Pre-Cursor to Single Book Perusals

I haven't been posting lately; this is chiefly because other matters have drawn me away.

But of all the various means of documenting my thoughts, this has always been the one I intend to have the most positive impact - at the very least the one that has the least amount of muck / apathy / emptiness.

Here is my new goal.

I intend to read a single book of the Bible a day.

I'll post questions/thoughts here.
This will both be for tracking what God has quickened in my heart but also (hopefully) to help me appreciate what God has shown me over time.  Certainly I find it very, very easy to forget.

How can I expect the children of Israel to have an even higher standard, over multiple generations?

Today's target Book: 2 Kings

I like dark chocolate

I have always disliked dark chocolate. Perhaps it's because I've spent so much of my life preferring sweet foods or the fact I distinctly remember sneaking into the family larder and sneaking some baking chocolate - regardless, I've never liked the dark stuff.

But I've heard good things about dark chocolate. How eating some measure of it can be a good health choice. How it comes it a huge variety - and in fact, more of the world's high-end chocolates are often measured in degrees of cocoa present.

In other words, the darker the chocolate is, the better it is for you. Working with this perspective as well as the assumption that appreciating dark chocolate is, much like coffee and alcohol, an acquired taste, I realized that this could be a kind of spiritual model.

This got me to thinking about how God's grace is like dark chocolate; it is multi-layered, has textures, aspects, flavors, and elements that only exist to those who have the proper palette; it is better for you than what you might select of your own nature; and there are many who encourage you to appreciate it's depth and amazing character.

And this led me to realizing that without God, we wouldn't understand His grace. It's something we forget - that we need God to understand, perceive, appreciate, recognize, or even miss God. When we lose sight of this, we lose something precious.

Swayed

One of the foci of this perpetual novel of a blog was that it was intended to be my witness of what God is doing in my thought life as well as evidence of who God is in my life.

If this is accurate - this means that God only rarely speaks to me.

Regardless - I did mean this to be antiprattle.
I think I've been settling for a higher grade of prattle than that which I normally hear.
But I've still been prattling.

What about something more ... excellent?

If these thoughts are intended to be a humble exposition on what I've learned in walking with Christ ...
... and if these thoughts are intended to inspire actual change.

What is missing?

I think it's a biblical worldview.

I want one.

Do you?

Thoughts on rhetoric

I was thinking on something last night.

I've been intellectually swayed by a well-turned phrase for a long number of years. If you say the right words, in the right sequence, and nothing that you say contradicts my experience, I can often accept what you say as literally true. I can do this because I have no reason to question the veracity.

Then along comes reality - and those parts that bear no fruit, that don't match reality, often fall adrift.

I think this is good in some ways - building one's foundations on the sand of reason can often be understood implicitly as poor craftsmanship in addition to just being foolish.

I think this is bad in some ways - in as much as faith is belief without experience, if a new experience can thwart belief one wonders if there were any at the start.

I think that, ultimately, it's a good thing. It has allowed me to accept Christ without reservation much of my life - certainly ever since I was adopted by God as a new son. It has allowed me to hold my peace and feel less abandoned when others don't walk my path. And it has given me something concrete that I can share - something that none can remove or destroy.

And so I praise Christ who strengthens me that He has allowed me to accept He is sovereign without immediate, tangible evidence - for His evidence lasts longer and envelopes those who accept that reign.

How about you?

Waiting

I hate waiting. Mostly I hate knowing about something that is important and having to wait for it to happen. It is a weakness of mine, and God has certainly been working with me through various trials - I have seen myself improve immeasurably on this point. But I hate waiting. I bring this up because, in my most fierce times, when waiting is frustrating and painful, I am most humbled when my eyes turn to God. Because, God is love, and love is patient. And so God is patient.

Recently, in Virginia, America, NASA launched a rocket from Wallops Island. It was a relatively large project, involving dozens of people, a fair number of teams, millions of dollars in resources, and TIME. It took upwards of two years for this team to organize their efforts to the a single purpose.

Have you ever done this? Have you ever been part of a group that had a single goal, and worked together with that group over a period in excess of a year on that goal, and completed it successfully? I haven't. And I am amazed at the conscientious focus, character, and integrity behind the ability of any group to maintain mindfulness of an ideal long enough to accomplish this kind of task.

If we pan out, God has done this kind of focused and intentional waiting for far longer - in each of our lives, He is doing it right now. Waiting in His perfect time for His perfect help or patience or whatever we need.

He has the necessary character to see it through.
And he has the authority to accomplish it.
All we need to do is trust Him.
Do you?

Call to Action:
Recognize that God has short-term and long-term plans for you. Given this, most of the short term plans and trials you will experience will likely lead into His long-term plans. Your job, today and every day following, is to be mindful of the manner in which you can develop into the person God needs you to be to execute His long-term plans. Don't rush it but be mindful of opportunities, thoughts, and passions you have that may be drawing you away from Christ. Hold them up to Him and consider getting rid of them. Repeat daily.

What value perfection?

I - Perfection

One of the recurring themes in expression, whether artistic, personal, or otherwise, is that of perfection.  I believe we consider someone a master because they've "mastered" the ability to be perfect in some realm - whatever perfection means in that realm.  Everyone has something they're mastering - be it mastery of self, mastery of character, mastery of a profession/tool/skill, or mastery of presentation.  Desire for mastery abounds.  Actual mastery is found with far less frequency.

When identifying something universal to all people, I find it profoundly important to ask the question "why?”  Why would a desire for perfection be embedded in each of us?  Does it have a purpose?

 

II - Eden

The Garden of Eden must have been an amazing place.  First and foremost, it was the only garden created by God.  Can you imagine someone with the creative gifts of God, who made volcanoes, black-holes, anti-matter, time, space, trees, and clouds?  Can you then imagine what kind of wonder the garden must have possessed?  The variety of flora and fauna, the textures, colors, flavors, and sheer abundance must have been awe-inspiring.  Included in this mix were two interesting trees - one of Knowledge and one of Life.

Given God's creative nature, His ability to do things right the first time, it seems a small leap to consider that His plan for man was to love forever.  What would it mean for man to live forever?

 

III - Consider

* You were made to live forever.  It may be in your current body, a glorified body, or something in between.

* You were made to recognize and appreciate perfection.

* Neither is possible without God.

 

IV - Action

Imagine every thought you have today will reflect upon you forever.

Guide your eyes, hands, tongue, and mind to guide each thought to reflect this.

Select thoughts by which you would wish to be known.

Repeat.

What is love?

I think Jesus spent nearly his whole ministry answering this question.  In fact, you could say this question is the principal motivation for the whole of scripture.   And I believe, without the God, nobody on earth has the slightest idea what love IS.

This is mostly because we often define things the opposite of the absence of things.

We define cold as that which is not hot and vice versa.  Nobody really knows what heat is.

We define darkness as that which is not lit and vice versa.  Same thing as before.

We can't even identify what gravity is - we can simply predict, for the most part, when it shows up.

If we can't event identify such simple things as hot, light, and gravity, we certainly can't begin to know what LOVE is - the most complex and powerful emotion on the planet.

And we know this intuitively.  Poets dream about knowing true love - and all the best poets will tell you that they have but a fleeting whisper of this intangible.  Politicians offer the appearance of love in exchange for your pledge.  And philanthropists would have you believe that they are motivated by it.

But without God nobody gets it.  As a matter of fact, without God, nobody realizes they don't get it.

So this is my challenge to you today:

1. Assume you have no idea, in the natural, what love actually looks like.

2. Look up in the bible to identify what love looks like, how it appears, how to identify its particular characteristics.  It may be of use to visit Corinthians 13 (link).

3. Intention to be a walking representative of this - and when it gets hard (and it will), pray through and seek God's guidance.

4. Post your results here!

Wisdom hath builded her mansion

One of the easiest things to forget is that God is God.  It is in His nature to be God.  He does it without trying.

We forget because we're not God.  Out of habit, training, or perspective, we see God as massive enhancements to us.  And so begins, regardless of slope, a pattern that we spend the rest of our days either reckoning or hastening.  In addition, the only knowledge of God we have is what He gave us.  This means that we necessarily have an incomplete view of God.  That's okay - we can't handle all of God; but, we can handle what He has shown comprises Himself.

Today's five-minute moment focuses on this fact - wisdom is acting like God would in your situation.  Or, as God would have us act in our situation.  And without God's guidance, this is impossible.  So he leaves us clues.

As I mentioned in my last post, I challenged you to identify the wisest person you know.  I asked you to do this to help you recognize by what standard you evaluate wisdom.  Why did you pick that person?  Are they rich?  Are they happy?  Knowing by what standard you evaluate wisdom will help you recognize whether your own standard is reliable and how far your standard is from God's guidance.

Let's test how well you chose your person:

1. Does the person fear the Lord?

2. Is the person humble?

3. Are the fruit of the spirit ever present with the person?

As service is the manner in which Christ revealed and modeled his walk, may I thus suggest today's challenge:

Pray that God would reveal in what way you might be of service to your selected wise person.

How to turn a faithless nation in 21 days

There is a movement going around, one passed along in loud, hushed tones along internet lines. The crux of the movement is to emulate Daniel's righteous behavior in praying and purification.

Daniel's prayer is one of mourning.
Daniel's purification comes by chastening himself before the Lord Christ Jesus.

Daniel's walk may be discovered in Daniel 10 - his faithfulness and mourning are heard and his prayers are answered. And the movement's basic thrust is the same:

Can we, as a nation, join in a prayer of mourning?
Can we chasten ourselves to His glory?

Think of it as Jonah wailing in the streets. We are being called to pray for the our country. Pray that God will turn our nation around.

Will you do the same?

Turn back your heart to God today! Remember your first love! Purify yourself before His holy will and give the silent moments that comprise the space between events to God today.

Listen in the stillness. He is speaking. Will you choose to listen?

Consistency

Stories tend to highlight certain abstract aspects of the main character. Those abstracts may be heroism, bravery, cunning, and intelligence. They might also be sophistication, irreverence, stupidity, or propensity for destruction. Regardless of the particular attribute, the teller of the tale uses one tool above all others to paint the abstraction: consistency.

Character tends to be defined over time, and using stories as the framework, character is represented and depicted using the aforementioned traits, but it is defined through the repetition of their presence. Similarly, a practical working definition of integrity seems to be present in those individuals evidencing intentional consistency of ethical behavior. The key word here is consistency.

Consistency is something that one does not hear a great deal about - yet most of us appreciate and trust consistency. The most obvious aspect of this are things we take for granted - examples include gravity, the rising and falling of the sun, and the ability to breathe. And it is this consistency by which we understand and define Christ.

Christ's greatest messages all center on consistency.

· Love thy neighbor - no conditional there.

· Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart - none there.

It is in the intentional expression of love that consistency has her greatest work. Intentionally loving someone is precious -- but to intentionally and consistently love someone is priceless.

Thus, my challenge today for you is to consistently perform another task God has tasked each of with:

Hold every thought into captivity.


o Identify those thoughts you notice thinking.

Hold them up to Christ.

Do they honor His work in your life?

o Identify those actions you appeared to take without thinking

Identify any thoughts associated with those actions.

Do they honor His work in your life?

o Identify those habits you engage in without thought or consideration

Identify any thoughts associated with those actions.

Do they honor His work in your life?

it was a good day

drifting out of time
yesterday was years ago
leaves fall, marching on

God chose me just now
yesterday and tomorrow
to be whom He wills

it had been one day
years hence that I lent an ear
and my heart: God sang!

never been the same
has been my life, my todays
never been the same

Distraction

One of the most effective ways to win a war is to distract the combatants. There are several ways to do this. The first is to interrupt the supply lines, the second is to interrupt the chain of command, and the third is to interrupt the flow of information between the chain of command and the combatants. As a believer, I am a combatant - and we are called, my believers and I, to fight - not against things of the flesh, but against powers and principalities.

But we are easily misled, distracted, and absorbed into other frays. Let us skim the surface of this by evaluating the three means of distraction above.

The first way we might be distracted is through the loss of some vital supplies. Scripture tells us that "man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8: 3) God has made it abundantly clear that we cannot lose vital supplies.

The second way we might be distracted is through the interruption of the chain of command. Scripture clearly indicates that we have but to look for God with all of our heart and we will find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13) God has made it profoundly clear the chain of command will never be interrupted.

The third way is the key - for through it kingdoms have fallen. The third way is a distortion of information between the chain of command and the combatant. And it is here that believers are the most susceptible.

I call you today, believers, to recognize that this is your one weak-point - this is the one area that pride flowers in, that envy is fostered, and hatred is reinforced; without this one weak-point we would never be without the clarity of thought that comes with mountain-top experiences!

I claim today back from the locusts - and I challenge you to do the same!
Some aspect of your walk has been incomplete - for we are all fallen and fall short of the glory of Christ. Let today bet the day when you surrender one more room, one more thought, one more event to His glory!

Do days matter?

What if there were two religions, with diametrically opposed faiths, that had days of observation that were a week apart, and the governor of the land that observed these two faiths, in the interest of calming unrest, decided to merge the second to occur on the day of the first - does it matter? On the one hand, regardless of your faith, you're still observing your particular religious observation, regardless of which camp you fall into. You're acting in accordance with at least the observation of the event itself. On the other, usually days for a celebration are important.

Let us assume that you are a new American, and in your original country of CountChokula, and a believer in NewFaithia, you observe "the Scavenging", a time of great joy when, on December 17th you would be allowed to visit any and all farms within a 50 mile radius and take whatever goods you could carry away in your own hands. The day was not arbitrarily chosen - it occurred on the 350th day of the year, a day of particular religious significance to you. In your own country, it was a source of pride for your entire country for a man to carry more than his neighbor. In fact, your very definition of a faithful CountChokulan REQUIRES you to faithfully observe this on December 17th. In America, for the sake of political expedience, they moved it to December 25th and decided to allot particular farms for your use.

As a new American, you have some degree of religious freedom, but the national expression of this religion has deviated massively, observing it on December 25th. As an observer of "the Scavenging", and a member of the NewFaithia movement, you would be horrified if it were moved arbitrarily for the sake of political expedience. If you were truly faithful to your faith, you might teach it to your offspring ... but eventually it is likely the initial fervor for the particular day of the year would die out after four or five generations.

What if you are a seventh generation American, and a 'tried-and-true' NewFaithian, and learned to observed your "Scavenging" on December 25th. Then, when you became 21, you learned that the original observers of "the Scavenging" practiced the holiday on December 17th. Would you be true to the original ideals of the faith and, after having done sufficient research to document the veracity, observe the holiday on the original day, out of respect for the actual meaning of the holiday? Would you decide that the spirit of the day was more important than the observation of the actual day, disregarding the original holiday because of your personal convictions? Would you decide that no day in particular needed to be the day of observation, and occasionally observe it on December 25th, sometimes on December 30th, and sometimes not at all, based upon availability and resources?

What say you?

Baptism - I

One of the most destructive things we can be tricked into doing is to say things that have import that we know not of.

In a religious sense, one of those words is baptism. As such, the original usage - in Jewish religious ceremonies, will likely always color the meaning of the word - to include immersion, being set apart, and in fact some of the feasts were associated with the word. Likewise, if you come from a Christian background, you will likely assume it relates to either some degree of immersion (between a personal dunking to an impersonal sprinkling by a member of the clergy) to a physical representation of a spiritual event - the personal acceptance of the Holy Spirit.

If you research the word without a preconceived notion of what the word means - it paints a rather interesting picture.

So the question is - what does the word baptism mean to you?

The face of beauty

I am fascinated by faces. Mostly I'm fascinated in the sheer variety of faces that exist - no two people have exactly the same faces. Each of us have a different combination of hair, eyes, skin, nose, skeleton, limbs, and a plethora of other body parts that only medical students ever really get a working knowledge of names. Or perhaps students of medical terminology. Regardless, the variety of face options is so large that - even if you were to clone someone, they would have a different face as well. They may LOOK exactly the same but their faces would be distinct.

And we are trained (either inductively or deductively) to value the difference between faces. Sometimes this value comes from comparing a particular attribute to a perceived optimum. Likewise this value can come from comparing a particular attribute to an assumed worst character. In fact, without a subjective standard with which to gauge something, no one face, set of hips, smile, or any other attribute is particularly ugly or attractive. As an example:

Please define the following attributes:

Beauty Grace Age Happiness

for the following object

A pickle, floating in a black room, hanging in mid air.

The point is that these attributes are separate from the objects themselves - we carry them with us and assign them based upon our subject standards.

Hopefully you can see these standards we hold are flighty, temporary things.

Now juxtapose these with the love God holds for us - it is unwavering. A constant.

• · He loves us enough to care about each individual hair on our heads.
• · He cares whether you take a shower.
• · He has an opinion about whether you eat that jelly donut.
• · He may have suggestions about your political stance in the coming election.
• · He may wish you to take the left or right fork.

Regardless of venue, decision, or environment, you can get guidance from God. And this guidance will never contradict scripture.

The challenge - of course - is to prepare yourself before deciding. Because it is ever so much harder to empty a boat that is filling with water than patching the holes before the boat starts filling.

I challenge you:

1. Find something that you care about - something for which you have an opinion.

Examples:

• lying,
• what clothes to wear,
• who to vote for,
• when (or if) you should fast,
• who to hang out with,
• whether you should offer someone help
• who to marry
  

2. Then assume God has an opinion about it - and thus has included information on that point in Scripture.

3. Pray (that God will show you what His will is on that topic)

4. Delve into scripture daily (perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps three hours), researching God's will on that topic.

The Challenge: Spend enough time in scripture until you have peace that God has no opinion - or you learn His opinion. Then act on it.

The imaginary part of God is more real than we are

One of the more fascinating trades I have discovered is that of a scholar - in particular a student of mathematics. And the reason is simple: the more one studies tools available for those fields, the more one has powerful tools to understand and relate to facets of God that other people don't discover.

My favorite example is the concept of multi-dimensionality. With respect to God, this is the idea that there are certain facets of God which exist in a way we don't understand ... perhaps in a different dimension. Engineers learn to deal with certain imaginary properties that have literal and direct effects upon tangible objects - even if those imaginary realities are not directly capable of being discerned. They do so with tools available in mathematics.
(For a fairly good tool to learn or teach multi-dimensionality, try Flatland: the movie)

In short - the study of God is recursive: - the more we learn and understand of God, the more we have tools at our disposal to evaluate and understand the information we have available, the more we realize that God is so profoundly amazing that the more we know, and the more we know the more we don't understand.

Save for the profoundly simple:
God is real.
God isn't mad at you.
Your move.

What has He done for you lately?

One of the easiest traps one can fall into - especially in America - is to catalog what God hasn't done yet. It is a simple thing - you list one thing, then another, and the focus can thus turn into a kind of perception of God's apparent eternal incompleteness. As if the only thing He can do right in your world is to knock just one more thing of the list of things He owes you.

I find myself there sometimes. And I inevitably turn into a kind of martyr.

The resolution is to change your paradigm.

Choose to begin the list with a least five of the things God has done in your life that has fundamentally changed who you are. You may not even be aware of some of them - if so, ask God to reveal them.

Here are some of mine:
God saved me while I was in boot-camp.
God erased pain and anguish from a huge volume of my memories.
God gave me grace to learn how to begin to be the kind of man my wife needed.

Challenge:
Ask God to reveal to you what He would like you to expect Him to do.
Then, ask God to give you grace to wait for that thing.
And wait upon the Lord.

This is the day that the Lord has made.

One of the things I find most fascinating is that He functions outside of time.

This is implied by the fact He has stated He is the "I AM". You can't very well be an unchanging being if you're buffeted about by time.

And so today I intentionally recognize that God designed this day. And gave it to us.

Imagine the world's most gifted artist crafting a masterpiece with you in mind.
Imagine the world's most gifted artist doing so and offering you it free of charge.
Now, imagine that happening EVERY SINGLE DAY.

How can we be but perpetually amazed at His grace, mercy, and joy.

So I have an assignment for you:

Spend the day in actual amazement.
See every aspect of the day as designed especially for you.
And give thanks for it all.

... leaves you kinda speechless to speak on anything else.

How sticky is God?

In computer programs, the practice of leaving a hidden bit of fun within something is called an Easter Egg. It is one of the things I most love about scripture - at every level you look at the Holy Bible, God has innumerable Easter Eggs for one to discover. Of late I have been reading about sticky-ness - where something is succinct, catchy, and concrete - and how nearly every memorable advertisement, invention, and concept has all the ingredients necessary to be sticky.

Thus, I am again pleasantly surprised to find that throughout scripture, God's eternal principles are ALL STICKY. Some are a great deal stickier than others, but the fact that God intended His will and His story to not only be shared and re-told, but also that all of scripture is designed to be good for instruction ... that suggests to me that the inconspicuous stickiness of Christ Jesus' scripture is just one more way that God wants to bless us.

Maturity is not a curse

One of the things I have most longed for in life is an opportunity to seek intentional personal maturity. This might fly in the fact of the public consciousness, where maturity is something to be avoided until absolutely necessary ... but I have found that those who are most able to function well and successfully have a level of personal maturity that is easy to respect and admire. Sadly, most maturity that a person adopts is the result of random events - I wanted a set of decisions and mindsets that allow a person to consciously seek after maturity. Oddly enough, I never saw that Scripture had the answer to this ... at least not something as simple as a to-do list.

I believe the bible does offer an opportunity for intentional maturity - a maturity that doesn't detract from our ability to appreciate and experience joy and a maturity that draws us closer to Christ Jesus. It is found in our relationships with ourselves, God, and others. It is found in identifying those things for which we take responsibility. And it is found in studying the Lord's scripture. In fact, the three reflect one another and lack of one will necessarily weaken the other two.