Zoo

Kate is in Chattanooga visiting a friend (a long deserved break from our boys). So today the boys and I took a trip to the zoo.  It was a wonderfully relaxing day. The weather was perfect. The boys had a great time.  But we all missed Kate.

Great Counsel

Every now and then I come across someone who begins to reshape the way I look at a particular topic.  David Powlison and the folks at CCEF have been doing just that the past 6 months when it comes to counseling.  Here are some links to some articles that I have found:

Powlison wrote an article that appeared in three parts on Boundless Webzine. part 1 part 2 part 3 His article prompted another discussion about medication which is also very helpful.

Here are some articles by Powlison on Friendship Counseling.

Here is an article titled: Idols of the Heart and “Vanity Fair”.

This post on the Between Two Worlds blog lists several other resources by Powlison.

Here Powlison and Tim Keller give us wisdom on how to blog responsibly.

Powlison on the Therapeutic Gospel.

Inspiration

When it comes to poetry I think of myself as akin to one of the Geico Cavemen.  Attempting to be cultured, but still just a caveman.  In other words I want to like poetry. I want to get poetry.  But I don’t.  Until I found Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins sitting on my coffee table.  I’m not sure why but I felt compelled to pick it up and take a look.  What I found was a book of poetry that I not only like, but understand.  Kate and I were talking about the book this morning and she said exactly the same thing.  One of my favorites so far is titled Osso Bucco:

I love the sound of the bone against the plate
and the fortress-like look of it
lying before me in a moat of risotto,
the meat soft as the leg of an angel
who has lived a purely airborne existence.
And best of all, the secret marrow,
the invaded privacy of the animal
prized out with a knife and swallowed down
with cold, exhilirating wine.

I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,
a citizen tilted back on his chair, 
a creature with a full stomach -
something you don’t hear much about in poetry,
that sanctuary of hunger and deprivation.
You know: the driving rain, the boots by the door,
small birds searching for berries in winter.

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm, heavy paw on my chest,
and I can only close my eyes and listen
to the drums of woe throbbing in the distance
and the sound of my wife’s laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso bucco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.
She who talks to her faraway friend
while I linger here at the table
with a hot, companionable cup of tea,
feeling like one of the friendly natives,
a reliable guide, maybe even the chief’s favorite son.

Somewhere, a man is crawling up a rocky hillside
on bleeding knees and palms, an Irish penitent
carrying the stone of the world in his stomach;
and elsewhere people of the nations stare
at one another across a long, empty table.

But here, the candles give off their warm glow,
the same light that Shakespeare and Izaak Walton wrote by,
the light that lit and shadowed the faces of history.
Only now it plays on the blue plates,
the crumpled napkins, the crossed knife and fork.

In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other one will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock,
beneath the strata of hunger and pleasure,
into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know.

This poem has been my inspiration: to write this post tonight and to make osso bucco from this recipe tomorrow night.

Bitter

Last night I visited my friend’s church in Ft. Lauderdale.  At the end of the service we celebrated the Lord’s Supper.  Everyone was invited to come forward, tear off a piece of bread and then dip it into the wine (yes, wine!).  As I placed the moist bread in my mouth as bitter taste took over.  I walked back to my seat with the bitterness lingering on.

As I drove home I started thinking back to that moment I ate the sacrament and I thought about Christ in the garden and on the cross.  The bitterness of that wine reminded me of the bitterness of what Christ endured in order for me to be able to eat that meal.  In the garden Jesus prays to the Father that this cup would pass from him.  On the cross he calls out to the Father, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  He endured the bitterness of the cross so that I could be spared.  He did it for the remission of my sins.

This was in the bulletin last night:

The Eucharist (i.e. Lord’s Supper) is the definitive action practiced in the Christian community that keeps Jesus Christ before us as the Savior of the world and our Saviour, and ourselves as sinners in need of being saved.  The Eucharist is the sacramental act that pulls us into actual material participation with Christ (eating and drinking bread and wine) as he gives his very life for us and for our salvation.  Without the Eucharist as focal practice, it is very easy to drift off into imagining Jesus as our Great Example whom we will imitate, or our Great Teacher from whom we will learn, or our Great Hero by whom we will be inspired. And without the Eucharist it is very easy to drift off into a spirituality that is dominated by ideas about Jesus instead of receiving life from Jesus.  The Eucharist says a plain ‘no’ to all that. The Eucharist puts Jesus in his place: dying on the cross and giving us that sacrificed life. And it puts us in our place: opening our hands and receiving the remission of our sins, which is our salvation.

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (emphasis mine)

 

Book Review: Idols of the Heart

In preparation for a retreat I lead this past month I read two books Breaking the Idols of Your Heart and Idols of the Heart by Elyse Fitzpatrick. Both of these books have been a real treat for me and I recommend both of them to anyone interested in the subject.

The book begins by helping the reader to see that reality of the idols we all worship.

Idols aren’t just stone statues. No, idols are the thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of God. Idols cause us to ignore the true God in search of what we think we need.

She then takes the next several chapters to work out the importance of knowing who God is. Her argument is that unless we know God as he has been revealed to us in his word our natural reaction is to look to false gods. In other words, unless I am reminding myself that God is good by going back to his word my heart is going to believe the lie that God is not good. My believing that lie is what leads me to worship something else. This is why it is so important for us to have an accurate view of who God is. We must come to the point where we choose him because we know that he is the one who can save us.

Chapters 10 and 11 address the task of resisting and crushing our idols. Chapter 10 gives a helpful exercise one can use to help identifying where our idolatrous tendencies lie. (I have made a photocopy of that page and taped it to my prayer notebook so I can start doing the exercises as part of my prayer life.)

As you seek to put off idolatrous worship, replacing it with obedience, you’ll need to put on a heart that appreciates, loves, rejoices in, and celebrates the beauty, kindness, holiness, and majesty of your King. All other gods and their faint promises will pale when compared with the greatness and glory of the Lord.

My chief complaint is with the marketing of this book. It is marketed as a women’s devotional. I almost didn’t buy this book because I wasn’t sure it would help me in preparing for the retreat. I am so glad that I did. This is not just for women. This book is for any Christian who ever struggles with their allegiance to Christ. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

Sound Advice – John Piper

Here is a sound byte from John Piper on being a dad:

Sound Advice – Tim Keller

Here is a sound byte from Tim Keller on the pastor’s duty to his home.

On What My Kids Need Most

I recently came across a new blog that I am really enjoying: Unashamed Workman. One of the posts was on “‘leading’ in the context of the home as husband and father.” In it the author lists several resources which I have begun to slowly digest. One was a sermon by John Piper titled: Raising Children Who Are Confident in God. Here is a quote:

All Christian parenting and Christian education begins with God. There is One ultimate, unchanging Reality, namely, God. All else in parenting and education comes from him. All else is for him. He is the first and the last and the center of parenting and education. He is the main thing in how you rear children and teach children and discipline children. It all begins with God and it all is built on God and it all is to be shaped by God. If there is one memory that our children should have of our families and our church it is this; they should remember God. God was first. God was central. There was a passion for the supremacy of God in all things.

As I was reading the sermon it occurred to me that it’s easy for me to get fixated on new methods and ideas on parenting and lose sight of what is really important. I don’t want to imply that methodology is unimportant, but what my kids need most is not methods. What they need most is to understand that God is central and that we are called to know him deeply. God in his goodness has revealed himself to us in his word and so that means that the Bible needs to have a central role in my parenting. Not simply as a guide on “how to” parent (although it does have a few things to say about that!); but as a reminder that my sons and I are sinners and that we are in need of God’s grace every second of every day. My responsibility is to teach them the truths of God’s word and to pray that God will cause those truths to grow in their hearts. But ultimately I cannot get my kids to know God. Again Piper,

We can make ourselves teach. But we cannot make them know. Knowing is a precious thing. The kind of knowing God has in mind here is more than mere memory or raw mental awareness. Knowing is seeing into the real beauty of truth and embracing it for the treasure that it is. Parents and church cannot make that happen. We can do our best in putting God in the center and loving and praying and teaching. But in the end there is a chasm between teaching and knowing that only God can carry our children across.

I thank God that he has brought me across that chasm. I pray that he will do the same with my children.

Retreat

 

I’m in northern Georgia right now teaching at a retreat.  I found a park bench in front of this brook a few hours ago and spent some time reading, relaxing, and avoiding large flying insects.  Our summer was more hectic than I had anticipated and so this time away has been great.  I have been reading When People are Big and God is Small by Edward Welch and the book of Judges.  My talks for the retreat have been on Idolatry so these books have provided more food for thought.

I only wish the rest of my family could be here with me right now.

Reconciliation in Rwanda

A friend of mine recently told me about a film maker in his church who was making a documentary about the reconciliation taking place in Rwanda.  The movie, As We Forgive, has received several awards.  Christianity Today  and World Magazine recently wrote about the project. I am looking forward to seeing it.