“When things happen which dismay, we ought to look to God, remembering that He is not taken by surprise nor can His purposes be thwarted” (Elisabeth Elliott).
God is never taken by surprise. There’s nothing I can say to Him that will shock Him or change His mind about me.
Whatever happens, I’m still safe and secure underneath those Everlasting Arms.
“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community)
Two words– give thanks.
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always ‘me first,’
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love” (1 Corinthians 13, The Message).
This isn’t warm and fuzzy, Nicholas Sparks romantic love. This is agape unconditional love that’s impossible by strictly human standards.
It’s the love that Christ loved us with when He laid down His life for us when we were yet sinners.
It’s the “not I, but Christ in me” love that fills us up to overflowing and spills out to those around us.
It’s still the only love that can change the world.
I want that kind of love. I want to be that kind of love.
At my latest trip to Goodwill, I scored on a stash of old Jimmy Buffett music. Yes, I still rock the CDs. I know there’s such a thing as streaming and digital downloading, but I still like something tangible that I can hold in my hand.
Holding one of those CDs in my hand instantly took me back to my days in the College and Career ministry at Central Church back in Memphis. For three or four years, we’d go to Panama City for a kind of summer retreat.
I distinctly remember there were the same two guys who’d set up at the beach and play nothing but Jimmy Buffett music. Basically, it was them singing and playing guitars with canned music behind them. Apparently, that was okay back in the 90s.
I need to get back to the beach sometime. I miss the feeling of wet sand between my toes and hearing the ocean waves crashing into the shore. I miss the way the ocean air smells.
I’m thankful for the memories I gained, even if some of them involved cheesy Jimmy Buffett impersonators. At least I can think of them and Panama City every time I listen to the real thing.
I don’t know about you, but I’m still not registering the fact that Anthony Bourdain is dead. I understand that he chose to take his own life. I don’t know the details. I do know that an immensely talented man is gone too soon.
This is not about getting inside the head of someone who struggled with mental health issues. This is not about how people who choose suicide are evil or weak. This is not about how because he was rich and famous, he should have been able to overcome depression and buy a cure.
I know too many people who have battle depression and other mental health issues to think that it’s just all in your head and that you can overcome it with positivity and faith.
Yes, I believe God still heals and works miracles. I also believe that you cannot will yourself out of a chemical imbalance. I know there’s a difference between the occasional depression most of us go through and severe clinical depression.
Here’s a number. It’s the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It’s 1-800-273-8255.
If you’ve been thinking about taking your own life, call this number.
Here it is again: 1-800-273-8255
Whatever you’re going through, you don’t have to face it alone.
“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy’s fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy’s flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust” (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are).
Five years ago, I read a book that changed my life. It changed the way I look at my circumstances, allowing me to seek joy and to always be on the lookout for those 1,000 small daily gifts for which to give thanks. There’s always, always something to be thankful for.
I still have moments of grumpiness and days where entitlement and bitterness seem to win out. I go through seasons of complaining and comparison, unrest and envy. I can Debbie Downer with the best of them.
But the best days are still the ones where I give thanks and live out of gratitude and awe. That’s where I see God at work in me and around me. That’s when others see Jesus in me.
Regardless of how well or how poorly I lived out my thanksgiving, tomorrow’s always a chance to do better or start over or simply surrender and let God have His way. I think door number three sounds best.
The quest to watch all of the surviving episodes of Classic Doctor Who continues. So far, I’ve made it almost all the way through the first three doctors, played by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee. In fact, I’m to the episodes where all three appear together for the first time.
William Hartnell’s part was limited due to poor heath, and I can’t help wondering what it would have been like had he been able to fully interact with the other two incarnations. I can imagine him getting in a few lines like “See here, dear boy!” But alas, his arteriosclerosis was affecting his ability to remember his lines. That’s a shame. Otherwise, so far, it’s great. And I love finally being able to see the first two doctors in color.
I have to admit that my favorite companion to this point might just be Jo Grant (played by the lovely Katy Manning), despite some dated hair and really dated wardrobe. She’s the spunkiest of the lot, and can keep up with the Doctor better than any of the others could (and she’s not constantly in need of rescue like some of the earlier female companions).
Yes, the special effects are still ultra low-budget. Sometimes, they’re groan-worthy. Some of the villains are over the top. I tire rather easily of the Master and his constant obsession to be ruler of the universe. Doesn’t he have any hobbies outside of meglomania? Yes, the monsters are still actors in rubber suits.
But I love all of it. It makes me wish I’d grown up in England in the 60’s and 70’s and seen all these episodes as they originally aired, including many that have been lost or destroyed.
I’m thankful for Britbox for providing me access to my own trip back in time. And who knows? Maybe one day some of those “lost” episodes will turn up somewhere.
It’s odd that we long to be known, yet at the same time we have a fear of being known. I think we want to be known by our best self we present via social media and not all the parts that we try to repress and hide.
To be fully known is to be honest, transparent, and vulnerable. It means taking the risk of rejection, but the reward is the realization that you are not alone in your struggles and insecurities and addictions and flaws.
I think all of us have at one point thought something akin to “If you really knew me, deep down, with all that I’ve done, you’d walk right out of my life and never look back.”
I believe one of Satan’s greatest lies to keep us isolated and alone is “You’re the only one who struggles with _________. You are a freak and a pervert and a disgusting human being because of your sin or habit. You don’t deserve to be known.”
As I once read, demons die in the light. Lies die in the light that comes from accountability and disclosure within a small and trusted group of people who will encourage and challenge you.
No one ever finds healing in isolation. You need community to help you find your truest and best self. God never meant for there to be any Lone Ranger Christians. And even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.
As you know, fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. The reality is that everyone struggles and sins and falls headlong into temptation. Everyone has addictions and habits and sins that they’d prefer to keep hidden.
I always remember that God knows me more fully than I even know myself and still loves me unconditionally. He accepts me as I am but refuses to leave me that way. He calls us to love each other in the same way and to accept from each other nothing less than God’s very best.
I hiked Radnor solo today. My friend and accountability partner wasn’t able to meet with me today, so I did the Unofficial Radnor Lake State Park Triathlon. That is, I hiked the Ganier Ridge, South Cove, and Lake Trails back-to-back-to-back.
I didn’t have a reason other than seeing if I could do it. There was a moment halfway through the second part where I thought I was about to give up the ghost. I even sat down for a minute.
But I persevered. I may not be the fastest (and in fact, I got outpaced twice), but I have stamina to keep going. At the end of the day, I walked 12 miles.
My goal in relaying all this information isn’t for you to say how awesome I am. It isn’t one of those things where I’m looking for a pat on the back.
What I’m saying is that if I can do it, so can you. You don’t have to start out hiking 3 trails in one day, but you can hike one. You can do something outdoors for 30 minutes.
For me, getting back to nature is therapeutic. As strenuous as it can be, hiking is also very relaxing at the same time. I think Henry David Thoreau had it right:
““I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”
I’m blessed to be able to sit under the teaching of one Aaron Bryant at The Church at Avenue South. He is most definitely God’s man for the role of campus pastor.
I’ve been to more than a few churches in my lifetime. I’ve sat under men who had a heart for people but weren’t the greatest expositors. I’ve also know a few that could alliterate with the best of them but weren’t that good with people outside the pulpit.
I remember I worked in a church office once where the pastor insisted that everyone address him as Doctor. I’m fairly certain that he didn’t pay for all that education only to boost his ego. Well, hopefully not. I’m sure he had his good qualities, but that onesn’t one of them.
But Mr. Bryant is the real deal. He’s a gifted communicator and a compassionate shepherd. He’s one of the main reasons that Ave South has flourished in just under 4 years of existence.
I seem to remember that while it’s good to have a good pastor, that doesn’t give me any excuse to opt out of ministry myself. If I read my Bible correctly, we’re all in the ministry, whether that’s what we do professionally or not. We’re all called to be evangelists at some point in our dealings with those with whom we live, work, and play.
As Dwight Moody put it, we just might be the only Bible some will ever read. We might be the only sermon some will ever listen to, and we might be the only Jesus that some will ever see. You might be the only gospel access to people who would never set foot in a church building.
That’s a sobering thought. Hopefully, that changes the way we live. Hopefully, it changes our conversations and helps us see that God has strategically placed these people in our lives for a reason.
