Month: October 2007

We sang this one on Sunday and it was  great: 

Safe is my refuge, sweet is my rest,
Ill cannot harm me, nor foes e’er molest;
Jesus my spirit so tenderly calms,
Holding me close in His Mighty arms.

Chorus: Oh! what wonderful, wonderful rest!
Trusting completely in Jesus I’m blest;
Sweetly He comforts and shields from alarms,
Holding me safe in His mighty arms.

Pressing my tear-stained cheek to His own,
Hushing my grief with His sweet gentle tone;
Touching my heart with His healing balms,
Holding me still in His mighty arms.

Tempests may rage, sin’s surges may beat,
Ne’er can they reach my sheltered retreat;
Free from all danger, from dread alarms,
Resting so safe in His mighty arms.

– Winfield MaComber

I like knowing things. If I know something, I cope easier because I can outline in my mind the steps that I need to take based on my knowledge of a situation. I’m a serious ducks-in-a-row addict.

So when the Lord, in his infinite wisdom and kindness, gives me a trial, he generally includes a hefty dose of uncertainty. Oh, and a nice dollop of waiting. Uncertainty and waiting – those two words pretty much sum up my trials.

Like the one I’m in now.

And I know why he gives these tests to me – because when mind is full of wonderings but my hands are tied, my only hope is in looking up to my wonderful Savior in whom there is rest and peace.

As I remember the Lord, I find great joy in the truths of songs like this gem by August L. Storm:

Thanks to God for my Redeemer,
Thanks for all Thou dost provide!
Thanks for times now but a memory,
Thanks for Jesus by my side!
Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime,
Thanks for winter, summer, fall!
Thanks for tears by now forgotten,
Thanks for peace within my soul!

Thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered,
Thanks for what Thou dost deny!
Thanks for storms that I have weathered,
Thanks for all Thou dost supply!
Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure,
Thanks for comfort in despair!
Thanks for grace that none can measure,
Thanks for love beyond compare!

Thanks for roses by the wayside,
Thanks for thorns their stems contain!
Thanks for home and thanks for fireside,
Thanks for hope, that sweet refrain!
Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow,
Thanks for heav’nly peace with Thee!
Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,
Thanks through all eternity!

I love writing because it is unnatural as far as communication modes go; we acquire spoken language, but we must be taught how to read and write.

Despite it’s lack of “naturalness”, our brains display an amazing ability to grasp and master written language in its various forms. There are many different orthographies (writing systems – think Roman [we use this in English] Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic, my personal favorite, the IPA, etc.), but given time and study we can learn to read and write in any of them. Then we put little black squiggles and straight lines and dots on a white page and suddenly they mean “I love you” and “duck” and “stroganoff” and a zillion other words and ideas.

That’s pretty incredible. Yup, I love writing.

Dr. John Whitcomb, speaking of the foolishness of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:5):

“‘Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.’ By the way, do you know how far down God had to come to find the tower? Psalm 113 says he has to humble himself to find the universe! And then he passes through all these billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars and finally finds our little galaxy called the Milky Way, which has 100 billion stars, and then he finds one star called the sun and around it there are nine little dots called planets and the third one isn’t so big. It’s called Earth. And then he comes and finds an infinitesimal pimple called the Tower of Babel.”

Taking a break from my “reasons” series . . .

Ephesians 4:17, 18 (ESV) “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles [unsaved] do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their hearts.”

I’m currently reading a book on the wonders of science called The Canon. The author, Natalie Angier, is a talented and engaging writer, and that, along with the fact that the subject matter is awe-inspiring, makes for a mostly enjoyable read. I say only mostly enjoyable because Ms. Angier, like most people in the sciences these days, does not hesitate to enthusiastically and frequently bash anyone who believes in creation as being unscientific and by inferences (if not outright labeling), unintelligent.

She, like most evolutionists, finds strength in numbers (as if that is a cogent argument for or against a position). One passage that particularly struck me was the following:

“David Baltimore recalled an MIT scientist . . . who was one of the last remaining critics of the theory of the origin of the universe that is now almost universally accepted by astronomers and indeed the entire scientific community. ‘He didn’t believe in the Big Bang,’ said Baltimore, ‘and he was in everybody’s face about it.'” (p. 34)

The first thing I thought was “Poor guy. He was actually right.” Now I don’t know who he was, or what he actually believed as far as creation vs. evolutionism, but he was right on when he denied what everyone else proclaimed. How frustrating it must have been to be one of the only ones in his field who thought the Big Bang was a hoax. I’d guess it was that dense frustration that drove him to get “in everyone’s face”. It would be kind of like everyone in the world believing that grass is bright pink. You know know know know it’s green, and you try to tell people, but they smirk and keep living blissfully and ignorantly in their neon –pink –grass land. You’d get a little hot under the collar too, eh?

This:                                                                         

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It’s the challenge of a blank page and a flickering cursor.

Back from a little hiatus – a wonderful trip to Duluth for a God-glorifying, saint-encouraging Bible conference on Zechariah, Christology and some various other topics. Take a look at the Duluth Bible Church link to the right – they have MP3s of all the messages. I’m spiritually recharged and physically beaten down, but that sure is better than the other way around!

Onward in our “series”:

The second reason I love writing is because I am such an awkward speaker. I know, I know – considering my field, you’d think I should be a great and fluent conversationalist. Hardly. I fumble over my words, I am too blunt, I can’t think of the right thing to say or the right question to ask. I envy friends who carry on conversations with ease (and can do so with total strangers). Pragmatics (how we use language socially) is the weakest linguistic link for me. I’m an awful debater – most of my responses in defense of a position are barely above the level of “I believe that . . . just . . . just . . . BECAUSE.”

With writing, I have time to frame what I want to say. Words that elude me when I’m on the spot find their way onto the screen as I type. When my thoughts are given a chance to percolate and form coherently, writing ends up being my best communication mode.

Oooh, a series – how long it’ll be, I don’t know . . . but on with the my reason number one:

I love writing chiefly because writing is language. I revel in language, I live and breathe language. I don’t just think on language when it’s absolutely necessary to do so. I teach language, I critique it, I find joy in it. Whether I’m telling my 4-year-olds that the letter M makes the “mmmm” sound (as in Mmmmiss Mmmmorrison) or reading the book of Isaiah, I find much happiness and wonder in sounds strung together in words strung together in sentences and paragraphs.

In case you hadn’t noticed, language is near the top of my list of favorite gifts God has given mankind (note: for obvious reasons, it’s not at the top). I’m sad for my colleagues who think that language evolved because an ape or two felt an urge to start grunting meaningfully. That’s got to be depressing. I’m glad I know that my loving Creator created language so we could communicate deeply, not only with one another but also with him.

The more I learn about language, the more thankful I am to the Lord. He is awesome.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” – Thomas Mann

Indeed. Being a writer sometimes seems to be more of a curse than a blessing.

I hate writing. I hate the frequent compulsion I have to write, especially when an idea strikes me at a time when I can’t write (e.g. I have a test to study for) or when I really don’t want to write (e.g. at 1 AM when my body is begging for sleep but my mind insists on thrashing restlessly with thoughts that beg to be put down on paper).

I hate writing. I hate the fact that my apartment can be a mess, but my writing must be pristine. I hate obsessing over every word, every comma. I wish I could be like non-writers who throw together a paper or blog entry in a functional, presentable way, but don’t care if it is beautiful as long as it gets their point across. I believe Mr. Mann would agree.

I hate writing. I hate when it don’t turn out like the way I wanted it to when I thought of it first. I hate when the melody of words I heard in my mind crashes into a cringe-worthy cacophony of broken notes on the screen. The second sentence in this paragraph is an hyperbolic demonstration of this sad occurence.

So, you may ask, why do you write? You’re pretty average, pretty run-of-the-mill as far as writers go. You’ll never make real money off it. You’ll never earn a Pulitzer.

I know. And here’s the answer:

As much as I hate writing, I write because I love to write (but the explanation of that is gonna hafta wait for another post).

I’m OK. I really am. The Phillies are about to go down 0-2 in a best of 5 series, and I’m not totally devastated. Disappointed? Yeah, I’m that.

But today I got to spend the morning with my little guys, teaching them syllables, laughing at their antics, scolding when they weren’t listening, and exulting when Josh finally said “ee-yellow” rather than “ee-wellow”. After that, I came home and there was food in my fridge, and my little apartment was a nice temperature, and my clothes are now all clean and smell nice and fresh from 70 minutes in the washer & dryer in my building’s basement. Hey, that’s a pretty fine day, wouldn’t ya say?

And even if it hadn’t been such a nice day, even if I overslept and missed the bus, even if I got puked on by one of my kiddos, even if Josh persisted in say “ee-wellow”, even if I had only bread and water to eat in a too-cold apartment and had to drag my laundry 8 blocks away to wash it (all that along with the Phils losing) . . .

You know what?

I’d be doing far better than I deserve. It’s only by God’s grace that I am privileged to live the wonderful life that I do, with a settled past, a joyful present, and an amazing beyond amazing future.

1 Timothy 1:17 (ESV) “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

1 Peter 1:13 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Hope here doesn’t mean “hope” as we tend to use it today, when one might say “Boy, I really hope the Phillies beat the Rockies in the NLDS” (which I do, by the way). Hope in the Bible speaks of a calm assurance, an absolute settled confidence in something that is true. And what better “something” to fix (focus unswervingly) our hope on than the undeserved favor, the grace, that is now ours as believers and will be ours upon Christ’s return.