day no. 15,988: a fate that falls

"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." -- G.K. Chesterton

There is a difference between understanding the imperative and denying the indicative. 

"God helps those who help themselves" is a particular bit of nonsense that presupposes one can help themselves without first having God's help. It assumes a possibility that does not exist.

Romans 3:10-12

None is righteous,

no, not one;

no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside;

together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.

Without God's help, no one seeks God or His help and without His continued help no one would continue to seek Him. Yet, there is a responsibility assumed in the assistance. Those God helps, He expects to help themselves in that He demands that they help themselves to more of His help; He lays on them the duty of destitution, which is to say, the obligation of asking. He has provision, guidance, grace and mercy in abundance and compels His people to take initiative by taking responsibility rather than by making excuses and blaming their fates.

Our actions are not a matter of indifference. God has designed the world in such a way as that the future is not inevitable outside of our actions, but that our actions are absorbed into the inevitable. God has given us agency without compromising His sovereignty. There are consequences to inactivity. God has implemented the law of sowing and reaping and it cannot be hacked or troubleshot. Inactivity is still sowing and will still reap it.

So, there is a fate that falls on those who refuse to get out of the way and yet another that falls by the hands of those who refuse to concede to its inevitability. There is a way God made the world and a way He has instructed us to act in light of it. So much so, that those who go against His grain will never gain and those who move in His way never lose.

day no. 15,987: homes are dangerous

“The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Homes are dangerous.

The state is aware.

Homes are self-contained systems of governance. They come with built-in authority structures. The first earthly institution created by God was the family. Marriage assumes fruitfulness. The produce of which is stored at the homestead. What happens there is exported to the world and shapes it. This is why the State is so anxious to get into your home. This is why it want to place tariffs on what families produce. Since you export what you produce, the State wants to get its hands on the means of production. The one who owns and controls the means of production controls the niceties of consumption.

Keep your kids.

Stay dangerous.

day no. 15,986: tyranny is always easier to recognize in a rear view mirror

“Arrogance now stands secure and gives judgement against us.; it is a time of calamity and raging fury. But now, my sons, be zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers. Remember the deeds they did in their generations, and great glory and eternal fame shall be yours.” -- Mattathias, 1 Maccabees 2:49-51

Defying tyrants is obeying God, yet tyranny is almost always more easily recognized in a rear-view mirror. We toast those who took those risks back then, but then reward those who do so in our midst with nothing better than backchat, second-guessing, and slander.

Luke 11:47-48

Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

It is easier to honor those who have the aid of the ages to prove their honor. It is far more difficult to honor one in your midst without the headlamp of hindsight. Today's tyrants feed off of yesterday's tyrannies. They use past mistakes to fuel their current ones.

Luke 4:24

And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown."

Prophets are not remembered for cowing to the people anymore than men of honor are for catering to the timid. Both look back and honor their ancestors by being the kind of men in the moment that their kin were back then. We do no justice to our forefathers by being present pansies. We respect them by doing what they did. We best respect the hardihood of our ancestors by doing the hard things in front of us now.

John 8:39-41

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.”

We don't honor our forefathers because we're not related to them. We come from different stock and give different strokes to different folks.

day no. 15,985: fighting trim by feasting fat

Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

A feast of fat things and wines on the lee awaits those who wait upon the Lord: a festival of fatness, full of marrow; of richness overflowing, well refined. For now, we rehearse so as to arrive well-versed in gratitude. We don't want to be out of celebrating shape when we cross the threshold of the eternal banquet as we enter into God's mercy and grace.

Getting into fighting trim means feasting well and waxing fat.

day no. 15,984: forgotten in time

"His epitaph is Athanasius contra mundum, 'Athanasius against the world.' ... It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away." -- C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius' On the Incarnation

The timeless recognize the times without being of them; they run laps around them because they're not caught up in them.

1 Chronicles 12:32

And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

You need to know what time it is in order to set an alarm. You need to know what's up in order to know what to do. Those who try to keep up with the times get left behind and in time are forgotten. There's nothing less cool than trying to be cool. There are few things more irrelevant than chasing relevance.

day no. 15,983: pipe in teeth, pencil in hand

"For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand." -- C.S Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius' On the Incarnation

Original works inspire grateful hearts to write devotional works. While there might be much benefit in reading their insights, they would in turn and in concert urge us to spend more time in the original works that inspired their delight rather than spend our time meditating upon their meditations of them. Their meditations were meant to draw more attention to the source, not to their summaries.

"The dogma is the drama." -- Dorothy L. Sayers

We should read books of good reflections, but we should never neglect reading the source of light and substance that made the reflection possible. Drinking from the bucket should lead us to draw from the well.

"Visit many good books, but live in the Bible." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

day no. 15,982: God completes what He appoints

Job 23:14

For He will complete what He appoints for me,

and many such things are in His mind.

God takes responsibility where He takes initiative.

Philippians 1:6

And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Rest assured, where God is at work, the work gets done.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.

God completes what He appoints; He provides what He commands; He fulfills what He plans.