What Do You Do When Your Heart Is Tugging

In July of this year, I spent a week in Haiti with Mission of Hope. Below, you'll find a 3 minute sample of some small town traffic. If you'd rather not sit through it all, at least skip ahead and watch from 2:50 forward to hear some rather vigorous honking. (Yes, that's my mug you see in the last half-second of the video):


Earlier this week I was led by one of those mysteriously captivating internet rabbit trails to a story about the mass graves that were dug after the January 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake. I was sort of jolted to reality when I discovered that just a few hundred yards into the hills where we had been driving were a number of large burial pits where bulldozers had crudely shoved thousands of earthquake victims to their resting place. The pictures were brutal, and I don't recommend looking them up.

What really impacted me, though, was the sharp reminder of how fresh that catastrophe must still be in the minds of countless Haitians. In all likelihood, some of the people I met there this summer have relatives and friends buried up in those hills. And now I feel mildly foolish for not fully comprehending the nearness of the tragedy while I was there, which is not to say I didn't feel anything. I saw the crumbled buildings and the amputees, but I didn't feel it deeply enough.

But where the devastation of sin is greatest, the light of the Gospel shines the brightest and I can report that God's Church is thriving and growing there. My heart wants to somehow be a part of that, but I'm not sure how. If nothing else, I will at least pray.

Tell Me Your Favorites!

I've read through many books this year, and I have read most of a few books and a little bit of a lot of books. The stack next to my bed (and archive on my Kindle) reveals my literary travels of the past twelve months. Trust me, I'm no egghead and my memory isn't what it used to be, but I believe my life is richer, my walk with God is stronger, and I'm (hopefully) a smitch wiser than I was in January because of what I've read.

But I'm not going to tell you what I read - at least not yet. I want to know what your favorite books are, particularly what you've read this year that you've enjoyed, and even what books you might have in the hopper waiting for their pages to be turned.

Bring on the raves and recommendations!

Putting Potentates In Their Place

We know that all authority is given by God, but not all authorities are godly.

I love this bit from Charles Spurgeon where he gives some perspective of and to men in authority:

"...Too often do they serve themselves or Satan, and forget the God whose sufferance permits them to wear their mimic majesty for their little hour."

Get 'em, Charles....

The thing is, though, we would all do well to remember that human nature will take any ounce of authority and fashion it into a ton of oppression or pride or self-service. It's not just Presidents and Prime Ministers who need to guard their hearts. Pastors, teachers, worship leaders, project managers, shift supervisors and parents must all lead responsibly in the fear of God.

Vice Verses...A Little Resurrection

Jon Foreman, creating his poetry again:

Let the pacific laugh...be on my epitaph.
With its rising and falling
And after all,
It's just water and I am just soul
With a body of water and bone...
Water and bone....

Trembling & Hesitant

"The Christian hope is not simply a trembling, hesitant hope that perhaps the promises of God may be true. It is the expectation that they cannot be anything else than true." ~ William Barclay

There is power and glory in the faithfulness of God that at once shames me (as I see my silly sin and craven fears) and lifts me up to boundless, unspeakable joy. Oh, that I would keep His promises always before me - from what countless troubles I could spare myself and how much more boldly I would serve! My desire is to cease with wistful wishing and walk confidently, not in my own merits, but in the One who doesn't change like shifting shadows and whose years will never end!

The Problem With Stuff

"When we don't have what we want, the world corrupts us with covetousness. And when we do have what we want the world corrupts us with pride." ~ John Piper in Finally Alive

I'm trying hard to be content. I'm trying to be content with what I have and what I don't have. I think this has become somewhat easier as I've grown older, but I still have within me the tension of protecting what is MINE and desiring what I don't have YET. Our basis for contentment should begin with the state our souls. If we would take more time to meditate on the fact that all is well in that arena (assuming we are right with Christ), then perhaps our attachments to other things wouldn't be quite so fierce.

Snow Days

I read this post from Kevin DeYoung last Thursday, and wanted to bring it you now because it encourages an excited expectation of our heavenly home in a way that is fresh and childlike and, I think, just what many of us need.

Heaven Is Your Snow Day