Tuesday, July 25, 2006

And the correct answer is...

It turns out that Pioneer Day is the celebration of when the Mormons settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1857 (I think that year is right).

A Longing Satisfied

A depth of feeling
The stirring of my soul
My enitre being
Longing to be whole

Looking for what satisfies
Searching, I roam
The wandering of my eye
Leaves me alone

You are my desire
The delight of my soul
And in my passion, the fire
You made me whole

You stirred my soul
And You brought forth life
And in the depths of Sheol
You put to death strife

I am Yours
And You are mine
And along this road
You sanctify

Through fire and trial
The valley of death
There is no denial
You alone will I bless

You are my Light
My Savior, My God
In You I delight
With You do I trod

Monday, July 24, 2006

"Today was a good day."

For those who were wondering, that quote comes from The Last Samurai (is that even spelled right, I don't know). I'll try to keep this short.

Today, for those who don't know, is Mormon Day. Technically it is called Pioneer Day. It is the day that this state was founded or when the mormons came from Missouri and settled in Utah. To tell you the truth, I'm really not sure. I just know that it is a big deal with the mormons and everyone else makes fun of them (yes all 2,000 of us). So to celebrate it, they usually have fireworks somewhere. And because the Huntsville fireworks were cancelled on the fourth because of rain, we had them tonight. So I watched the fireworks from the porch with my parents and Kellen and Jen (my older sister and brother-in-law). Before that we had dinner, I took a drive with Kellen, and we walked around the neighborhood with my younger sister and her husband's dog (they are on vacation). So this evening was really good and just a relaxed time spent with my family.

Today at work we had a few exciting things happen as well. I work in a glorified warehouse and apparently we have bats in the rafters. Today, we found three dead ones. I had never seen a bat up close before, but I can now say that I have. They are basically mice with wings. By the way, their wings are really cool. But that isn't the most exciting part. I was standing in a hall with my manager looking for a document and I looked down the hall and saw a bat flying toward us. I was pretty surprised and, I must say, startled and said something like "Whoa! A bat!" My exclamation freaked my boss out even though she didn't see the bat and she uttered a small scream. The bat must have passed about one foot or so behind us and I got to see it fly past and around a corner. I was pretty awesome seeing them fly. They are graceful flyers. God's creation is truly amazing.

Anyway, that kind of sums up my day.

P.S. I have listened to the entire Johnny Cash cd a couple of times and the whole cd is great. I give it my full recommendation (which probably doesn't mean that much but you should check out the cd anyway).

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

"I thin' so Brain. But where are we going to find a duck in the hose at this time of night?"

In case you weren't aware of one of the greatest cartoon shows of all time, this is one of my favorite quotes from Pinky and the Brain. And I just found out that it's coming out on dvd Tuesday. I think that's a must-buy for me.

And to add to today's excitement, I just beat Tim in our online chess game! And it only took 31 moves and half of my pieces to do it. Looking forward to the rematch. If anyone else is interested in playing, the website is www.redhotpawn.com and my screen name is DBo. Don't worry, I'm really not that good at chess. I was just providentially blessed to beat Tim this one time :)

Have a blessed Sunday, everyone.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

A few items on the docket

Heh Heh, another court reference. [insert joke that I think is funny but really isn't]

Item number one - I was driving to work on Friday and I decided to listen to KLOVE (the nation-wide contemporary christian music station) and the morning people were commenting on a new audio Bible. It's called The Bible Experience. And, it is narrated by celebrities, some of whom are Christian (Kirk Franklin, etc.) some of whom are not (Cuba Gooding Jr., Denzel Washington and his wife, etc.). Now, I'm all for celebrities reading the Bible and hearing the truth. However, I am not for selling an audio Bible by marketing it as "narrated by celebrities." It's like hearing Christmas carols sung by secular artists. For instance, I love Bing Crosby's voice, but I can't listen to him singing about the blessed savior's birth when he isn't saved. It's greed and they can't glorify God through it, even if Christians can glorify God through it. That's just one of my pet peeves, not some universal truth that everyone must abide by. But what really ticked me off is that one of the morning show people responded to this press release by exclaiming how cool it was. How can that be cool? How is it that what makes the word of God cool is that fact that it is read by celebrities? Celebrities don't make the Bible cool. How long will the church suffer under our blasphemous pop culture? When will we stop idolizing the things that the world idolizes. It is an insult to God to imply that His word needs window dressing to appear cool or to appeal to our culture. It isn't the messenger, it's the message. And why are we excited about an unsaved messenger in the first place. This is the same kind of frustration I have with The Message and those New Testaments that look like teen magazines and are filled with make-up tips and whatever is in the guys version. Even the fact that they have a guys and girls version of the New Testament bothers me. Why do we dumb down the word of God so that those who can't understand it anyway (i.e. the unregenerate) will think that they can. The Spirit is what opens our eyes, not fourth-grade level words.

Whew! Cooled off a little bit now. The next thing is that Jonathan Edwards rocks. He was truly given an incredible gift by God. I am in awe of his God-given gift to argue and persuade and define, etc. The Freedom of the Will is looking like it's going to be a great book. I just finished Section 2 of Part 2 and I was trying to figure out where he was going to go with it and I came up with this. The will cannot determine itself. It must be determined by something outside the will. So what determines the will? He has already stated that our strongest inclination does. What determines that? Our nature and is influenced by other external things like the world and demonic forces. Obviously, this means that if someone is unregenerate then his will can never be to do the will of God and therefore he cannot help but sin because his strongest inclination is always to sin. So what determines his nature and its influences? Ultimately, this chain ends in God. God determines our wills. But what determines God? God determines God. More specifically, the desire to glorify himself is what determines how God determines our wills. So this leaves us with the question that Micah posed: What do we do with the fact that there is evil and evil intentions in the world? Does God determine evil? I won't fully answer this but will suggest that you read his post on this, which is a summary of John Gerstner's position on this. It's really good. On a side-note, when Gerstner talks about good good and evil good I interpret the second term, which is always good, as relating directly to God's intentions and the first term as relating to our intentions as shown in Gen. 50:20.

The third and final thing (sorry for the length). When I was reading FOTW I started to think about eternity which is something that I don't think we do nearly enough. (By the way, if you took out some of the words in that sentence you would get "I think that I don't think" which is a pretty true statement.) When I start thinking about eternity I think about a tunnel and relate that to my life. My life is like going through a tunnel. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it grows stronger all the time until you reach the end and then you're done with the tunnel. In eternity, not only do you fail to reach the end of the tunnel you don't even see the light at the end because there isn't one. It never stops. We are in a never-ending tunnel filled with the brightness of the glory of God and we will never get to the end of it. I can't help but smile at the thought. Everything I know on this world has an end and we think in terms of beginnings and endings. But with eternity it doesn't have an end and this blows my mind. We will spend an eternity in the loving embrace of our savior. It doesn't end. I just can't get my mind around it. Wow! God, bring your kingdom now or end my life so that I can be with you which is far better. But until then, I have a purpose on this earth and my time serving You is not yet done. Let me serve You with humility and a heart that longs to see You glorified in everything. A heart that glows with Your truth and will never hide its light. To God be the glory.

If it please the court...

I was just watching "A Few Good Men" on tv, which, by the way, is the best courtroom movie of all time as far as I'm concerned. In the final scene Tom Cruise's character asks the judge to stop the trial so that Jack Nicholsen's character can be arrested. When he makes the request though he begins by saying "If it please the court..." and this phrasing added more proof to Piper's and Edwards' theology (along with many others). When asking whether or not the court would do something the question is put into the context of the court being pleased by the doing. Therefore, the court does what pleases it. The court doesn't decide something that fails to please it. We, likewise, don't do anything that doesn't please us. Our doing and our being pleased are the same. Or, as Edwards would put it, our will is to do that which is our strongest inclination.

This concept always convicts me. If we always do what pleases us, then what does that mean about when we sin? I know that all of you know this, but it always strikes me. When I sin, it is because I loved the sin more than I loved God. I sought the fleeting pleasure of sin rather than the eternal, all-satisfying pleasure of God. And then I think about how often I sin every day. How often I choose the world over God. And then our thoughts should be turned to the awesome promise of God. That we no longer live in the darkness, we no longer live in the slavery to sin. We don't have to keep seeking our pleasure and satisfaction in this world. We can truly have it in God. We no longer live but Christ lives in us. Yes, we need to remember that we are sinners and our flesh is desparately wicked. But we can't stop there. We need to remember that we no longer live in the darkness but we live in the light now and, through the grace of God and the sacrifice of Christ, we now have the ability to not sin. We must humble ourselves before God by the grace of God and live like the redeemed.

I don't know if this is easy for anybody else, but it's something that I struggle with from time to time. It's like I constantly seek forgiveness for the same sin and forget that that sin has been paid for and forgiven and I need to forget what lies behind and press on to what lies ahead. To kind of sum it up by way of an analogy: I'm no longer a caterpillar but a butterfly and I need to stop crawling on the ground eating the dust of fleeting pleasures and start flying with the wind of God's eternal pleasure under my wings. (Yeah, a little corny, but its the best I've got at the moment.)

Friday, July 21, 2006

The way I spent my Friday

I don't have a lot to post about but I felt like posting anyway, so here it goes.

I just finished playing a softball game for a city rec league. My church has a team and Tim and I play on it. Today we lost. And we won. No, we didn't play a double-header. Just one game. So how does this happen without going into the complex physics of the time-space continuum? I just realized, this would actually make a pretty good riddle. I'll give the answer at the end of this post. If you want, try and figure it out before then. If you do, let me know.

I bought a few cds today. All very different. I bought the soundtrack to Pride and Prejudice because it is simply some of the most beautiful piano and orchestral music I have ever heard (albeit I never was exposed to very much of it). Even if you didn't like the movie, you had to love the score. I also bought the new Dashboard Confessional cd. It's ok. The first few songs are pretty good. The lyrics are probably the worst I've heard from them over the years. There are a couple of songs that are pretty bad. So, if you like their current radio song and don't mind skipping a few songs (or can tune out the lyrics) then I would tentatively recommend it if you have money that's just burning a hole in your pocket and you really need to get rid of it. I give it a generous 2 stars out of 5. Finally, I bought the new Johnny Cash cd "American V". Excellent cd so far. I've listened to a little more than half of it and a bunch of the songs are very explicitly about God and our need for Him. His single "God will cut you down" is a really good song in both lyrics and sound. There are also some songs that will make you feel a little sad, maybe tear up a little. Really good cd so far. Until I hear the rest I give the first 2/3's 4 out of 5.

Ok, I have something to add to a newly created list of mine. The list is "Things that I now like that I never thought I would." One addition is lettuce on hamburgers. I have never liked it in the past, but now I kind of do. A little strange, but true. My newest addition is Jeremy Camp. I got his latest cd "Restored" because I knew that I liked the few songs I had heard. As it turns out, I love the cd. Lyrically it is really good and, even though it is relative, I really connect with the songs a lot. They really speak to my struggles and put them in a godly perspective. I never thought I would like Jeremy Camp. I guess that means that I am now only one step away from liking modern country. I can't believe I am saying that, but it is true. I no longer have the same distaste that I used to have for country, and can even enjoy watching parts of their awards ceremonies on tv. I guess the last step I have to take is to just suck it up and buy a cd. I just don't know if I am ready to take that step.

Ok, the moment you have all been waiting for. The answer to the above riddle is:

We were scheduled to play a game against one team but that team didn't show up so we won by forfeit. Then we played a scrimmage game against a team that also didn't have an opponent and had won by forfeit. In that game we lost. So we both won and lost. Although the win is the only thing that counted.

God bless and good night.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Paid Time Off

I've decided that paid time off is awesome. I took my first day off today and was actually paid for it! Right now I'm trying to come up with some joke about how amazing paid time off is but I'm really not that funny and nothing's coming to me so I think that I will just leave that alone. I haven't really done anything much today. So far I've read a couple of blogs (Lauren's and Micah's [not Krishnan for you Utahns]) and a couple of articles recommended by them (both of which were very good). I got my 2 volume set of The Works of Jonathan Edwards in today! "Lucky! Have you taken it off any sweet jumps?" Not yet, but I'm hoping to later today (I told you I'm not funny). I think I'll start with The Freedom of the Will. I've wanted to read it for awhile now but I haven't had the will. Haha...ha...hmmm. This is starting to get bad.

And then I watched Elizabethtown with my mom while we had lunch. Pretty good movie. I liked the story and the soundtrack was really good. I'm tempted to go out and buy it. I have to say that both Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom aren't the best actors (albeit Orlando Bloom isn't that bad), but as long as they stay beautiful I don't think they'll be hurting for work.

My plans for the rest of the day: study some Greek, do some reading, and clean out my car, which needs it badly.

I do have a couple prayer requests also:

1. My dad went to the hospital yesterday. He's had really bad back pain over the last couple days that even made it hard for him to get to sleep. The doctor said that he has an arthritic lower back that flared up into back spasms. And if you know my dad you know that he runs a lot to keep his diabetes under control. So he is going to have to make some significant changes to his routine, which is especially hard for him. So keep him in prayer and pray that through all of this he will learn to depend on God even more than he already does and that he will long all the more for his true home in heaven. God's strength is made perfect through our weaknesses.

2. Pray for my witness at work. It seems that the more areas of your life that you try to submit to God, the more he provides opportunities to show His love and grace to those around you. Every week I have multiple opportunities to share at least a little bit of the gospel with the people around me. Pray that I wouldn't be ashamed of the gospel, but will speak with boldness knowing that if God is with me, then who can be against me. Jeremiah 1:17-19 is really encouraging to me in these situations: "'Now, gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, or I will dismay you before them. Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land.... They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,' declares the LORD."

3. Pray that God would grant me humility. Pride is an evil sin that seeks to replace God with ourselves and I know that I tend to be pretty weak in this area. I need to depend on God for everything and not myself. We have but one breath in our nostrils and it is entirely up to God to give us another one.

May God's abundant grace carry you through your day.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

I John 3:1-3

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies Himslef as He is pure."

Let us never forget the awesomeness of this love. This love washes away all of our vile, disgusting sins. This love covers us with the blood of Christ and reconciles us to the Father. This love demanded sacrifice and was manifested in the death of Christ. That is love. That God-incarnate, our precious Savior, Jesus, would die to save sinners, enemies of God, dead in our sins, to bring us into fellowship with Him. We are His children. And how comforting it is to know, like John, that "we are" His children. Nothing can separate us from His love. This love that God bestowed on us results in three things.

In the second half of verse 1, His love results in us no longer being of the world. But rather, the world now hates us (John 15) and doesn't know us for we are no longer of it. We are "sojourners and exiles" (I Pet. 2:11). We have been called out of this present darkness and we now live in the light. This is the most dramatic change that can ever take place. We went from absolute darkness, slavery to sin, to the shining light that is Christ and we are now His bondservants. The world can no longer know us and we can no longer have fellowship with it for what fellowship has light with darkness (II Cor. 6:14). Where there is light there can be no darkness.

The second thing this love accomplishes for us is that upon the return of Christ we will be like Him (vs. 2). And the reason for this likeness, is that we will see Him as He truly is, not as through a glass darkly. We shall see face to face. I may be drawing too much from this, but I think that it is interesting that these statements come in the "love chapter" (I Cor. 13) and here in this passage we have the same kind of comments linked to the greatness of the Father's love. It is His love that allows us to see Him. If He wasn't loving He wouldn't show us Himslef, but because He is, He shows us His beauty, majesty, holiness, and absolute perfection in everything. And in the end we will see Him perfectly. May we pray that this day would come quickly. Look forward with eagerness and don't fix your gaze on this world. But rejoice with Paul that to die and see Christ clearly and fully is gain and everything else is rubbish compared to knowing our Lord and Savior. His love accomplishes this.

The third thing that this love accomplishes is a hope that changes us. His love puts in us a hope fixed on His second coming. And this hope causes us to purify ourselves as He is pure and walk like He walked (2:6). Don't live for this world. Don't fix your hope here. Fix it on the sure return of the King. He is coming again as a King and Judge and will establish His kingdom. This is our home. This world is not. Never fix your gaze here. Rather fix your gaze on the beauty of the Lord and seek to know Him more (Ps. 27:4). And if we do this, we will seek to make Him known. We will seek to show this awesome love to the world. "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy" (Ps. 67:4).

This is the great love of God that makes us His children. We are His. Live like it.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Psalm 13

I love Psalm 13. I also love Shane & Shane's rendition of it. What really strikes me is that the Psalm doesn't end the way that we think that it should. David starts out by crying out to God to deliver him from his distress: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" And at the end of the psalm, David is rejoicing and cannot help but sing out to God for His abundant goodness. But what I love about this psalm is that David never records God's answer or deliverance. David doesn't rejoice because he was delivered from his distress. His praise isn't based on that. In fact, without recording any kind of deliverance, he still says that the Lord has "dealt bountifully with me." How many times do I praise God simply because of what He has done for me in the physical realm? Not that we shouldn't praise Him for our many earthly blessings. We must. But our praise shouldn't be based on that and so often mine is. I should be able to declare with the psalmist that even though I am going through hard times, maybe even the hardest of times, my heart will rejoice in your salvation, I have trusted in your steadfast love, and I will sing to you because even in my distress you have dealt bountifully with me. You give and take away, blessed be the name of the Lord. "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Wait for the LORD." (Psalm 27:14)

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Some Jonathan Edwards

I've been reading some of Jonathan Edwards' sermons and I just started one titled "It is a Matter of Great Comfort, and Rejoicing to Anyone in Whatever Circumstances He Is In, When He Can Say That He Knows His Redeemer" and as far as I know it can only be found in either the Yale library or the book The Blessing of God edited by Michael McMullen. I've been going through a few things personally and this sermon really impacted me. If there is anybody else reading this that is going through some hard times or struggles I hope that this will encourage you. The main text is Job 19:25.

"He who can say, 'I know that my Redeemer lives,' knows him to be better than all, for as has been observed already, 'tis implied that he knows that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He sees in him that glory and excellency that is above the glory of all other things and sufficient to satisfy his soul.
This beauty is so great, so divine, that the light of it when it is so clearly seen is above all things sweet. It fills the soul with a light so divine and powerful that it is impossible but the soul should be withal filled with peace and pleasantness. A lacking deliverance and sorrow is not consistent with such light. What can be better to the soul than to see the face of the only begotton Son of God who is full of grace and truth, and while the soul has that sight, it will have comfort. In vain is the rage of Satan or any of his instruments to the contrary."

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I'm Back

Alright, I just checked and it has been 10 days since my last post. So I will get to some unfinished business. Here are a couple of quotes from "Above all Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World":
"...a materialistic scientist and an animist who believes that trees have souls comparable to his own will look at the same trees rather differently. The difference lies not in the trees, but in the interpretive framework in which they are understood."

"Clearly the Enlightenment promised far more than it was ever able to deliver: one way of understanding this is to think of it as a Christian heresy. What Christian faith had offered was retained while the Source from which that offer had been made was rejected. The prerogatives that had belonged to God did not simply disappear; now they reapppeared in human beings. The revelation he had given now reappeared in the form of natural reason, which would do what revelation had done but without the discomfort of requiring humanity to submit to the God from whom the revelation had come; the idea of salvation was retained but transformed into the drive for human perfectibility, at first achieved by moral striving and then, as we know it today, by psychological technique; grace became effort, the life of faith became the hope of personal growth; and eschatology became progress.... Thus was the Christian Trinity replaced by a substitute trinity of reason, nature, and progress."