day no. 15,500: to enjoy is to glorify

Again, while reading Piper's The Dangerous Duty of Delight, I came across a great quote,

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . . The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”
― C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Complimenting something complements its enjoyment. It is not as enjoyable to love something if you don't have the opportunity to tell someone else how much you love it. Expressing your delight in something only increases the delight. Sharing something good only increases how good you think it is.

"Christ is praised by being prized." -- John Piper, The Dangerous Duty of Delight

day no. 15,499 continued... weary, unwise and unmanly

Some mornings Scripture speaks to you right where you are. This morning was one of those mornings for me...

Proverbs 30:1-2

The man declares, I am weary, O God;

I am weary, O God, and worn out. 

Surely I am too stupid to be a man.

I have not the understanding of a man.

God have mercy on me: the weary and unwise and be for me strength and wisdom enough for today's troubles and to resist the temptation to waste time worrying about tomorrow's. 

Make me man enough.

Amen.

day no. 15,499: cheerful obedience

I came across the following quote while reading John Piper's The Dangerous Duty of Delight

“It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can.” 
-- C. S. Lewis in Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy

Some days prove harder to be happier than others, but it it nevertheless a Christian's duty to be as happy as they are able to be. Some days may be so hard that to be any happy at all will have been a hard fought victory. Working hard at being happy doesn't mean that Christians aren't allowed to be sad or that they are required to fake felecity for the sake of others. It simply means that joy is a command of God, not a suggestion. It is something we must feed, not something we merely consume. Something toward which we must aim ourselves, not merely wish to find ourselves.

day no. 15,498: one cannot live on capital forever

"Many people today who are atheist or agnostic in religion, are governed in their conduct by a code of Christian ethics which is so rooted in their unconscious assumptions that it never occurs to them to question it. But one cannot live on capital forever. A tradition, however firmly rooted, if it is never watered, though it dies hard, yet in the end it dies." -- Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning

Much of today's anarchy is benefactors of yesterday's order. But anything that can't go on forever... won't and insanity cannot sustain itself. Chaos can make hay with yesterday's sowing, but eventually it destroys everything and there's nothing left. To borrow a phrase they are so fond of, "it's not sustainable." You cannot pluck up everything someone else planted and expect there to be anything left if you don't plant any more. Insanity devours itself. Much of the freedom the United States enjoys was canned decades ago and the pantry is beginning to be sparse. You can only live off of yesterday's diligence so long before it becomes tomorrow's poverty. 

day no. 15,497: how to think

"We let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word... they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being masters of them in their intellect." — Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning

"It has been the great tragedy of our time that people were taught  to read and not taught to reason.” — G.K. Chesterton

If we will not do the difficult work of learning how to think, we will fall into the easy habit of feeling how to think.

day no. 15,496: in all respects a sinner

I was comforted while reading Clement's second letter the other day, when I read this,

2 Clement 18:1-2
Let us, therefore, be of those who give thanks, of those who have served God, and not of the ungodly who are judged. For I myself, being in all respects a sinner, and not having yet escaped temptation, but being still in the midst of the snares of the devil, yet endeavour to follow after righteousness, that I may be able, at any rate, to be near it, fearing the judgment to come.

In the confession of the saints, I see camaraderie. They too, were sinners, but sinners striving to live in light of their salvation. They were not complacent with their sin, but striving against it, yet confident in Christ to believe themselves saved while still sinning. And it's not as though Clement here is merely confessing to a particular character flaw of some insignificant manner, but rather to the fact that he is a sinner in all respects. In word, thought and deed he falls short and by grace strives in gratitude to honor Christ for having saved a sinner like himself. Amen, brother.

day no. 15,495: my wife at 35

Happy Birthday, Paige Van Voorst!

Thirty-five times you have been at this place. You were born at this very spot in the universe. The mile marker of your point of entry is right here waiting for you. This is where the world was when your lungs took in its air for the very first time.

While this birthday puts you on the fence of forty, I still think of you as a young woman. You have a perpetual youthfulness about you even as you age. You have the best of both. You are maturing and growing and are in many ways not at all like the young woman I first met in the Cornerstone Church foyer circa 2005 and in other ways you are still just as playful and sharp as I've always known you to be.

You have always been, in many respects, the older women of Titus 2, only now you have the age and experience to back it up. You like to teach and have much to offer and as your chronological age begins to better match your maturity, you are finding more opportunities to naturally flex that gift set. I'm excited to see how God will continue to use you to bless and shape others in teaching another generation to love their husbands and children, beginning with the generation that lives under our roof.

I love the home that you have made for us: the food we eat, the decorations we see, the scents we smell, the colors that surround us, etc... You make our home somewhere we all want to be and then you go the next mile and invite others hospitably into it. We entertain and educate. We disciple over dinner because of all your hard work. Thank you! I love being your husband and having you be the mother to my children. I am blessed because of you. We all are. 

Happy birthday.

Proverbs 31:27-31

She looketh well to the ways of her household, 

and eateth not the bread of idleness.

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; 

her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Many daughters have done virtuously, 

but thou excellest them all.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: 

but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands; 

and let her own works praise her in the gates.