is sovereign and a year later they are both living to His Glory.

In the past year, due to the circumstances of our current life situation, I have had the opportunity to spend far more time with Mackenzie Grace than I would have in any other context.  This has been an amazing blessing as we spend many daddy/daughter days together doing all of Mackenzie's favorite things such as going to the botanical gardens, parks, and the apple store.  I have learned many things in the past year that are of great value, however the most valuable thing I have learned, I cannot summarize in mere words, I have learned the love of a father for his child.  Through this learned love, I now understand more fully and completely the love that The Father has for me - I now grasp what an Awesome love it is, in every sense of the word.

Happy Birthday to Mackenzie Grace who has brought so much into our lives this past year, but more importantly All Thanks Be To God for the great love and blessings He has lavished upon us.

A Timeline of Sorts of the Past Year

 

Some Days Are “Fridays”, But Most Days Are “Mondays”.

There are seven days a week, a large portion of people in the United States work Monday through Friday, so obviously those people, and the family of those people, look forward to Friday each week.  Friday is also a day when many people get paid; so place the coming weekend and the addition of receiving money for your work, Friday is a good day.  This is a known cultural phenomenon in our context, evidenced through such phrases as TGIF.  The phrase TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) was first largely presented through ABC’s Friday family-friendly broadcasting block dating all the way back to 1958 with shows such as “Leave it to Beaver”, “The Flintstones”, “The Brady Bunch”, “Full House”, “Family Matters”, and many more.  The phrase TGIF even inspired the name for the restaurant, “TGI Fridays”; Friday is viewed as a good day in which nothing can go wrong. 

           

Then there is Monday.  Under the previos explanation of the cultural workweek, whereas Fridays may symbolize everything that is right in the world, Mondays symbolize the polar opposite.  If you follow people on “Facebook” or “Twitter” you will notice a trend around 8 am Monday Morning of negativity that includes a variety of comments of “back to the grind” or “is it Monday already?” comments.  Mondays are not America’s favorite day; evidenced through the fact there is no restaurant named “TGI Monday”. 

In the Christian life there are many days that are “Fridays”; we are able to join in with the joys that the Lord has set before us.  However if we were to be totally honest with each other we would admittingly agree that most days are “Mondays”.  If we think back through the biblical timeline, there were many “Mondays” in the life of God’s people; whereas there are few “Fridays”.  In the book of Philippians, Paul was suffering a season of imprisonment yet says, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”(Phil 4); this sounds like Paul was having a case of the “Mondays” but chose to be content no matter what day of the week it might be.   

What’s my point?  In the Christian walk, some days are “Fridays”, but most days are “Mondays”; people get cancer, people lose their job, bad things happen; if our joy is dependent upon the circumstances of life, then we will never be joyful or happy.  We must learn to take a note from Paul in being content.  We are not content because every day is a “Friday”, we are content because we understand the truth of “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2). This truth drives our contentedness not to be subject to our temporary satisfactions, rather through our unbounding, overflowing, and Heavenly Joy of our Salvation!

Yes some days are “Fridays” and most days are “Mondays”, but with the joy of our salvation, what day it is, really does not matter. 

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.(Matthew 7:15 ESV)

God's Creation: From Cosmo to Cricket

When I was a Child I wanted to be an astronaut.  I loved studying about space, the galaxies, the moon, and the planets.  At night I would stare at the stars and try to focus on a single one trying to comprehend how large it really was even though it seemed so tiny. 

In high school I was fascinated by human biology.  I could not comprehend how my body was made up of trillions and trillions of cells which my human eye could not focus on, that made up a living organism.  It was beyond my imagination.  I was and am amazed by God's Creation.  

In the Sunday School class I teach we have been going systematically through a theology book written for the lay person which answers the basic questions of "What Do We Believe?", "Why Do We Believe This?" "What Does the Bible Say About This?" and "What Do Others Say About This?".  In the past few months we have discussed The Trinity and God's Revelation; this week we began studying on God's Creation.  

God's creation still amazes me; from the macro to the micro, from the cosmos to the cricket, God's creation is absolutely amazing.  God could have chosen to create in black and white, He could have chosen to create the whole earth flat and uniform, and He could have chosen to create everyone to look exactly alike, however He did not.  His creation reveals how far God's knowledge is above anything we could ever humanly comprehend, it reveals His beauty, and it reveals that He is gracious. God not only created in uncomprehendable detail, He not only created in indescribable beauty, but God also created a beautiful world in which He graciously allows us to enjoy.  We get to enjoy the beauty of the Alaskan Mountains, the beauty of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the vastness of the Grand Canyon while at the same time enjoying the quietness of a rustling stream and the song of the crickets at night; God's creation is amazing. Creation is an image of the beauty of God in which we get to enjoy every day.  

What's my point?  We can allow life to be incredibly stressful and worry-filled.  Jobs will come and go, finances will come and go, sicknesses will come and go; our greatest purpose is to Glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.  One way that we can enjoy Him is through taking the time to enjoy His beautiful and awe-filled Creation.             

Christ, the Church, and Pat Robertson by Russell Moore

I think this post by Dr. Russell Moore highly continues on the discussion I posted early this week of husbands loving your wives focusing upon a timely issue.  I don't repost articles often, but I think this is a must read.


Russell D. Moore is dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This column first appeared at RussellMoore.com:

Christ, the Church, and Pat Robertson

"This week on his television show Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said a man would be morally justified to divorce his wife with Alzheimer’s disease in order to marry another woman. The dementia-riddled wife is, Robertson said, “not there” anymore. This is more than an embarrassment. This is more than cruelty. This is a repudiation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Few Christians take Robertson all that seriously anymore. Most roll their eyes, and shake their heads when he makes another outlandish comment (for instance, defending China’s brutal one-child abortion policy to identifying God’s judgment on specific actions in the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, or the Haiti earthquake). This is serious, though, because it points to an issue that is much bigger than Robertson.

Marriage, the Scripture tells us, is an icon of something deeper, more ancient, more mysterious. The marriage union is a sign, the Apostle Paul announces, of the mystery of Christ and his church (Eph. 5). The husband, then, is to love his wife “as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). This love is defined not as the hormonal surge of romance but as a self-sacrificial crucifixion of self. The husband pictures Christ when he loves his wife by giving himself up for her.

At the arrest of Christ, his Bride, the church, forgot who she was, and denied who he was. He didn’t divorce her. He didn’t leave.

The Bride of Christ fled his side, and went back to their old ways of life. When Jesus came to them after the resurrection, the church was about the very thing they were doing when Jesus found them in the first place: out on the boats with their nets. Jesus didn’t leave. He stood by his words, stood by his Bride, even to the Place of the Skull, and beyond.

A woman or a man with Alzheimer’s can’t do anything for you. There’s no romance, no sex, no partnership, not even companionship. That’s just the point. Because marriage is a Christ/church icon, a man loves his wife as his own flesh. He cannot sever her off from him simply because she isn’t “useful” anymore.

Pat Robertson’s cruel marriage statement is no anomaly. He and his cohorts have given us for years a prosperity gospel with more in common with an Asherah pole than a cross. They have given us a politicized Christianity that uses churches to “mobilize” voters rather than to stand prophetically outside the power structures as a witness for the gospel.

But Jesus didn’t die for a Christian Coalition; he died for a church. And the church, across the ages, isn’t significant because of her size or influence. She is weak, helpless, and spattered in blood. He is faithful to us anyway.

If our churches are to survive, we must repudiate this Canaanite mammonocracy that so often speaks for us. But, beyond that, we must train up a new generation to see the gospel embedded in fidelity, a fidelity that is cruciform.

It’s easy to teach couples to put the “spark” back in their marriages, to put the “sizzle” back in their sex lives. You can still worship the self and want all that. But that’s not what love is. Love is fidelity with a cross on your back. Love is drowning in your own blood. Love is screaming, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

Sadly, many of our neighbors assume that when they hear the parade of cartoon characters we allow to speak for us, that they are hearing the gospel. They assume that when they see the giggling evangelist on the television screen, that they see Jesus. They assume that when they see the stadium political rallies to “take back America for Christ,” that they see Jesus. But Jesus isn’t there.

Jesus tells us he is present in the weak, the vulnerable, the useless. He is there in the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46). Somewhere out there right now, a man is wiping the drool from an 85 year-old woman who flinches because she think he’s a stranger. No television cameras are around. No politicians are seeking a meeting with them.

But the gospel is there. Jesus is there."