Strength To Be Content

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." ~ Philippians 4:13

If you've ever heard this verse quoted as a declaration to go do something great for God, or go out and achieve your dreams, or get that job, or pass that exam, or any such thing, raise your hand. Yeah, me too.

But you know what - it doesn't mean that. At least not primarily.

This verse isn't about achievement. It's about contentment. Paul is wrapping up a paragraph talking about a secret that he's learned, namely, the secret of being content in any and every situation. When Jesus knocked Paul off his horse, Paul gave up what was most likely a life of relative ease. He chose suffering with Jesus - and found true joy and contentment in following in His footsteps.

So,whether I'm poor or in plenty, starving or stuffed, I can do this! God gives me strength to be content! I can live for God and fulfill my calling in Christ in perfect contentment, without being choked by the worries and cares of the world, because God gives me the strength to be content, at peace, and satisfied. And beyond that, being contented is a real sign to others that this world just isn't all it's cracked up to be (and it's really cracked up), nor is it our home. Contentment loudly proclaims that God is my provider and He's totally dependable, whatever comes.

That's cool!

This weekend our pastor said there are two things that are true about contentment:

1. Contentment is always possible and,

2. Contentment is always chosen.

The best part of it all is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with health or wealth or circumstance, but everything to do with the all-surpassing power of God's strength. Awesome.

It's ALL The Time

How many times? How many times have I heard someone declare "God is good!" when they found a short line at Wal-Mart when they were in a hurry, or a good deal on the car of their dreams, or got front row tickets to a concert they thought was sold out?

Why is it we only hear "God is good" when things like this happen - things that aren't even that important! How about because of Jesus my death sentence has been lifted: "God is good!" How about even though outwardly I'm wasting away yet inwardly I'm being renewed day by day: "God is good!" How about the fact that we have a roof and some food in the fridge: "God is good!"

Moreover, how about "God is good" when your tire is flat, when your flight is delayed, when your children are ill, when your bank account has an echo?

God IS good. God is GOOD. His goodness goes beyond our shortsighted ideas of how life ought to be. His goodness, love and favor towards those whom He has adopted by grace is unquestionable. It is rich, comforting and stabilizing. He is good ALL the time.

Wow That Guitar!

Below you'll find a sweet, sweet song from a guy I just discovered a few days ago: Glen Hansard. The thing that piqued my curiosity about Hansard was his guitar. He plays a 20 year old Takamine dubbed "The Horse", and brother, it's been rode hard! Observe:

Makes me feel better about the wear on my Taylor. Anyway, back to the song - it's tender, and the official video tells even more of a story. Unfortunately, embedding was disabled so you'll have to CLICK.

Such As These

One morning last week I ran across this article from the AP. It tells the most unbelievable story about the bodies of approximately 2,000 aborted babies hidden away in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok.......

It seems that abortion is actually illegal in Bangkok (and these bodies were ostensibly from illegal abortions), but there are three tiny exceptions that allow a "legal" abortion: "Abortion is illegal in Thailand except under three conditions — if a woman is raped, if the pregnancy affects her health or if the fetus is abnormal."

Oh. Alright. If a woman is raped, we kill the baby (stunning logic). If the pregnancy causes the mother any health problems, we kill the baby (You harm me, I kill you - does this argument have any merit in any other circumstance???) . If the baby is abnormal (that is, if the child might be born with a congenital defect that would require the parents to give it extra special care and attention), we kill the baby. None of this makes sense, nor will it ever. I'm tired of it. Really tired. Some day, there will be no more abortions and this despicable evil will never be thought of again.

Unexpected Arrows

I have one brother and one sister. They're both older than I am (and they ALWAYS will be!). I married and started a family well before my brother did, and to ensure the survival of the family name, my wife and I had five sons. Having accomplished that, I began to think of my brother who had sired no children of his own, and I felt sorry for him.

However, while I was in the process of filling my quiver, my brother did get married to a lovely lady who already had three children of her own. Boom. Instant family. Nevertheless, my brother and his wife have had no children together, nor will they. Like I said, I used to feel sorry for him about this, but not these days. Although I have seen and experienced firsthand the blessing of bringing one's own children into the world, I've witnessed how God blesses in other ways.

Although I may have been given the responsibility of raising five sons in the ways of the Lord, my brother was chosen for a very different and special mission: embrace and love a woman and her children who had been terribly hurt, and become a father and grandfather to a bunch of folks that desperately needed it.

You see, I got married and added my wife and our 5 subsequent children to the family. Hurray! But my brother got married and has, over the last several years, added no fewer than 20 people to our family circle. He is loved by all of them and the Lord has blessed him as (dare I say it!) an honored and respected patriarch.

So here's to my brother, and here's to God our Father who uses each of us in very important and unique ways, and "sets the lonely in families."

All In

It's Wednesday, so it's time for a song for my wife...I'm all in for life.

With These Words

One of these days there will be no more doubt to cloud the mind . . . no more temptation that blinds . . . no more separation from those who we hold in our hearts in Christian love . . . no more injustice that violates the innocent and helpless . . . no more abortions . . . no more politics . . . no more relationships ragged with humain frailty. Nope, no more. Because we will be with the Lord forever. Are you encouraged?

Honey, I Shrunk God

So I've been reading a book called "Jonathan Edwards on True Christianity" by Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney. It's a commentary, really, on Edwards work and writings. Funnily enough I'm going to be quoting not Edwards, but Strachan, Sweeney and another man named David Wells.

I'll begin with a few words from the authors of the book:

"...we are not deeply rooted in any sense. Oftentimes, we don't think profoundly, we don't connect meaningfully, we don't focus extendedly. We can all to easily flit through life, trying new experiences, inventing new selves through online media. We watch endless amounts of television, keep a constant vigil over our email accounts, and update 800 of our closest friends when we make a piece of toast, but we often cannot be bothered to read, or think, or delve in to the lives of unbelievers who are everywhere around us. We have focused on ourselves, pumping ourselves up through self-esteem exercises, redefining ours sins as 'tendencies' that require therapy of one kind or another, and discarding traditional marks of maturity to gratify desires we refuse to tame. In the process, we have not grown. We have shrunk."

The danger of being a believer in America isn't persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword: it's SELF.

David Wells is quoted by the authors: "God is much friendlier, too. Gone are the notes of judgment, though these are more displaced than denied, and they are replaced by those of love and acceptance...Sin is preached but is presented more in terms of how it 'harms the individual, rather than how it offends a holy God. Sin, in short, prevents us from realizing our full potential.' Conversion is insisted upon but then, paradoxically, it is the this-worldly benefits that are accentuated, the practical benefits of knowing Christ receiving all the attention with scarcely a look at what happens if we turn away from Him."

Ask me, I'll tell you this is why people flock to some megachurches to hear a motivational speaker with a nice smile. In a consumer culture God has become, to many, merely a preference.

However, Christian maturity requires rigor along with transformation.

The Silencing of Thunder

Who did write the book of love? Well, that would have to be the Apostle John. I mean, that's just about all he talks about in the epistle we call "First John", right? Well it's pretty amazing that John wasn't bitter and angry. After all, his own brother, the other "Son of Thunder" was murdered by Herod in the initial wave of persecutions following the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

Even brothers that don't get along that well experience a loyalty that goes deeper than friendship, and I have a feeling that James and John probably had a close bond, having walked with Jesus for three years. Maybe they were cantankerous and bellicose toward each other (hence the nickname from Jesus) or maybe they were simply loud, or even clumsy! Scripture doesn't explain, but for whatever reason Jesus labeled them "Sons of Thunder", it's a testimony to God's grace that the brother who survived did not adopt a brooding, stormy temperament.

This man John knew about love. He knew. And that's why he could write, decades later: "Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you...By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."

Glory to God for love that supersedes insult, injury and injustice.

Dude, Your Father Is Here!

This past weekend I was travelling with twenty-some teenagers, three of which belonged to me personally. At a "pit stop" on the way home, everyone was in line at McDonald's when my wife and I noticed that our second born wasn't around. All the kids were quite hungry by that time and we were surprised that he wasn't in line. We found him lurking around outside McD's with a friend and we asked him: "Are you gonna eat? Aren't you hungry?" The response was extraordinary: "Well, yeah, but I don't have any money."

!!!

My instantaneous exclamatory reply? "DUDE, YOUR FATHER IS HERE! I'VE GOT MONEY!" I then handed him a fiver and told him to go eat.

Now this son of mine happens to be the only miserly one we've raised so far. He likes to earn his own money, save it, spend it on worthwhile things, and when he has no money, he doesn't go begging because he'd rather do without. This bodes well for his future, and I'm pleased that he's wired that way. This character trait of his gave rise to the aforementioned situation as well as the about-to-be-mentioned illustration.

How many of us as believers tremble before our enemies, cower before temptation and worry over life's cares when right there in our immediate presence is our Father? I'm hungry and He supplies, I'm scared and He comforts, I'm weighed down and He relieves my burden.

Oh Lord, forgive me for stubbornly trying to do "life" without You. You are my all in all.

I've Got Something To Say

Some Christians, perhaps many, though not all, suffer profoundly from depression, doubt and the quickly changing tide of their temperament. King David, Martin Luther, William Cowper and Charles Spurgeon were all Godly men who suffered under the mind-bending, heart-rending throes of depression and anxiety.

I don't want to spend any time today talking about causes and triggers and remedies; I simply want to share a song from Starfield that expresses the feelings of a melancholy heart. I hope it's a blessing.

The bridge is particularly meaningful:
And faith might mean there won't be answers
And hope might mean enduring through the night
But help me not forget in darkness
The things that I believed in light

Something In The Water

In the spirit of cute little love songs dedicated to my wife...

I Don't Like To Share

Are you cold, calculating and stingy? Are you sure you're not?

I'm realizing that I'm a little stingy with love, a little stingy when it comes to sharing, and a little stingy with Christ when I'm out in public. When I see the cardboard signs and pretend to adjust my car radio (the beggar), when I'm greeted outside Wal-Mart by the veterans collecting donations and (the needy), when I give an outdated can of tomato sauce at the canned food drive (the hungry) instead of a boxful of inexpensive but nourishing food, I'm being stingy. My tendency is to see the man begging and then begin to flowchart: if I give him money it will either A) be spent on alcohol or B) won't make much difference. If it DOES make a little difference then it will A) only encourage him to beg more and/or B) discourage him from actually getting a job.

All of these gyrations my mind goes through instead of simply extending the hand of Christ with no further expectation.

In Marks of the Messenger, J. Mack Stiles says that "We [should] care for others regardless of any return for our efforts - evangelistically or otherwise. We never qualify whom it is we are to love . . . We share the good news always open to doing good, and we do good always with the hope of sharing our faith. We never divorce the two. If we get nothing in return, it's okay because it is the nature of love."

This is actually kind of liberating for me - instead of doing all the heavy calculating in order to avoid reaching out, I just need to reach.