day no. 15,196: punting away the final opportunity to draw blood

Ecclesiastes 3:1
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven

There is a time to punt and a time to go for it on fourth. Conventional wisdom, however, rarely sees the season for the latter. It simply assumes the season of safely punting away your final opportunity to draw blood. 

Refuse the temptation to punt.  Punting confuses the game of scoring points for one of playing field position. It turns a mean into an end. It places the focus on making it harder for the enemy to score rather than making it easier for you to score.

Field position is a tactic, not a goal.
The goal is to win the game. 

You cannot win if you don't score points. Playing for field position is weaksauce. It attemps to win by inflicting a thousand cuts, which is an understandable option if all you have is a tiny dagger. After all, you play the hand you've been dealt. But it's one thing to fight with what you have and quite another to prefer a dagger to a broad sword.

day no. 15,195: we cannot afford to be amateurs when it comes to pronouns

pro·noun /ˈprōˌnoun/ - noun - a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this ).

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God

All words belong to the Word, including pronouns.
In other words, all pronouns are His pronouns.

Acts 17:26
God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place

God picked your pronouns for you. You are obligated to live in submission to the pronouns that have been chosen for you. Your pronouns did not merely materialize out a post-modern cauldron of moving goo. They came from somewhere. They refer back to something. 

Pronouns are completely contingent on their source. You do not have a pronoun without a previous mention in the discourse. This conversation was initiated by God, the Word, who injected Himself into the dead silence.

"The use of pronouns today is a deadly serious thing. It is not a matter of manners, or avoiding a faux pas. It is not a matter of showing courtesy to non-Christians. This is not about courtesy; rather, it is about coercion. It is not social graces; it is social engineering. We are having to stave off orc-talk." - Douglas Wilson, more HERE

We cannot afford to be amateurs when it comes to pronouns. We cannot participate in the realm of rhetoric without first understanding the grammar and logic of the conversation. And the Good News is that God has graciously provided us a grammar and a logic. He has assigned the lines and defined the terms. He is a God of order and has shared with us how it is all meant to fit together. 

day no. 15,194: denying the "Y" and questioning the "why?"

For a transcript, click HERE

"The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth" - C.S. Lewis, The Necessity of Chivalry

Christian men must be severe and kind, like their God. They must have the sternness to stomp on their enemies on the battlefield and the meekness to apologize for accidentally bumping into a stranger on the dance floor. They must know their way around virtue and violence. They must be a sir and a savage, a gentleman in manners and a general in war.

"The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop." - C.S. Lewis, The Necessity of Chivalry

Our current evangelical moment has cultivated gardens of thornless roses. It has raised a generation of men to believe that they are most manly when they are least manly. They have been praised for denying their Y chromosome and questioning their "why?" It has been observed that the church is a safe space for little old ladies of both sexes. For us, the call to chivalry is a call to remember valour. We have learned how to manscape and what wines pair best with fish and that white after Labor Day is a fashion faux pas, but we have forgotten how to smash faces and walk among lopped-off limbs 

Psalm 60:12, Psalm 108:13
Through God we shall do valiantly:
for He it is that shall tread down our enemies.

Christianity is a religion of world conquest and it's high time we remember that. In order to be the yeast that spreads to the four corners, we must be that beasts that rise to the occasion of the calling.

"Practice 'suaviter in modo' as well as the 'fortiter in re.'" -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, The Need of Decision for the Truth. 

In other words, be 'gentle in manner' and 'resolute in deed.'

day no, 15,193: no more mr. nice guy

Dear Christians, 

Stop being nice.

P.S. Niceness is meretricious. It is self-congratulatory unkindness. It masquerades as aromatic fruit of the Spirit, but is inspired by the insipid fumes of Gehenna. Niceness is a secret handshake with the world conceding the point that all this Jesus stuff doesn't much matter in the end. Its eschatological aim is a world where everyone holds hands and gets along because no one worships Jesus. 

Romans 11:22
Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

God is kind, not nice.

Nice is optional. It is pleasant and will not ruffle any feathers, but because it refuses to mix it up, it cannot save. It cannot atone for sins because it attempts to cover them by refusing to count them. What sin? No sin to see here! How nice! How pleasant. A judgment free zone. Heaven on earth.

But there is not dust or sweat or blood in any of it. It cannot atone for sin because it will not die. When you remove the hills worth dying on, you aren't left with peaks of joy, but only valleys of despair -- dark places where everyone smiles and everyone dies outside of God's favor.

Don't sleep on God's severity. It isn't nice either. More obviously so I suppose, but nevertheless worth pointing out. If niceness were godliness, then one could accuse God of acting out of character when He is severe. But wisdom takes note of God's kindness and His severity. He is not nice. Nice would never be so kind as to die for someone. Nice would not require anyone to die for anything.

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Forgiveness is accomplished by kindness. God sent Christ to die because He is kind. Christ gave Himself for sin because God is severe. Nice attempts to split the difference -- eliminating the need of the Cross and accusing God for requiring one. Niceness is the idolatry of assuming that there was another Way, that the servant's debt could actually be paid back if given enough time, and that all the dust and blood were, in reality, a bit showy and unnecessary if it's being honest (which it isn't and won't be anytime soon, because, after all, that wouldn't be... nice.)

1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

Niceness is impatient. It refuses to suffer any discomfort for any reason. it envies its own imaginations of a eschatological kumbaya and boasts that it knows better than God. It is arrogant enough to assume that God only got things off to a good start and that we can take it from here.

2 Timothy 2:24
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.

To be kind to everyone is to teach them. But that assumes and presupposes that they don't know something that they need to know and assumes that you do. But that's not very nice. Which is precisely the point. Niceness refuses to teach because teaching makes a negative statement of the student's insufficiency. Kindness seeks to teach and to patiently endure the evil wickedness of other's niceness.

Jesus calls us to love our enemies, but He also assumes we have some. Niceness would rob us of the ability to love our enemies by refusing us the right to have any. But God calls us to be at enmity with the world with which we are engaged in loving.

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people." - G.K. Chesterton

Jesus assumes you will have neighbors and enemies by commanding us to love them. You can fix the problem of being tempted to hate your neighbor by not having any. You can move to an isolated place where there are no neighbors to hate or despise, but you cannot fulfill Jesus' commission by living on an island anymore than you can obey His will by living without enemies.

day no. 15,192: for which team do you scheme?

"Somebody is always up to something, and the rest of them are up to something else." - Douglas Wilson, Rez Zoh Looo Tion #9

Scheming is inescapable. If you're not up to one thing, you're up to another. If you're not trying to pull a fast one, you're trying to pull a slow one. But everyone is up to something... or something else.

So the question is not are you scheming to achieve something, but for which team do you scheme?

Ephesians 6:11
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

2 Corinthians 2:11
Satan might not outwit us... for we are not unaware of his schemes.

Job 5:12
God frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success.

1 Corinthians 3:19-20
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”

Acts 5:39
If it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.

Proverbs 21:30
No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the LORD.

day no. 15,191: no sin in the melanin

"I don’t need Jesus to forgive me for the things He did. I need Him to forgive me for the things that I did." - Douglas Wilson, Rez Zoh Looo Tion #9

Jesus chose my time, place and predicaments. He assigned my city, my parents, my epoch and my skin color. I do not need Him to forgive me for any of those. I need Him to forgive me for what I've done in my skin during my time in this city under my parent's roof.

In other words, whiteness is not a sin. Jesus made me white. White people can sin in their white skin, but there is no sin in the color of the skin itself. 

There is no sin in the melanin... or lack thereof.

To embrace a paradigm that impugns on the basis of pigment before any questions are asked is to return to a time where a man was not judged by the content of his character, but by the color of his skin, a time I thought we were all happily beyond.

day no, 15,190: prayer has a history

"Prayer has a history, written in God's Word and recorded in the experiences and lives of God's saints. History is truth teaching by example." - E. M. Bounds

The Bible records history. It is not merely a collection of assorted moral anecdotal polemics. In its pages we observe God's people praying. We see what it looked like for them to talk to God and for Him to talk back. Prayer, therefore, as E.M. Bounds points out, has a history. A concrete, objective, recordable, relatable history. 

When we pray, we do something our brothers and sisters in the faith have been doing from the beginning. It isn't something we invented or something we're left alone to figure out. We can look back and see how it was done, how it worked, what it did, when it was done, etc... 

Faith has a history. It is not a subjective, slippery specter on to which one can only pass through and at best hope for a chilly feeling. It is real, concrete, objective and it produces real fruit... a harvest you can handle, count, touch and taste and see that the Lord is God and good.

day no. 15,189: thanksgiving throwing stars and gratitude grenades

1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Thanksgiving is a war fought not only on the fourth Thursday of each November, but each day in every circumstance. It is fought daily by grace through faith with thanksgiving throwing stars and gratitude grenades.

day no. 15,188: culture wars require culture bullets

"If you want a naval war, you have to build ships, and if you want a culture war, you have to build a culture." -- Douglas Wilson, Same-Sex Mirage: Phantasmagoria at the Altar & Some Biblical Responses

In the last few years, my wife and I have began being very intentional about creating a culture under our roof and in our family. From lighting candles for ambiance to diffusing oils for aromatic atmosphere, from liturgical observances determining our calendars to after dinner story club becoming a family staple, we are doing things intentionally in order to make being a Van Voorst mean something.

We are working hard to create a culture, a compelling one which will go to war and provide artillery for when alternate cultures make their pitch. The goal is to cultivate such a robust, meaningful, substantive, merry culture in our home and among our family that any other would naturally suffer defeat. We are doing our best to prepare our family for war. We aren't just sitting back in resignation hoping the enemy won't fire on us, but manufacturing bullets and explosives which will do damage to opposing worldviews and cultures.

Culture wars require culture bullets.

People will have culture, it is inevitable. When cultures collide, one of them will give way. We are building a culture in our family in order to destroy those that would come against it or resist it as it spreads like yeast for the glory of our God, the good of our neighbors and the growth of our members.

day no. 15,187: whose likeness and inscription does it have?

Luke 20:19-26
The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar's.” He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent.

Jesus asked whose image was on a coin. It was easy to see. The face of Caesar stared back at yours. That being the case, his image being on it, render it back to him as he requires. His image impressed upon it implies his ability to impose upon it as well. Caesar's will should prevail upon your purse because the coins were made by his will and in his image.

That said, whose image do we bear? God's! We are made in the image and likeness of God and our DNA is His signature. It is easy to see the work of God staring back at you when you look at your neighbor or catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. That being the case, His image being on us, render it back to Him as He requires. His image impressed upon us implies His ability to impose upon us as well. His will should prevail upon us because we were made by His will and in His image.

Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

If all Caesar wants from you is some of your money, then give it to him. God requires all of you. Caesar's only interest is his coffer, God's interest is His Kingdom and your inclusion therein. Giving Caesar 20 cents on the dollar is nothing compared to giving God your entire life and livelihood. That said, it does say something about Caesar that he would ask for 20 percent of your earnings when God only requires 10. Just who does this Caesar think he is? The answer mathematically obvious.

day no. 15,186: homiletical help, week 10: more than mere communicators

Good morning men of God,

As preachers, we must communicate. But as preachers, we must do more than merely communicate. Communication is required in order to preach, but to preach one must do more than just communicate.

We are tour guides through the text, but not merely tour guides. We should be able to make observations and point to scenery and landmarks of particular interest, but we have to do more than merely point out what may have been missed.

Preaching is all that public speaking is... and more. To preach well, one must consider all the demands: winsomeness, articulation, volume, pace, tone, story, tension, truth, tenacity, authenticity, thunder and lightening, boom and brightness, shock and illumination.

As you look ahead to your next preaching assignment, try to consider what you normally overlook. If you gravitate towards comedy, consider careful exegesis. If you drift to word studies, consider anecdotes that illustrate what the words mean.

We must be able to say what God has said and we must consider how God has gone about saying what He has said. 

day no. 15,185: better off for having been broken

"The woman is receptive and does not place anything within the man, just as Christ gives us
himself while we can give nothing to Christ in return." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

Ephesians 5:31-32
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Marriage is meant as a metaphor to point us to the greater spiritual reality of God's plan revealed to us in Christ and His church. This has always been the meaning of marriage as evidenced by Genesis 2:24 being the foundation of Paul's appeal in the verses above.

In marriage, the creation and design for men and women is observed in their one flesh relationship. Man was made first. Man was then broken and the women was made. She was then brought back to the man and they were reunited. In other words, Adam was put to sleep and his rib was removed from him, but then his rib was made into a woman and brought back to him. So in the end, Adam has his rib back, but the oneness he has as a result of being broken is better than the oneness he had prior to it. He is one again, but better off for having been broken. The rib is better as a woman than it was as a rib.

And so in similar vein, God speaks ex nihilo and makes not god. He creates distinction. He takes something of out His mind and breaks it off into something else, something not god, the high water mark of distinction following light and not light, day and not day, water and not water, and man and not man. He then brings the man back into relation with Himself by being broken in Christ. And the oneness achieved through the brokenness of Jesus is somehow better than the oneness of the created state of walking with God in the garden. Then God was with them in harmony, now there is harmony, but also unity with His Spirit residing inside the ones He walks with. 

The sexual act is a metaphor of this reality. It is the principle incarnate. The man enters into the woman, he plants his seed in her. In her a child is fertilized, matured, nourished and delivered and then that child is brought back to the father and united back to him, somehow better for having been separated. The women experiences a complementary version of the same coin. She receives the man, and something new happens inside her. It grows in her and along with her and she ultimately endures much pain and difficulty in bringing it to full maturity. Once born, it's cord is cut, but it's body is returned to her to nurse, somehow closer for having been made separated with the second union being closer than the one they enjoyed during gestation. 

day no. 15,184: my strength now is as my strength was then

Joshua 14:9-12
"And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”

This speech was given by eighty-five year old Caleb. His name meant, "dog," and I want to be like him when I grow up. At the age of forty, he was strong and brave and full of faith. Forty-five years later at the age of eighty-five, he is still strong and brave and full of faith.

That is a goal worth pursuing, a life worth living, a life worth giving up. Caleb did not cherish his life by holding on to it safely, but loved his life by putting it on the line and putting himself in God's hands. Caleb ran to the danger and as a result, he lived. He stayed strong. He stayed brave. Eighty-five years well spent and a faith that did not live only bound up in his past pursuits, but lived strong in his present resolve. 

May God grant me the same faith, strength and bravery. May I spend my current strength by grace through faith in believing courageously in Your promises only to find myself later filled and stronger, more faithful, still courageous, and sustained by grace upon grace.

My strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. 

This should be the battle cry of Christian grandparents and young Christian men.
This is the target - a faith that perseveres and declares, "give me this hill!" for the glory of God and the good of men.

My sons, I pray this for you and your sons specifically.
My daughters, I pray for your husbands and sons to be of this brand.

May God fill us with faith and faithfulness, strength and service that gives vision to our future destination and vigor for our present situation. May we pursue this wholeheartedly and be granted the grace of being just as strong by grace in faith forty-five years from now. May we live long by placing our lives daily on the line. May we not try to live forever by protecting our lives, but live forever by dying to ourselves. 

It is my prayer that each one of us, to the man, would stand forty-five years from now, like our brother Caleb, and say, "My strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming."


And Amen!

day no. 15,183: if you want to hear God, "shut up!"

Last night (11/21/19) while talking to my children over dinner, we discussed the following ideas...

The reason why many people can't hear God speak is because they talk too much.

Revelation 8:1
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

God's voice often appears in the form of a still small voice. It is easy to miss if you aren't used to listening for it.

1 Kings 19:11-13 
And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

In other words, if you want to hear God, "Shut up!"

Ecclesiastes 5:1-2
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Are you silent enough to hear from God? It's hard to hear someone else's voice when you're doing all the speaking.

day no. 15,182: hit hard or don't hit

On my jog home from work the other night (11/21/19), I pondered the following proverbial wisdom...

If you must throw a punch, you must also land it.
If you have decided to hit, you must also decide to hit as hard as you can.

There is no point in soft hitting.
Either hit hard or don't hit.

Never hit first, always hit hard.

If you decide to fight,
you must also decide to win.

If it's worth fighting for, it's worth killing and dying for.

In order to be right,
you must be willing to be wrong.

Right cannot exist if wrong is not an option.
And if it is an option, some assuredly will choose it.

If you are unwilling to be called wrong,
you will be wrong without being called it.

day no. 15,181: the fathers of future kings

"Like trees, plants, animals, and many other living things of creation, we have a deposit of seeds that when 'planted' become separate creations after our own kind. In a very real sense, sons and daughters exist within us which means we carry them before a woman does. The profoundness of this is fascinating" -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

Men who raise their sons in the discipline and instruction of the Lord are grooming future kings. In our person, we carry the future rulers of the world. We have been given the responsibility to rule well within our lifetime in order to ensure that the future rulers of the world will rule with eternity in mind.

"A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants." - Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay (aka T.B. Macaulay)

If we fail to recognize the part God has gifted us to play in the ongoing conquest of His world by His decree through His saints by His grace through our faith in His Son and by the power of His Holy Spirit, we will fail our forefathers and our grandchildren. We love our great grandchildren by respecting our great grandfathers. 

Genesis 35:11
And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body."

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke

day no. 15,180: mostly dead

O Lord, there is much ill about me – crucify it,
much flesh within me – mortify it.
Purge me from selfishness,
the fear of man, the love of approbation,
the shame of being thought old fashioned,
the desire to be cultivated or modern.
Let me reckon my old life dead
because of crucifixion,
and never feed it as a living thing.
- Valley of Vision

You do not ration your bread for the dead. Setting aside food for ghouls is absurd. Food is for the living in order to keep them alive. Once someone is dead, they no longer need bread.

You've perhaps heard it said that if you have two dogs in your backyard, a good one and a bad one, you can expect the one you feed more to dominate the other. This anecdote is used often to describe our good habits and bad habits in order to emphasize the point that the habits that get our care, attention and affection are the ones that grow bigger and stronger and presupposes the two dogs don't get along. In other words, one will dominate and impose its will upon the other.

If you keep throwing care, attention and affection at your old man, you are giving life-giving bread to the dead part of you. You are trying to resurrect the evil dead within you. If you feed it like it's alive, you may discover the undead walking within you. Do not throw your bread at the dead inside you and be shocked to discover it was only mostly dead.

day no. 15,179: the responsibility of blessings and curses

"Men are held responsible for their children. The Law of God taught that the sins of fathers, not mothers, could be carried on as curses to the third and fourth generations, but fathers who trusted the Lord, obeyed him, and walked in his ways would bring forth blessed children even to a thousand generations. Likewise, men are held responsible by God for their wives’ actions." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

The sins of fathers carry three to four generations. While mothers certainly can and do contribute to the avalanche of sin, it is the fathers who are held responsible for it. Likewise, the blessings of the fathers are carried on to a thousand generations. While mothers certainly can and do contribute to this blessed inheritance, it is the fathers who are held responsible for it.

Exodus 34:6-7
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

The fact that sin only travels three to four generations is evidence for the grace of God in restricting its influence. Whereas the promise of blessing infecting thousands of generations is evidence for the grace of God in expanding its influence.

To put that in better perspective, in the history of the world, to date, there has not yet existed a thousand generations. The world has not known a single thousand, let alone thousands plural. Oh, what grace God has in store for those who love Him and follow His ways.

Psalm 16:11
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

day no. 15,178: dairy, queen of scots

The Blizzard of Knox-bane

day no. 15,177: night watchman as wet nurses

"You don’t normally talk of 'strong women of valor' or 'graceful men of beauty.' Of course you can give an infant to a man to nurse and a M107 .50-caliber sniper rifle to a woman to take out an insurgent, but it would not be according to the best wisdom would it? The fit is much more appropriate the other way around and not only that, things work out better for both....God’s order of creation is patently clear. When men and women follow it they are better off and stronger as a people. When they do not follow it they compromise their integrity and end up weaker as a people." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

When we refuse to man our stations, we leave ourselves open to attack and fail to fulfill the responsibilities of the station we ran off to. When the night watchman opts to be the wet nurse, the baby is less safe by two. The city is under protected and the child is under nourished. There is nothing a man can naturally produce to protect the child's need for nourishment. There is something a man can do naturally to protect the child, however. Return to the watch tower and keep the mother safe. Men participate in nursing the babies by using their strength to keep their mothers safe. Women participate in protecting the city by nursing the boys that will grow up to be strong enough to protect the city.

Luke 11:27
“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”

day no. 15,176: muscle alone do not a man maketh

1 Timothy 5:8
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

"It is never to the shame of women to expect their men to stand up, take initiative, lead, provide, and fight for justice, peace,righteousness, and fidelity. However, for those men who sit idly by and let their women do all the dirty and bloody work of providing and protecting them, it is to their shame." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

The heart of a man desires to take care of those for whom he has been given responsibility. He orients his strength and circumstances around doing whatever it is he can do to take care of those who call to him, "Dad," or "Husband," or "Boss," or "Leader."

If he doesn't, he is not a man. No matter what he says, no matter how many initials follow his name on his business card or email signature, he is not a man. He may be many things, but a man he is not.

Muscle alone does not a man maketh. It's to what end they flex that matters most. For whom do they toil and for what they weary themselves. Being strong in the wrong direction is double weakness since it is not only wrong, but really wrong.

day no. 15,175 continued... a mother's day meditation

In the beginning, God made man from the dirt of the garden. He fashion and formed him from the earth and breathed life into him. When no suitable helper could be found for Adam after naming the many animals God put Adam to sleep and removed his rib and fashioned it into a woman. So God made a woman from the rib of a man who was made from the dust of the garden. He then placed a garden within this woman and united her to her husband. The man made from the garden was married to the woman made from man who had a garden within her. The earth was broken in order to produce a man to which it was reunited and the man was broken in order to produce a woman to whom he was reunited.

When Adam sinned in listening to the voice of the woman instead of the clear instruction previously received directly from His Father in heaven, the earthly garden was plunged into destruction and sin. The earth and everything in it, the world and all those who would dwell therein would feel the repercussions of the Fall. When God began describing the ramifications, He also explained how motherhood and the garden within the woman would be critical in the restoration of all things. The womaned garden played a key role in the fall of the world and she would play a key role in its resurrection. God began by cursing the serpent for his role in deceiving the woman and bringing his deceit into the garden of Eden and the garden of the woman. And since he did, he was cursed to crawl on his belly on the physical dirt and to ultimately be crushed underfoot of the seed planted in the garden in the woman. Motherhood would be required to reverse the curse. The garden inside the woman would be the birthplace from which the fruit of righteousness and reconciliation would bloom. 

Yet the garden within the woman would also experience the effects of the Fall. Her pain in childbearing would now be multiplied. Mind you multiplication requires a pre-existing condition implying child-bearing was never going to be a painless endeavor. Her pain was to be multiplied and increased as a result of sin, not invented. Zero times anything is still zero and one times anything is merely just itself in addition. Multiplication implies a level of pain which can be multiplied. So motherhood was always meant to involve sacrificial pain being born on behalf of the other being born. Mothers were called to be a messiah of sorts before the Fall, enduring difficulty on behalf of another to bring forth new life. But this pain was only increased and multiplied at the point of the garden within as a result of falling in the garden without.

On an aside, this in some ways raises at least a elementary case for raising up at least three seeds if God should allow. When two become one and produce only one, the earth's population decreases. When two become one to produce two, the earth's population is replaced. But when two become one to produce three or more, the earth's population is multiplied and increased as a result of the two becoming one. Multiplication is produced through oneness when three or more are cultivated from the garden within the women of the man of the garden.

Adam's curse involved the ground from which he came in like fashion increasing in difficulty. It would now bear thorns and thistles and be more difficulty to work with. The garden would not produce fruit without increased suffering on behalf of the man. The garden would not give up its goodness without increased and multiplied labor. Labor and sweat were required in any event, but the amount of sweat and toil now required was increased. This applied to the ground from which Adam was taken and to the ground which now resided inside the woman who was taken from Adam's side. The amount of energy and adversity experienced in bringing up and raising godly seed from within the garden inside the woman was going to be more complicated this side of sin.

Yet in all of this motherhood would prevail. God promised it. The seed of the women would crush the seed of the serpent. And Adam believed God's promise. To this point, the woman was merely "woman." Adam had named her as he had named the lions, tigers and bears. They were named as a class or species, but not as individuals. Adam did not name the lion Aslan, the tiger Tony or the bear Smokey.  In keeping, he had named the woman simply woman because she was taken from man. But here he names her personally in response to all that has happened. And the name he gave her was, "Eve" which means the mother of the living. He recognized her garden and named her in keeping with her role in the redemptive history of the world according to God's prophesy of how the story would end. He could have named her the mother of all the dead for as a result of her sin and the Fall of man in Adam, everyone who would ever die would come through her garden within. Every seed planted there would die. But Adam believed God's promise that all flowers that die and go to seed will be resurrected in God's promises which we are told are all Yes in Jesus. In Christ, the seed of the women, the son of Eve, the serpent would be crushed. 

And so it is that Paul the apostle points out that women shall be saved by childbearing in that the Son of Man was produced by the simple obedience of motherhood. If women had neglected or rejected their high calling, the seed would not have a place to grow. If women had not given themselves to be gardens of life, they would become deserts of death, barren and dry. But through gardens planted in women, seeds were born and raised that grew up to plant seeds in other gardens until the Seed was born and raised that would put an end to the serpent's onslaught and reclaim the garden for God's glory. 

After the Fall, Adam and Ever were kicked out of the Garden until the garden within the woman would produce the Seed that would re-open the garden gates. Our entrance back to the garden was only by God's design able to be opened by way of the garden within women. And so woman's role in the Fall of man is eclipsed by her role in the redemption of man. As the woman's sin made way for Adam to Fall, the woman's Son made way for Adam to rise. The womaned garden played a key role in being evicted from God's garden and the womaned garden played a key role in being invited back into God's garden.

So Happy Mother's Day! The Gospel of God is on full display in this high calling. Through moms, He has made salvation possible and united her garden within back to His Garden in the beginning so that in the end those in her Seed shall be welcomed back to the Garden.

day no. 15,175: when men are the manure

Jeremiah 9:20-22
Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,
and let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
teach to your daughters a lament,
and each to her neighbor a dirge.
For death has come up into our windows;
it has entered our palaces,
cutting off the children from the streets
and the young men from the squares.
Speak: “Thus declares the Lord,
‘The dead bodies of men shall fall
like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves after the reaper,
and none shall gather them.’”

When we reach a place where the best parts of men are only those which they share in common with women, we toss the husk to the ground. If the only nutritive value men possess is that which is already possessed by women, the rest is expendable. Ring out the good stuff and void the rest. No reason to provide a proper burial, what remains is meant to be trampled under foot, left in a field, and forgotten.

If we decide that the defining qualities of a man are merely what they share with women, the rest can easily be dismissed. 

But if we agree with God that masculinity is the glory the Lord, then we will lament when it is cast off and treated like manure. When feminism wins, we should wail. Where egalitarianism dominates, we need a dirge.

If we cut masculinity off of men, we all end up cut off. We do not improve the man by removing his masculinity, we rob him of what it means to be a man. When we celebrate effeminacy, we emaciate masculinity. We keep the parts and change the pants. We reduce a man to his privates in order to make him more presentable in public. 

This, mind you, only works if the public has been convinced that femininity must prevail, a thing true, Biblical femininity would never desire.

day no. 15,174: cowardice is a sin conspicuous to men

"It is hardly fitting to call a woman a coward, is it not? Any nation that would ever send its women or children to battle instead of its men would be derided by others as a nation of cowards. However, a nation that rallies its men to fight for their women, children, and homes would be regarded as an honorable nation. Nehemiah, a revered leader of Scripture, gave an honorable war-cry when he cried out to the men, 'Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes!' (Neh 4:14) Cowardice is a sin that is very specific to men." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

A woman who stays home from the fight cannot be accused of cowardice. If she is scared, she is excused. If she isn't, she is an exception. But she should not seek an opportunity to fight. That would turn an agent of life into an agent of death. It boils the kid in the mother's milk. It is unnatural and eerie. It turns nature on its head by turning mothers into murderers. 

Cowardice is a sin conspicuous to men

Any man who congratulates himself for his courageous appreciation of women in uniform degrades himself. He celebrates his own cowardice and proudly boasts of his timidity. He upends the universe by assaulting that which no culture has ever embraced.

You cannot in clean conscience before God and man salute spinelessness; you cannot applaud apathy or congratulate cowardice.

day no. 15,173: giving the middle finger to manhood

"Instead of desiring to grow up into self-sacrificial, self-controlled, hard-working, reliable men, it seems we are instead more interested in playing, feeding our lusts, and flipping off our future." -- Matthew Pennock, As a Man Is so Is His Strength

Men are in trouble.

There are few things less en vogue than being a man. Toxic masculinity is simply shorthand for a hatred of anything remotely masculine. All that trends "Y" is met with resistance. Being a man is so unpopular, in fact, that even many men don't want to be one. They prefer, instead, to stay boys; and some, alarmingly, want to become women. The reason this is alarming is because men, by nature, have typically been quite competitive; and there's nothing a man is worse at than being a women unless, of course, he isn't into competition; in which case he is well on his way to becoming one.

Jeremiah 51:30
The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting; they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed; they have become women; her dwellings are on fire; her bars are broken.

day no. 15,172: in peacetime, prepare!

"Everything we do in peacetime should prepare us for combat. Our preparation for combat depends upon training and education that develop the action and thought essential to battle." -- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Combat begins before the bullets fly. If you wait until you're under attack to prepare for battle, someone else will be preparing your body for interment. Peacetime is the place to prepare for war. It is the time to practice, to run drills, to prepare, to plan, to be proactive, to define your priorities and organize your paths to pursue them so that when another attempts to impose their priorities upon you or to prevail upon you, you are proven ready to defend and to diffuse the importunity. 

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

If the plan is simply, "hope they don't attack," you should plan on watching someone else raise your children, date your wife and live their priorities in the places where you have failed to live yours. If you do not operate in correspondence with your priorities, it will not leave a vacuum. Your time, talents, and resources will be determined by someone else's priorities. Your life will be led by the imposition of someone else, yet in the end, God will hold you responsible.

Ezekiel 18:20
The soul who sins shall die.

If you sin by pursuing unworthy priorities, you will suffer for it. If you suffer under the priorities of others, you prove yourself unworthy.

You will either die for what's worth living or you will live for what deserves death.

day no. 15,171: initiative is learned and earned

"Damaging a leader's self-esteem, especially in public, therefore should be strictly avoided. A leader's self-confidence is the wellspring from which flows the willingness to assume responsibility and exercise initiative." -- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

If you want to develop leaders, you have to let them lead. You can't train them to be responsible for something else by routinely robbing them of the opportunity to own anything before they are turned lose to own something in particular.

That said, emerging leaders, as the name implies, have not yet arrived. They are still, emerging. But that also means they aren't where they used to be and are going somewhere you're excited to see them venture. 

So how do you manage the tension of giving them real responsibility without giving them the keys to a vehicle they don't yet know how to drive or fully appreciate the damage that could be caused by poor decisions? 

This same tension is presented in parenting. How do you fan into flame the desire to aspire while correcting the mistakes and shaping their energy? If you turn them lose without direction, they will fail. If you suffocate them with critique, they will burn out. So how do you stoke a flame without letting it burn everything down? How do you keep the arrow flaming without burning your fingers so badly that you can no longer aim it?

2 Timothy 2:2
What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

This requires wisdom. You want to give emerging leaders real responsibility, but not so much that it crushes their ability to emerge.

One way to do this, is to give them low stakes responsibilities. These are things for which they are given real sway, but things which if they were to go wrong wouldn't do much damage. As they grow in discernment and comfort in handling freedom and responsibility, you can pile on more responsibility quantitatively and qualitatively. The responsibilities can become more numerous and more meaningful. The stakes can be raised and the slice of the pie can be increased. This allows the leader in training to exercise initiative enough to grow it.

If you give them too much responsibility too early, they will hurt themselves, perhaps damage their confidence in decision-making or damage their ability to make future decisions by allowing them to be exposed to consequences greater in proportion than their ability to navigate. In other words, allowing them to experience over-confidence too early may inhibit their ability to have any confidence down the road.

In order to give someone else the gift of initiative, you must take the initiative without squashing theirs. It's a trick worth learning and if you have it, someone spent themselves in order to help you obtain it.

Initiative is learned and earned.

day no. 15,170: artificial unsweetener

"Training should also prepare Marines for the uniquely physical nature of combat. Living and caring for themselves in a spartan environment, confronting the natural elements, and experiencing the discomfort of being hungry, thirsty, and tired are as essential in preparing for combat duty as any skills training. The point is not to train individuals on how to be miserable, but rather on how to be effective when miserable or exhausted." 
-- MCDP 1-3: Tactics

Training is the intentional injection of artificial adversity to prepare yourself to better tolerate the actual adversities injected into your life by circumstances. Being prepared to endure difficulty makes it more likely that you will survive the hardships that you encounter. It also increases the likelihood that you will head intentionally into difficulties you might otherwise avoid , especially when they could produce progress in keeping with your priorities. The goal of experiencing voluntary, self-imposed adversity is not to develop a particular enjoyment of difficulty, but rather to develop a character of endurance in the midst of adversity. If you can regularly grind it out when it is artificial, you will be able to rise up and grind it out when it's all on the line.

In other words, I like to add a little artificial unsweetener to my life. It deepens my appreciation of the good things I have and increases my ability to endure the hard things I have no say in. It assists in the embrace of the hard things that accompany a productive life. More oxen, more ox dung. (Pr 14:4)

In keeping with this, I've adopted the regular habits of intermittent fasting in order to learn how to be hungry and happy, cold showers in order to learn how to be inconvenienced and content, and walking to work with weights in my backpack in order to learn how to carry a load when I don't care to. Additionally, walking to work exposes me to whatever elements the day proposes, removes my ability to set the thermostat of my life and teaches me to endure the climate God chooses.

I don't want to be thermostatic or thermocentric. I don't want to be only able to live at 70 degrees. I don't want my life to revolve around getting everything to 70. I want to be effective in whatever environment and adversities God decides.

day no. 15,169: all-out effort

First things first: May the Voorst be with you. That said, let's do some bloggin'

"A commander must accustom his staff to a high tempo from the outset, and continuously keep them up to it. If he once allows himself to be satisfied with norms, or anything less than an all-out effort, he gives up the race from the starting post, and will sooner or later be taught a bitter lesson." -- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Godly leaders must keep a sense of "giddy up" before their people. Sanctification is a lifelong process and a holy discontentment with personal holiness should be present in those running hard after God. The goal should be to hit the finish line with your chest, to be in stride, going hard, every yard until Christ returns or our race comes to an end. 

God is worth our all-out effort. We cannot flatter Him. We cannot heap up any amount of praise that He would not deserve. We cannot out give what He has provided. We cannot serve more than He is worth. No amount of pouring out will ever be out of proportion to what He has poured in. If we become content with what we've already given, already achieved, already said, already did... we are beginning to step in the wrong direction. To imagine oneself in such a place is to be deceived.

We are called to an all-out life, to leave it all out there, on the field, for King and Kingdom, our neighbor's good and our continued growth and glorification.

Philippians 3:12-16
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

day no. 15,168: a wrested development

Genesis 32:22-32 
The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

Jacob's name meant "deceiver/heel grabber." His identity was connected to his proximity to his sin and for most of his life the distance between the two was quite minimal. But here God gives him a new identity, "Israel", which means "wrestles/struggles with God." This new identity is not based on how close he is to sin, but how close he is to God. Wrestling requires contact and on this night he came into contact with God Almighty.

Previously, Jacob was defined by his sins. He was a liar and a deceiver; and even if he walked away from that past, he was merely "less deceitful." That is to say, his orientation was still centered around sin. He was defined by how near or far from sin he was as his life orbited by definition around his sin.That is until this night. On this night, he came into contact with God and was given a new way of seeing himself, a new orientation, a new orbit, a life defined by his distance from God and on this night, the distance was nonexistent. He was so close to God that he was in constant contact with Him. That is his new identity: nearness to God.

And yet, he did not come away from that closeness unscathed. No one ever does. No one who comes into contact with God walks away with a strut. If your life is defined by your distance from sin, you may find yourself strutting around due to the distance you've placed between yourself and your sins, but no one who defines themselves by their proximity to God walks around like they own the place. They know the One whose Name is on the title and deed. He is the owner of the world and everything in it, including them. The paperwork has been filed with Heaven's DMV, the local church. He is registered now as a new vehicle, under new ownership with a new name on the title of his life, transferable on death to the hope of resurrection alone.