q & a

John 6:28-29

Q: ²⁸ Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

A: ²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

You cannot do the works of God. 
Only God works.
God accomplishes His work on His own. 
Do you believe this? 
Do you believe in the One who does all of this?

John 6:44

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

the profundity of four-year-old orthodoxy and orthopraxy

On our trip to South Carolina, two moments stick out to me with regard to my son, Atticus.

Scene 1: Orthopraxy

In the lobby of the hotel one morning during breakfast I asked him to sit in his seat.  I instructed him not to get down from it as I was going to get a refill of free biscuits and gravy (cheap is free after all).  While I was getting more biscuits and ladling gravy, Atticus' grandmother (my wife's mother), arrived in the lobby from her room unaware of the previous edict issued by me and asked Atticus to get down from his seat and to come and sit on her lap.  He responded, "No, daddy told me to stay right here and not move."

Atticus obeyed the voice and command of his father.  The challenge to my command came from someone he trusts and loves.  They were not wooing him to disobey out of malice, but out of a natural desire to be near to him.  Atticus discerned the situation and chose to obey my original command.  He listened to the words of his father and obeyed them in the face of an alternate plea.  He chose to be relationally near by honoring me.

This event produced in me one of the deepest and most appreciative senses of honor and respect I have ever enjoyed. What a joy to hear my son honor me over everyone else. I had not even issued the command with a hint of suspicion that he may disobey it.  I had not discerned any challenges that would likely come from outside.  I had only anticipated perhaps his own desire to wiggle off the chair as on obstacle to his obeying my desires for him.  But he respected my wishes.  He demonstrated love for me.  My heart grew two times that day.  Poor Atticus and his grinch of a dad. But that's another story. Literally.

Scene 2: Orthodoxy

Atticus asked Paige and I why Jesus didn't get married when we were travelling down to South Carolina.  Paige explained that when people get married they become one flesh and come together to represent God in a unique way in which neither of them in their own right could do.  Since Jesus was God, He had no reason to be married.  He already fully represented God because He was God.  There was no reason why He would need to be married and nothing He could gain from being married as a human. Additionally, but not secondly, the Bible does not report Jesus ever being or planning on being married.  That is less a commentary on marriage and more ac ommentary on Jesus. 

On the way home from South Carolina, Penelope was in the backseat singing "John 3:16" by the Rizers.  Atticus told Penelope to stop singing when she said that "God gave His only Son."  His reason?  He retorted, "God did not have a Son. God was NOT married."

Atticus put some very important pieces of information together in his own mind by his creativity and God's grace.

(1) Most people get married
(2) Jesus was not married
(3) Only married people have children.
(3) Jesus was not married
(4) Jesus was God.
(5) God could not have a Son.

While theologically a mess, Atticus did, however, rightly use his logic and understanding to draw these conclusions.  We both applauded his logical conclusion and then drilled deeper with Atticus to mine out meatier theology to explain why God was not married, but had a Son.

My heart swelled with joy in the realization that he is hearing truth and adapting it to a worldview in which God should not be spoken of wrongly by anyone.  If Penelope is singing songs that promote false doctrine, he should shut her down.  Also, married people have kids.  Only married people should be coming together as one flesh.  Jesus was never married because He was fully God.  No human could complete Jesus. Jesus was God. No single person was the source of His pursuit. He came for more than one earthly bride.  He came to purchase the Church and prepare for her white clothes to wear as His bride.

I love being a dad. 
I adore it.

I love theology.
I adore Jesus.

I love my kids and the chance to tell them about the God I love.
What a blessed opportunity.

Thank You, Jesus for the chance to learn more about You and appreciate You more as I live my life before You.  May my kids understand early on the glory You earned and deserve.  May they appreciate how far short of offering this right sacrifice they fall.  May the Gospel swoop into their hearts and resurrect their dead hearts to life and rebirth them as children into Your Kingdom.  May they inherit a Kingdom of peace and joy-filled, faithful living.  May they inherit Your blessings.  May they humbly receive their justification FROM You and be delivered from the tyranny of attempting to achieve it on their own merit.

todd: not God

In all honesty, I would run things very differently if I were in charge.

That is not, as it could appear, an indictment against God and His plans, but rather a powerful verification and reminder of my sin and pride.

Our ways are not God’s ways.

I would make a bad despot.
But in that, I'm in good company I guess.
Name the last "good" despot after all.

interview with a satire‏

A group of strangers all gathered together. We all know why we are here. None of us knows what exactly is about to happen. We all have prepared ourselves as best as we can. We have thought through what we imagine may happen next. We have determined our best strategy available to us. We have considered our strengths. We have tried to think of reasons why our faults are excusable or redeemable. We are all ready. But none of us know if our preparation will pay off. Some have more confidence than others. Some have faith. Some have robust resumes. Some have reason to think they may have an "in." Others worry that someone else may have an "in" that they don't. We are equals in one sense. We are equally unique and we all must face our assessor soon.

A sense of excitement and anxiety overcomes us as we wait to hear or name. What will he ask? What will he say? Will he like our response? Will we find his favor?

And in all of this my mind gravitated toward the judgment of God. I imagined standing next to a long line of people all preparing for the interview of and for their very lives. Not for a job, but for a judgment.

I pray on that day I have faith enough to lean entirely upon Jesus. The temptation will be to rely, even in part, on my resume. In that moment, I do not think I will want to have earned it as much as I will be tempted to doubt that it rests only and solely on Jesus. God will certainly require of me an explanation of my deeds and words. I know I may have reasons for them. I know for some I will have no excuse. May that day demonstrate that Jesus is entirely enough for anyone who on Him will fully rely. May I be found in that camp. May the fear produced by grace be relieved by that grace revealing the Son's sufficiency.

Not only in theory.

But for me.

thoughts from "Shake it Out" by Florence + the Machine‏

I have not investigated what Florence and her machine say about this song, but I have spent a lot of time listening to it.

You can listen to it HERE.

So if what she intended and what I interpreted are two different things, go with her explanation with regard to what the song is supposed to communicate, but go with me now while I explain what it means to me.

Below are some lyrics selected from “Shake it Out”

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn
And I've been a fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind

I can see no way, I can see no way

I'm always dragging that horse around
Our love is questioned, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn
But it's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat

'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to me, yeah

The imagery of sin is strong in this song. Both in surrender to it and desire to be free from it. The desire to have been better than we know we have been and to be worse now than we wish we were. To not only be the person that did that horrible thing, but to be the kind of person that would do that thing again. Not merely being haunted by past mistakes, but presently realizing that the mistakes were not the biggest problem. If I find myself covered in grime, I am disgusted by the state I have let myself go, but also must face the fact that even if I get cleaned up, I am the type of person who gravitates toward grime.

“I can see no way, I can see no way”

What I want is frustrated by who I am.

Who I am is frustrated by what I want.

I have wanted different things.

Things that cannot both be.

I have desired the heavenlies.

I have played in the gutters.

I can see no way around myself.

I am at the end of myself.

I can see no way.

It is impossible.

Help me!

Somebody, please.

If it is possible, it has to be from someone and somewhere else.

“But it's always darkest before the dawn”

The conditions that make possible the abandonment of guilt first require guilt to be impressed to its fullest. True repentance comes at the cost of being exposed to that which is really wrong. Prior to that, we are merely managing behavior and playing at progress all the while perishing under performance.

If by grace God grants us a vision of ourselves without Him, our response is to believe for the first time how fully our depravity distances us from Him. Grace teaches our heart to fear.

But, grace, our fear, relieves.

“And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back”

We were made to dance.

More often than not we dance with the devil.

When we want to dance with Deity, the devil demurs.

We learn to dance with a devil on our back.

It does not look like the dancing we’d like to do, but it’s better than desisting from dancing.

In Christ we can be free from the devil’s damning accusations.

Jesus cuts off the horse we have been dragging around.

In Christ we can dance before Him: joyfully and freely.

Jesus sets our feet to do that which they were created.

“Looking for heaven, found the devil in me”

When I look to who I want to be, I see who I am.

When I look to where I want to go, I see where I’ve been.

When I look to Who is where I want to go, I see that I do not belong there with Him.

The problem is finally centralized. It is not just that I have a devil on my back that is my greatest deterrent. It is that the devil is in me. It’s not that evil has held me back. It’s that I am evil. It is the world, the flesh, and the Devil that oppose me and separate me from God. It is only God who can make up that distance.

It is only by God’s gift of Jesus that I may dance and do so with delight.

farm or fart?

Today's posting "fanatic or faithful" reminded me in its nuance of a game my wife and I play when we take trips back to NW IA to visit my parents.

Farm or Fart?

On our road trip to SC we did at one point play "Tennessee or Toot?" but that was short lived and not really a game because the answer was never "Tennessee."

fanatic or faithful?

Chambers pointed out a problem I often have this morning in My Utmost for His Highest
when he noted,

“Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God.  If you are a saint and say, “I will never do this or that,” in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you…The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life….It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.”

We are free to have preferences. We are free to have different preferences. Even within the body of Christ, there can be freedom to follow one’s convictions. The danger is not in being too free, it is in being too demanding. This takes place within two realms

1. With others – We can quickly become too demanding of others in attempting to enforce our preferences over their personality. We make into law something that is perhaps helpful to us, but not necessary for another. We make the mistake of assuming that everyone is like us. We make maxims from methods. If this is how we best get here or keep from going there, then anyone who tries another way is wrong. That is not to say that sometimes people really are right and others really are wrong. The point is that we often turn secondary matters into principled reasons for causing distraction and brokenness. We become fanatical about things we previously were not passionate. We fan into flame our passions and make them the barometer by which we judge others. We find one thing and make it everything. We make idols out of the one good thing we know when that one thing is not the One who made us.

2. With God – We develop an understanding of what we think God wants from us and devote ourselves entirely to it. We run with the nugget and abandon the mine. Abraham is a perfect example of abandoning a principle in order to embrace God. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. As difficult as this must have been, Abraham, by faith began early the next morning the steps to do what he heard the Word say. Abraham got all the way to the point of binding Isaac and placing him on a stone. Knife raised and conviction guiding his movements, he gathered himself and set his mind and body to following through with the outcome of his devotion to God’s command. "STOP!" Just then, when adrenaline and conviction were at their highest, God stopped Abraham and told him to unbind Isaac. God provided a ram which Abraham saw caught in a thicket. It required faith in God to abandon his course of action. Abraham demonstrates for us faith not only in the offering up of Isaac, but in the abandonment of his conviction. Imagine how strong that conviction had to be. Strong enough to offer up your only son. How committed must he have been? And to release even that to God. To listen. To stop. Abraham was not wrong to offer up Isaac. He could not have been more right. However, Abraham would have been wrong to kill Isaac after God said, “STOP!”

To be a fanatic, you need only to listen once.
To be faithful, you must listen daily.