Saturday Six-Pack (17)

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Welcome to the weekend, a prime time for some “Wandering & Wondering”.

This weekend’s Six-Pack features a half-dozen of the best online bits I’ve read recently: About faith, about ministry, about who-knows-what.

If you need help prioritizing, note my two “Picks of the Week”, and roll on from there.

In this edition:

1) Winged Enemies
Each Sunday, Skye Jethani‘s four-year-old daughter warns the family, “We’re going to church. Watch out for poop.”  And with that introduction, I suggest you go read the rest of this article on spiritual warfare.

2) Risky Sex
Talk of “safe sex” is foolishness, according to Michael Hidalgo.  Even more, if it DID exist, who would want it?  Risky sex is where it’s at! **PICK OF THE WEEK**

3) Unequally Yoked
That is the new blog title of Leah Libresco, a prominent atheist blogger in some circles, who recently caused ripples with her post, “This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal”.  In it, she briefly recounts her gradual conversion to Catholicism.  A summary by Scot McKnight can be read HERE, and Google can quickly provide you with more than a pile of responses and replies.

4) Why Smart People are Stupid
The New Yorker presented this piece on how your smartness may actually work against you.

5) It’s Not About the Dream
VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer turns to a jellyfish for new inspiration, new ventures, and a new way of doing business.  This is the story behind the man, behind Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato, and it involves more convicting and repenting than you might expect.

6) Are You a Saint or a Scorpion
The memorable fable drives home a great point… or several! **PICK OF THE WEEK**

Enjoy your weekend, friends, through renewing yourself and reverencing God.

Miraculously Natural

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With three daughters under the age of four, I have read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” more times than the average man. For the uninformed, this is the tale of caterpillar who breaks free from his egg with a serious hunger. After five days of colourfully-sketched fruit, he goes on a dietary tear, eating his way through desserts and delicacies, meats and treats. A stomachache lands him back at a green leaf feast. By this time, our tiny protagonist has become a pudgy worm on the verge of cocooning. The finale of the book begins on the second-last page:

Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out, and… (final page turn here)

He was a beautiful butterfly!

 

[The story can be viewed HERE, if you wish.]

A colourful story of how worms become butterflies, this children’s book has yet to educate me on what really happens.  How does a slinking and slimy caterpillar become a soaring and stunning butterfly?  What magical tailor lives in that cocoon to design, craft, and attach those wings to that thing?

It is no error that we use the word metamorphosis to describe this process:

A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.

No exaggeration is necessary to tie the term “miracle” to such a definition, yet the reminder quickly follows: “This is natural.”

Miraculously natural.

A paradoxical phrase. Continue reading →

Tuesday Trick: Eliminating Um’s and Uh’s

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Everyone has patterns, habits, and idiosyncracies.  In the realm of public speaking, these can cause everything from minor discomfort to compromised clarity.

Today, Lifehacker’s Thorin Klosowski shares one simple move toward eliminating those useless fillers that clutter up communication.

 

Brokenness Aside

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My Twitter feed served up this devotional based on the song “Brokenness Aside” by All Sons & Daughters.  I only skimmed the article, but I have soaked in the song on numerous occasions.  Inspired by the concept, I offer the following reflections birthed from this artful piece of worship.

These touching lyrics are below, and if the song is unknown to you, then THIS will help you “feel it”.

Brokenness Aside
Leslie Jordan and David Leonard

Will your grace run out
If I let you down
‘Cause all I know
Is how to run

‘Cause I am a sinner
If it’s not one thing its another
Caught up in words
Tangled in lies
You are the Savior
And you take brokenness aside
And make it beautiful
Beautiful

Will you call me child
When I tell you lies
Cause all I know
Is how to cry

CHORUS

“Will your grace run out if I let you down?  ‘Cause all I know is how to run.”

I lived in a state of fear for years, certain that God’s nature must be as fickle as mine.  In my finest moments, perhaps I am courageously consistent, steadily stepping toward God.  But how few are my finest moments!  The vast majority of moments involve failure to meet even my own lax standards, let alone the brilliantly holy nature of the One Without Beginning or End.  Wearied myself by my inconsistency and unfaithfulness, it seemed only logical to conclude that God must sigh an exhausted sigh every time I returned in need-filled prayer.  Stumbling the same path repeatedly was furiously frustrating to me, yet apparently it was not frustrating enough, as I was apt to be there again the next day.  Every taste of personal disappointment worked to foster in me a belief that God’s dominant emotion toward me must be, at best, an obligated kindness.  I mean, I would be frustrated enough to give up on such weakness.  Surely God would too.

How pleasant to be woefully wrong about Him!

Will you call me child when I tell you lies? ‘Cause all I know Is how to cry.”

What a joy to sense God speaking over me as “His son”.  The acceptance of the Father is staggeringly hard to accept.  Truthfulness is so foreign to our crooked-to-the-core natures.  Love freely given makes a mockery of the merit-based systems that we so proudly function within.  Surely God cannot maintain His affection and commitment toward children so quick to compromise, so prone to wander.  And yet, PRAISE GOD, He does, for His faithfulness is based upon the integrity of His being rather than than the fragmented states of the rest of us.

And that is indeed very Good News.

‘Cause I am a sinner
If it’s not one thing its another
Caught up in words
Tangled in lies
You are the Savior
And you take brokenness aside
And make it beautiful
Beautiful

The distortion runs deep within us.  The moment we shore up one gap, we create another.  There is simply not enough wholeness within us to cover up our brokenness, not enough fabric to hide the nakedness.  Yet God, the Abundant One, wades into the depths of our deception, cuts the cords that bind, and miraculously brings beauty from ashes.  From Genesis 1 onward, the Spirit of God hovers over formless voids of darkness, shaping them into conditions that sustain thriving and God-honouring life.  There is One striving to work such wonders in every life today, and Yahweh is His name.  You can be certain that He is hovering over life as you know it today.

If you haven’t yet heard “Brokenness Aside”, then let your soul be fed by clicking below.

Peace on you today, my friends.

Saturday Six-Pack (16)

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Welcome to the weekend.  Time again for some “Wandering & Wondering”.

Today’s Six-Pack features some of the best faith-focused and ministry-minded online pieces that have crossed my path recently.

In case six pieces is too daunting, skim the summaries and look for my two “Picks of the Week”.

In this edition:

1) The Mystery of a Lost Generation
The internetmonk Jeff Dunn has provided a beautiful piece here, weaving together a commentary on a couple recent CNN articles and a review of the latest album by Rush to communicate the truths of love and mystery that reside in God.  Well worth the read! **PICK OF THE WEEK**

2) 7 Objections to Going to Seminary
Justin Taylor scrapes the surface of an article by John Frame, entitled, “Learning at Jesus’ Feet: A Case for Seminary Training”.  As a graduate of such a school, I can attest to both the struggle and the value of the experience.

3) Am I Prone to Wander?
The classic hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has raised more than a few modern eyebrows with its talk of Ebenezer-raising.  However, Tim Challies would rather focus on another line.

4) America’s Premier Heresy
Scot McKnight is hitting the nail squarely in this piece.  He’s even naming names!  Read Revelation 2-3 and then this piece, and tell me if you think any of this material would be in the letter that Jesus would compose to your church today.  **PICK OF THE WEEK**

5) Dancing on the Edge of Finished
If you’ve ever felt like the “to do” list never ends, as if you can never achieve that peaceful satisfaction of “arriving”, then Seth Godin would like your attention for sixty seconds.

6) 17 Manly Quotes for Father’s Day
Take my wife’s favourite number, put a man-related quote beside each digit, and you’d get this list just in time for Father’s Day.

That’s all for now.  Enjoy your weekend, friends, through renewing yourself and reverencing God.