Prayer in light of His sovereignty

We know that in light of your sovereignty, O God, you do all that you please. Every moment and decision is appointed by You to come to pass and all of it will come to pass to evidence Your glory and splendor. And we know if our hearts are set upon You and what your delights are, we have every reason for sustained confidence in the outcome of every trial and test. Lord, we know you appoint and allow some seasons for Your enemies to establish themselves and reap their worldly desires, but such times of apparent diffusion of your light of the gospel are designed to create a more conspicuous stage for when You draw the apparent reign of the wicked to a close, overcoming idolatries with all wisdom, power, grace, mercy and justice.

For what reason can We, your servants, be anxious? You clothe even the most remote of fields and flowers in great splendor, and O how much more you clothe us. Your ways and designs for your glory are well beyond our comprehension and all we can be pleased to do is rest easy in the knowledge that all your ways are perfect and the ultimate outcome for our current sufferings are for a greater good beyond our imaginings.

All we have is this responsibility to move forward in the faith knowing that if we truly love you, we love those who bear your image. And so we equip ourselves for battle not with vengeance or wrath, for that is the Lord's. But as ambassadors of truth, justice, grace, mercy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, etc. etc., for Yours is the kingdom, power and glory forever. Amen

Evangelism - There is no mathematics in love

Adoption - There is no mathematics in love

"Christianity is not a statistical view of life." ~Malcolm Muggeridge

Having an appetite for efficiency I often marveled at the seeming eccentricity of those who adopt children from foreign countries. It did not make much sense to my logical mind that couples would exert such time, money, paperwork and overall hassle to pluck a child from Africa or Asia (usually) when there is an abundance of children in the foster care system stateside and the system is much more accommodating to those who "choose locally grown."
Indeed, for the cost of adopting a child from Africa one could sustain an entire African village for a reasonable amount of time. To me the inefficiency of foreign adoption appeared to be a concoction of the whimsical mind. My parents have worked in the foster care system and through interaction with the children taken into their home I warmed to the idea of adoption and possibly foster care in my future, but working with local children is a mercy that is well supported by government agencies.

From time to time I have also pondered the seeming inefficiency of Christ's ministry. One question I've asked myself on a number of occasions is "why did Jesus heal so many people in cumbersome ways when He could have healed any and all with a mere thought?" But the Son of God did not come down to us in flesh primarily to remove diseases and sickness. He came to love. He reached out and touched the untouchable with healing love. Instead of speaking away the blindness he mixed his DNA with the earth and pressed it in a very close and personal and tactile way into the eyes of the blind to convey a loving intimacy in the restoring of sight. (John 9)

There are those Christians whose ministry most would not find rewarding. Those that minister to the discarded and dying don't exactly alter the landscape of the unchurched regions they may be in. There's a story I've heard a time or two that talks about a young boy on the beach, throwing starfish back into the ocean after a heavy storm. A man walks up to him and tells the boy with all the countless starfish drying out and dying that his efforts won't even make a difference in the landscape. The boy picks up another starfish, throws it in the ocean and says, "But to that one I just made all the difference in the world."
Matthew 25:40 And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

Beauty Tips With Granny Branny

James 1:11 "For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed..." Alright, so the original context of that quote deals with worldly riches but I believe the same principal applies to the "riches" of physical beauty. Our culture is fixated on the "wild flowers" that look appealing to the eye for a season but whither away and are quickly forgotten.

I recently read some articles on a fascinating missionary woman known as Granny Brand. Having been a missionary for decades and a widow her mission told her to retire at sixty-nine years of age. But she had prayed years before to reach a few more mountain ranges beyond the one she evangelized with the support of her mission and so she climbed those mountains, built a little wooden shack, and worked for twenty-six more years.
With a broken hip and creeping paralysis traveling was cumbersome but not impossible, so she traveled all over the mountains seeking out the unwanted, unlovely, the blind, maimed and discarded, bringing medical treatment to them.
Her son visited her for the last time shortly before her death at ninety-five years of age. Poor nutrition and failing health left her gaunt and fragile. She gave up on keeping up appearances or even looking in a mirror long ago because she did not care to see the effects such a grueling life had taken. Her son noticing only her smile and the character behind it noted, "This is how to grow old. Allow everything else to fall away, until those around you see only love."


Henry Scougal wrote, "The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love." Perhaps a good paraphrase would be, "The beauty of a woman is to be measured by the object of her love."

Jesus the winemaker

Dying for our sins... boring. Healing the crippled... lame. Conjuring up an alcoholic beverage... priceless.


A friend recently told an account of a VBS teacher asking why Jesus is worthy of worship; her favorite reply came from a girl who said, "Because he turned water into wine."
My immediate tongue-in-cheek comment was "Dying for our sins... boring. Healing the crippled... lame. Conjuring up an alcoholic beverage... priceless."

But with some reflection on this I see a problem common with Christians on why we love the Lord. If someone presented this VBS teacher's question to the average church congregation the overwhelming response would consist of a long list of works Christ has performed to our benefit.

Now before going further I want to clear up the semantics of this question by stating the cause of our Love for him comes from him in what we know as irresistable grace. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). And that is why we love Jesus. Read the rest of the passage right now because it's good for you! 1 John 4:7-21.

So of course at this very moment, if your heart is right with God, you are asking (verbatim), "Alright, so then what makes Jesus worthy of worship?" I'm glad you asked that question because here is where we tend to lose focus and go all humanistic by thinking that Jesus earned a right to be worshiped by us because of what he did for us. Of course at this very moment, if your heart is right with God you're thinking (verbatim), "Ack! this is *PBL (performance based love). Surely there must be more to my love for Jesus than this shallow, self-centered utilitarianism." And right you are.

He is worthy of worship because He is the Son of God (Matthew 14:33). The emphasis of our love should come more from who He is than what He has done.

Care to dig deeper on this topic? appropriate to worship Jesus


*not to be confused with the all too tasty Peanut Butter and Liver sandwich

Reflecting on contentment

How can someone find contentment in singleness while still looking forward to marriage? This is a question that has surfaced in my mind time and time again over the years. To say that finding the way to live content and single has caused me to stumble into some wild ideas, methods, and behavior patterns would be an understatement. I can look back at and laugh at the approaches I've taken to rest easy without a woman on my arm.

• Vow of singleness for a designated period: This was all the rage a few years back. The single people in the church I used to attend were committing to a certain time frame which they would avoid any relationship with a potential marriage partner so they could completely focus on growing in God. I think (hope) I wasn't the only one who thought that at the end of this self-imposed sentencing there would be an amazing woman of faith waiting at the end, (with arms wide open, the skies parting as both light and doves came down from heaven with the voice of God saying, "Well done my good and faithful servant.") as my just reward for such an awesome display of righteousness on my part.
• Resignation to the idea that God had called me to such a high purpose and service that I could not marry and that stamping out the desire for a woman would be some ultimate test of faith (and on successfully passing the test God would land me in a mission field so dangerous that martyrdom, o glorious martyrdom, would find me within a year.)

But as my faith and knowledge in God grew I found this to be folly and started seeing my error in understanding what contentment is all about. Like many others I saw contentment as something synonymous with apathy.

A Christian philosopher made an illustration of that erroneous view when he contemplated the contented cow in a field. The cow was merely there in the field longing for nothing more than its immediate surroundings. But what is absent in that equation of contentment is the element of hope... God given hope to be more precise.

To solidify where my mind has come to an understanding of what biblical contentment is took the insight that I found in the book of Philippians, chapter four in verse eleven Paul states "...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 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. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Then, looking at his time in prison with Silas in Acts 16 and seeing how this passage in Philippians applied to his behavior there we see a Paul who was not pacing his prison cell crying out for rescue from a hopeless situation but finding hope in the situation and finding opportunity to make the most of it to the glory of God. If he could not advance to Macedonia to witness the glory of Christ there then he would witness and and give glory to God from prison. So we see there a man desiring more than his present situation while also content in that situation. The key being his desire was not based in the flesh but in God's will. For in the will of God there is both desire and contentment but in the flesh, as Oscar Wilde would say, "desire is a cruel master."

From there we can take this doctrine of contentment and apply it throughout scripture such as in the Lord's prayer which starts in Matthew 6:9 where there is a petition being made not in spite of contentment but because of godly contentment.

Now coming back to the desire of marriage; if my desire for a good wife, marriage and family is to foremost glorify God then that petition is righteous so long as I make the most/bear fruit, in my present situation of singleness.

Hiking in the gorge yesterday

Free to serve

Haven't you ever asked God to liberate you from your current place of employment so that you could more freely serve Him with all your heart? Sure, we've probably all said that prayer at the workplace, "Lord, rescue me from this cesspool of humanistic tragedy so that I may go out into the world to share the light of the gospel to people in need. I want to reach people, just not these people. Amen."
Then, after clearing my day-planner of burdensome work weeks I dream of where I might go in the world to spread the faith... back to school! Yes, there I can really grow for God and be blessed at the end of it all with a white collar job like any decent Christian. Besides the blue collar folk I'd be abandoing now can always find the love of Christ through TBN broadcasting or the Spiritual Books section at Wal-Mart. :p

Opening Prayer

Lord, guide me as I use this blog to your glory and not my vanity. That I may impart something worthwhile to others and not claim this blog as a trophy of faith. Amen