“How can a young person live a clean life?
By carefully reading the map of your Word.
I’m single-minded in pursuit of you;
don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted.
I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart
so I won’t sin myself bankrupt.
Be blessed, God;
train me in your ways of wise living.
I’ll transfer to my lips
all the counsel that comes from your mouth;
I delight far more in what you tell me about living
than in gathering a pile of riches.
I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you,
I attentively watch how you’ve done it.
I relish everything you’ve told me of life,
I won’t forget a word of it” (Psalm 119:9-16, The Message).

I read recently that if you’re filled with the God’s word, you won’t have room for Satan’s lies. I also remember what my first pastor wrote in my first ever Bible that he gave me — “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.” Another pastor said that if you have a Bible that’s falling apart, that usually means that your life isn’t.

All that to say that I should probably wrap this up and get back to reading my Bible. I definitely need to hear from God tonight.

Today the high temperature was 70. Tomorrow, the high will be 36. And sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning, the low will be 19. Yikes.

I think the old adage about Tennessee proves true. If you don’t like the current weather, stick around for a day or two and it will change. Lately, those changes have been nothing if not drastic.

Just when you think that the cold weather is over and winter has exited the building, it’s almost like Mr. Snow Miser from that Rudolph special, The Year Without a Santa Clause, sneaks up behind you and yells, “Sike!”

Maybe, just maybe, the current warming trend will entice all the bugs to come out of hiding and then bam! another bout of freezing temperatures will kill them all. Especially all those pesky mosquitos.

I feel like if you spent any amount of time during your childhood in a Baptist church, then you get this. Especially if you attended the old school Southern Baptist church with just a piano and an organ and a minister of music waving his arms around while the congregation sang verses 1, 2 and 4 of all the hymns. If you want to stump a true Baptist, ask him or her to sing the third verse to any of the old standard hymns from memory.

I honestly don’t know what we as a denomination had against those third verses. Whatever the case, I’ve grown to appreciate those old hymns as I’ve grown older. There’s something timeless about singing some sound theology. While I also like the modern worship music, I’m certain that nothing comes close to those spiritual oldies but goodies.

By the way, if you’re a true dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist, you didn’t just read those words on the church sign. You sang them. You’re welcome.

I think C. S. Lewis said that. Even if he didn’t, it’s still true. I can believe that the sun is still out there even on one of those grey dreary days where it rains off and on the whole 24 hours. I can believe in love even when I don’t feel it. And yes, I can believe in God even when He chooses to be silent, or better still, when He answers a prayer of mine with a no or a not yet.

I’ve learned that God’s silences usually mean that I’m not ready to hear what He has to say. It means I’m not mature enough to handle the message. The silence is a way of saying, “Just keep trusting. The wait will be worth it when you finally hear Me speak to you.”

I’ve also come to understand that some of God’s greatest blessings have been when He said no to some of my prayer requests, because He knew that if I got what I wanted, it would destroy me. He knew better than I where my request would lead me. Also, He often denied me a good thing in order to give me something better.

Sometimes, God’s silence is a way of saying, “How can I give you an answer when I Myself am the answer? How can I give you anything apart from Me that would fulfill your deepest longing?”

Trust even the silences of God as you trust the heart of God.

“All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love. Of course, what these people mean when they say that God is love is often some- thing quite different: they really mean ‘Love is God’. They really mean that our feelings of love, however and wherever they arise, and whatever results they produce, are to be treated with great respect. Perhaps they are: but that is something quite different from what Christians mean by the statement ‘God is love’. They believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.

And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing—not even a person—but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance” (C. S. Lewis).

I sometimes marvel at how adeptly C. S. Lewis could take complex ideas and make them understandable. He was one of the foremost Christian apologetics of his day because he made deep theological concepts accessible to non-theologians. He made it simple, yet never simplistic.

I love the idea that the triune God has always had perfect fellowship within Himself. The idea of God is love in the context of Father and Son and Holy Spirit in perfect harmony blows my mind a bit. The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus, who always does the will of His Father, who always rejoices in His Son. It is like one of those intricate dances of olden days with all the steps and bows and cadences.

God didn’t create anything (including people) out of any kind of need. He was perfectly content within Himself. He created out of an overflow of joy and love from within the trinity that couldn’t help but spread into everything it touched. That’s the kind of joyous love that led to the incarnation and ultimately to the cross. That’s the kind of love that raised Jesus from the dead. That’s the kind of love that God through Jesus pours out into our hearts the moment we say yes to His invitation. That’s good news.

A few weeks ago, the former principal and president of my high school, Mr. Joseph Clayton, went to be with the Lord at the age of 89. I remember him being a kind and gentle man with a long legacy of inspiring young minds through a long career in education. Before he died, he wrote a letter that he wanted to be read at his funeral that would serve as his last words to those who loved and knew him well. Here is that letter:

I think that’s where American Christianity in particular gets it wrong. A lot of what gets preached in pulpits in our churches is a lot of self-help with the name of Jesus thrown in here and there to make it kosher. Most American Christians don’t really know what they believe and aren’t familiar with what the Bible actually teaches. Is it any wonder so many have beliefs that go against what Jesus and Scripture teach?

We are a self-sufficient society. I’ve heard over and over again how Jesus makes me strong. The truth of the matter is that Jesus is my strength. And yes, there is a difference. One leads to me getting to the point where I can handle life on my own and have no need for God. The other is where I see more and more of my mess and my dependence on Jesus only grows deeper and more desperate.

The motto is not “try harder.” The heart’s cry of every believer should be “I believe. Help my unbelief. Here I am. I surrender to You and Your purposes for me. Do your work in and through me.”

It all goes back to how much time I spend with Jesus. I sound like a broken record, but if you and I only give Jesus the scraps of our time, is it any wonder that we sometimes walk through life feeling weak and defeated? Is it any wonder why we have so little anointing in our work and in our walk and in our speech?

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-29, The Message).

“We look for visions from heaven, for earthquakes and thunders of God’s power (the fact that we are dejected proves that we do), and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us. If we will do the duty that lies nearest, we shall see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized” (Oswald Chambers).

I think sometimes when I ask God to speak to me, I feel like I’m expecting deep down for God to speak in an audible Charlton Heston kind of voice to me. I almost expect some kind of mystical magical experience to take place immediately after I say, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

But God is so often found in those commonplace moments, and I’m beginning to see that He speaks in ordinary ways that we so often take for some other voice or maybe just coincidence. I’ve know God to speak through a friend or even through a line from a movie or a song. One thing I should know by now is to never limit God in the ways He can work in my life.

I confess that I don’t really hear God’s voice sometimes because I rush through my prayers in order to get to something else. How can I hear God speaking to me when I’m too busy rushing in and out of His presence all the time? How can I listen when so much of my prayer life is me-centered around my needs and my wants and my desires?

The best part is that even when I may not have the hunger to hear God speak, He never tires of talking to His child. He never grows weary of waiting for me to finally be still long enough to hear. He is infinitely patient with me as always until I can finally sit down and listen.

I’m thankful that Jesus was God spelling Himself out in a language I could understand. I’m grateful that He didn’t wait until I could understand things like premillennialism and supralapsarianism and transubstantiation before He made Himself known to me (which I probably still couldn’t tell you what any of those mean). He didn’t ask me to get my life together perfectly before I could approach Him.

As the saying goes, all other religions are about us getting to God, while Christianity is about God coming down to us. He came not when we were most deserving but when we were least deserving and most in need of a Savior. He came at just the right moment.

As I’ve read recently, God is not just “up there” out in the Heavens and beyond our reach. The question isn’t “Are You up there?” He’s down here with us in the daily grind. He’s Emmanuel, God with us.

Jesus is God speaking a language I can understand. Jesus as fully God and fully man is able to fully identify with me in all my weaknesses in His humanity and yet is able to do something about them in His divinity. He intercedes for me like no one else can because He’s been where I am and yet He didn’t ever sin when I sin more often than not. He is the only one who could ever save me.

Sometimes, I feel like I want to cancel my subscription to adulthood. I’ve done the 30-day free trial and thanks but no thanks this is not for me.

So until further notice, I will be in my blanket fort, eating cheez-its and coloring. You may join me if you wish (and if you know the secret password).

That is all. Carry on. Good night.