Falling in the Mire

A while back, I was talking to a friend about besetting sins. You know those struggles against which you are constantly striving? In our total depravity, we’re going to sin. Genesis says “every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” There’s no getting around it. But my question is why couldn’t God give us an absolute victory over a sin. Why couldn’t we move to the next mud puddle? Why do we have to keep falling back into the same stagnant, smelly pool? I mean, wouldn’t it be great if we could just move on to another sin? Like the levels in Mario Brothers. Well, therein lies the answer.

How do you feel when you climb up the little Mario Mountain and jump on the flag at the end of Level 1? Proud, of course. You’ve accomplished something! So if Cristi were to overcome the sin of selfishness forever, she would only look at the triumph as something she’d done. Though she knows her salvation comes from Christ alone, she would forget the filth from which her Beloved rescued her. She would try to make the victory her own. The danger of any success is that it breeds independence.

So, brothers and sisters, that’s why we fall back into the same putrid mire. Because without the grace of Jesus we are abominable muck. Besetting sins remind us from where we come. They send us back to the foot of the Cross. Prostrate, face covered in grime, I know my need for dependence. How poignantly strong is the reminder of my depravity in my recurring failure! And how blissfully sweet the aroma of Christ’s amazing grace!

I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.
Psalm 40:1-3


Author’s note: I know this isn’t an exhaustive reasoning behind besetting sins. Nor is the topic itself developed to its fullest potential. Another day, another note.

Purpose to Praise

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

At the GBC women’s retreat in March, I was given the precious jewel of a really practical way to pray through the Psalms. Since then I have been in the Psalms almost daily, and what a blessing it has been to soak up the Lord’s goodness there! One thing I have realized with great conviction is David’s intentional act of praising God regardless of his circumstances. Whether he is in the valley of despair or on the mountaintop of joy, he determines to praise his King.

Growing up in the church, I have heard 1 Thessalonians 5 many times. I have always known the concept of “rejoicing always.” But only recently has my heart grasped the life-giving implications of purposing to praise.

So what does it mean to purpose to praise? It certainly does ­not mean putting on a cheerful façade even when your heart is breaking. It does not mean disregarding spiritual dry spells like you’re always a Super-Christian. Bottom line: purposing to praise is not a license for pretense. In fact, I would argue pretentious praise is not really praise at all.

Joshua commanded the Israelites to “incline [their hearts] to the Lord God of Israel.” Paul implores the Colossians to “set [their] mind on things that are above.” This is what it means to purpose to praise. Focus your attention on the King! That focus will manifest itself in worship. If I have set my face like a flint towards God…if I am captivated by His goodness -even when I’m in the midst of loss or sorrow or pain, Satan can't distract me with the world or myself. But I'm starting to learn that this is a choice. I have to choose to incline my heart, set my mind…purpose to praise. Let me give you a personal example…

I was lonely and depressed my first weekend back in Manhattan this summer. Many of my best friends were gone, and I kept thinking how miserable the summer was going to be without them. God was like, "Cristi, what happened to all this purposing to praise stuff? You're not even kind of doing it right now." So, by His grace, I confessed my crappy attitude and thought of my reasons to praise God in that situation. The results were blessed –I have not been lonely since. The Lord mercifully helped me to walk in obedience that day, and I have seen the benefits of doing so.

What about when I don’t want to praise God? I have been in seasons where it has seemed impossible to lift up my head to look at God’s face. There was a reason David called our Lord the “lifter of my head.” When I am too weak to reach for Him, He is glorified by my attempt. The attempt becomes an act of praise. Committing my insufficiency to the capable hands of Christ is a way to worship. I know this language may sound ambiguous, but do you see this is still an inclination to God? Think of these two postures: sitting on the back of your heels and bowing with your forehead on the ground. In which position is your head and heart further forward?

I feel like I’m running around all over the place. This was probably too big of a chunk for me to try and break off. Let me just close by outlining a few of the ways David purposes to praise God:

• He remembers God’s faithfulness in times past. (Psalm 106)
• He meditates on truth. (Psalm 119)
• He preaches to himself. (Psalm 43:5)
• He considers creation. (Psalm 8:3)
• He worships in music. (Psalm 150)

This is the short list, but it serves as a good reminder for me…and for also, I hope. Purpose to praise God, brothers and sisters. In joy. In sorrow. In frustration. In persecution. In all things, incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.

Rumors of Glory: Serendipity

The following is an article written by Alan Jacobs for Christianity Today's "Books & Culture":

Recently, for a book I was writing, I needed to track down a statement that I believed came from John Henry Newman. And I knew just what to do: I googled it. I typed in the key words from the quotation and immediately got confirmation that the author of the statement was indeed Newman, though I had misremembered it slightly. But now, if I was going to quote the statement in my book, I needed to get a proper source for it—a particular volume, its publisher and publication date, the page number the quotation is on—and websites rarely provide that sort of information. But no problem: I could simply turn to Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book" feature. Once I figured out which of Newman's books could be internally searched, it took me two or three minutes to find the one the quotation came from, to make note of the page number, and to copy the publication information and paste it into my book manuscript. Task accomplished.

But what the satisfaction of finding, immediately, "just what you're looking for" hides from you is the simple fact that you have not found anything you weren't looking for. That is, the technologies that enable such unerringly direct access to the object of your quest depend for their success on a simultaneous concealing of everything except that object. Google in particular is so good at this that it offers an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which takes you directly to the URL that—according to Google's algorithms—best matches your search terms. And it is truly extraordinary how often "I'm Feeling Lucky" indeed takes you right where you want to go.

But Google is just an exceptionally well-honed example of this kind of technology, which is becoming pervasive. For instance, in writing that last paragraph I needed a synonym: I had used "hides" in one sentence and didn't want to use "hiding" in the next, but couldn't immediately think of a similar word. Thanks to my Mac's built-in thesaurus, a couple of mouse clicks led me to "concealing," which seemed to work well enough, so there it is. And I moved on. Why not? I have work to do.

Perhaps there was no reason for me to do otherwise. But it occurred to me to see what my old hardcover thesaurus might offer. This required me to find my old hardcover thesaurus, which, because I had not used it in so long, had migrated to one of the least accessible shelves in my office. When I got it out and looked up "hiding," I was led again to "concealing"—but also to a couple of hundred related words that my computer's thesaurus didn't suggest. And I noticed this: that the major term preceding "concealment" in the thesaurus is "secrecy," and the major term succeeding it is "falseness." The thought that concealment stands somehow between secrecy and falseness is provocative and cautionary. But I would never have seen it if I had not taken the trouble to consult a book which did not return instant results, and which almost forced my eyes to scan information that I was not looking for.

I did not take that trouble when I was looking for the Newman quote, largely because that would have required me not to walk two feet but a hundred yards, to my college's library—where I would have had to undergo the staggering burden of looking up call numbers, trudging to the stacks, and lugging a pile of books to a table where I could spend who knows how long looking through them. But if I had taken up such a Herculean labor, I would certainly have—however inadvertently and even against my will—learned a lot more about Newman than I now know, and perhaps could even have found other passages in his work that would have illuminated the quotation that I had slightly misremembered, or even have served as a replacement for it. And perhaps I would have discovered that I was taking the quotation out of context and that, far from supporting my argument, it actually undermined it. And there's the rub, or one of the rubs anyway. Now that the possible shortcomings of my online Newman-searching have entered my mind, I'm just going to have to go to the library after all. Exposing oneself to the fortuitous has its dangers, and perhaps a subliminal awareness of those dangers is one of the factors—along with sheer laziness—that keeps us focused on what we already know, or already think we know, we want. (This is a familiar strategy in many of life's venues: it's the reason that national restaurant chains position themselves at freeway exits. Why should we drive past the familiar to take a risk on the wholly unknown?)
In effect, we adjust to the overwhelming variousness of our social world by closing off the possibility of surprise—by eliminating the fortuitous, which also means eliminating the serendipitous. The two terms need discrimination. "Fortuitous" derives, obviously, from fortune, in Latin fortuna, that is, chance. So aware were the ancients of the power of fortuna in human life that they elevated it to divine status: the Goddess Fortuna is the subject of innumerable discourses, pious and otherwise, and portraits of lucky or unlucky (fortunate or unfortunate) men strapped to her Wheel litter the surviving pages of old books. Dante even conceives of her as having been given—by God himself—the task of ruling the course of human affairs. I used to know a man, fierce of aspect but kind of heart, who at church helped take care of children, and would invariably distribute cookies or cupcakes without regard to personal preference: when one of the kids would complain that she preferred chocolate chip to peanut butter, or white icing to pink, he would snap, "Ya get whatcha get," and move on to the next kid. There spoke truly the voice of Fortuna. Indeed, that's the only thing that Fortuna ever tells us: Ya get whatcha get.

Serendipity is different. The word was coined by that curious man Sir Horace Walpole, known today (if at all) as one of the founders of the "Gothic" tale of suspense and terror, but more famous in his own time as an especially elegant and proficient writer of letters. In a 1754 letter to a friend he describes his discovery of some curious Venetian coat of arms, and pauses to say that "This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity." And then he explains that "very expressive word" of his own invention: "I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip'"—Serendip being an old name for Sri Lanka: "as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of … (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description)." The finding of what one is not looking for will be the element of the letter most obviously relevant to what I've been saying so far; but equally important is the phrase "by accidents and sagacity," or, as Walpole puts it later in the same letter, "accidental sagacity."

Fortuity happens, but serendipity can be cultivated. You can grow in serendipity. You can even become a disciple of serendipity. The elevation of Fortuna to the status of goddess is a way of shrugging: an admission of helplessness, an acknowledgment of all that lies beyond our powers of control. But in the very idea of serendipity is a kind of hope, even an expectation, that we can turn the accidents of fortune to good account, and make of them some knowledge that would have been inaccessible to us if we had done no more than discover what we were looking for.

Indeed, it may be possible not only to cultivate the sagacity but also the accidents. It may be possible, and desirable, to actively put yourself in the way of events beyond your control. Thus, just as I was completing this essay, I—serendipitously?—came across these comments by the historian Timothy Burke: "there are many contexts where I have very constrained expectations about what I expect to find through search, where serendipity or unpredictability is not at all what I want. Then I expect to be King User, and woe betide the peasant interfaces and authority-category churls that try to get between me and my goal. But there are other times where I want search to be alchemy, to turn the lead of an inquiry into unexpected gold. I'm hoping that the rush to simplify, speed up, demystify and digitize search doesn't leave that alchemy behind."

The cultivation of serendipity, of this alchemy, is an option for anyone, but—so I wish to argue—for Christians living in conditions of prosperity and security and informational richness it is something vital, perhaps even necessary. To practice "accidental sagacity" is to recognize that I don't really know where I am going, even if I like to think I do; that if I know what I am looking for I probably don't know what I need; that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that it is a very good thing that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that the more often I succumb to the temptation to say "I am my own" the more completely I close off the possibility of a blessing that comes from beyond my own desires and self-love. The cultivation of serendipity is at once a self-abnegation, a disciplining of technological power, a form of trust in God, and an expression of solidarity with the vast multitudes of Christians from all generations whose poverty and powerlessness made it impossible for them to think even for a moment that they could control their own lives. An accidental sagacity is the form of wisdom I most need, but am least likely to find.

Alan Jacobs teaches English at Wheaton College in Illinois, and is writing a book about original sin.

You Have Shown Your People Hard Things

Psalm 60:3-4

You have shown Your people hard things; You have made us drink the wine of confusion. You have given a banner to those who fear You, That it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah

Last week, an F2 tornado, nearly ½ mile wide, went through my home community in Northwest Kansas. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the loss was still great. Whole farms were destroyed. Equipment ruined. Homes annihilated. For most, the damage threatens to choke their livelihood. It is impossible to feed cows and plow fields without the necessary tractors and implements.

It’s typical human nature to ask why these things happen; but it’s good to remember Elihu’s words in Job 37:

From its chamber comes the whirlwind,and cold from the scattering winds. By the breath of God ice is given,and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture;the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance,to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen.

Bottom line: God is sovereign…even over the hard things. The definition of a sovereign God demands it -limited sovereignty is not sovereignty at all. In our human finiteness, we cannot understand all the ways of God. We cannot understand how He can be good and allow tragedy. May I submit we do not really know the true meaning of good? As with all of God’s attributes, our minds can only skim the surface of His goodness. But His Word declares He is good. In the storms of life, we must trust in His goodness and sovereignty equally and fully even when we don’t understand. As Al Mohler quoted Charles Spurgeon: “When we cannot trace God's hand, we must simply trust His heart.”

So back to Northwest Kansas… I said it is impossible to feed cows and plow fields without the necessary tractors and implements. It is impossible for MAN -but not for a sovereign, good God.

The little community of Bird City and McDonald is extremely supportive. Neighbors used their own tractors and equipment to farm my dad’s fields when my parents had to be in Denver, for nearly a month after my older brother was severely burned. So when Mom called to tell me the damage, I never doubted that the families who experienced the loss most directly would be helped. What I didn’t count on was people coming from all over Kansas (and probably other states) to assist in any way they could to all who had been affected.

One of my uncle’s fields needed to be cleared of debris so the crops could grow. He and my cousins were out picking it all up by hand, prepared to be there for hours. The wind was blowing 40 mph against them, so they couldn’t really hear. Finally at one point, my cousin turned around, and there were at least thirty people behind them helping pick up the debris. Most, if not all, they didn’t even know and some had come as far as 70 miles away.

God has used the people in that corner of Kansas to declare His goodness. He will make His glory known. At least two of the families affected by the tornado are families who fear the Lord. He has shown His people hard things. I don't know all of His purposes in this, but it is my prayer that He uses this time as a banner, "that it may be displayed because of the truth."

Desire to Please

I desire to please,

My Lord and Savior,

For your wrath appeased,

And your undue favor.

Yet answers are not near,

Even when I read your Scripture,

The details are unclear,

Like an abstract picture.

I seek the answers,

But you say, “seek my face,”

For this truth endures,

No matter the case.

A Prayer to Glorify

"Lord, help me to glorify thee; I am poor, help me to glorify thee by contentment; I am sick, help me to give thee honour by patience; I have talents, help me to extol thee by spending them for thee; I have time, Lord, help me to redeem it, that I may serve thee; I have a heart to feel, Lord, let that heart feel no love but thine, and glow with no flame but affection for thee; I have a head to think, Lord, help me to think of thee and for thee; thou hast put me in this world for something, Lord, show me what that is, and help me to work out my life purpose: I cannot do much, but as the widow put in her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and eternity too into thy treasury; I am all thine; take me, and enable me to glorify thee now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I have."

-C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (February 15, Morning)

The King's Northwest Kansas Stars

Tonight was a clear, crisp autumn night in Northwest Kansas. No clouds. The moon was hiding its face. Nothing in the sky but an abundance of glorious stars. I really can’t even begin to adequately describe the wonder. Try to imagine the blackest of skies. When you first look up, you see millions of bright stars. As your gaze spans across the entire sky, the bright stars seem to be inlayed in a bed of a billion more stars just a couple more light years away. An additional sweep adds another trillion behind those. The stars appear to be increasing before your eyes. It’s as if God sprinkled the sky first with diamond dust…then added fine glitter…then sprinkled slightly coarser glitter...then added some small specks of diamonds…then threw on some ½-carat pieces…and finished with a few well-placed stones. The result is stunning. I could have stood outside all night long and not gotten enough of their splendor. But that’s just it –it isn’t THEIR splendor…it’s the Lord’s.



And as I stood there in the cold, David’s words in Psalm 8 resonated in my heart:"When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him,and the son of man that You care for him?"

It never ceases to amaze me that the One who flung those breathtaking stars into being is interested in the smallest details of my life. That Yahweh, who “determines the number of the stars” and “gives to all of them their names”, delights in me…desires my beauty.

Imagine what you would feel if the Queen of England flew you to London for tea…then multiply it by a million. That should be a fraction of the awe we experience when we consider the Lord’s greatness and intimacy. But I must confess I take it for granted far too often. And I have no excuse. When I witness the magnificence of a starry night in Northwest Kansas, or stand at the foot of the majestic Colorado Rockies, I see my King’s glory. I see HIM.

The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard.

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

My Lord shows me His greatness in what He has created. I have no excuse not to see it. There is no way I can deny He exists. Every day bears His faithfulness to and love for me. I have no doubts that I am my Beloved’s, and He is mine.

Go! Look for the Creator in His created. Don’t just star-gaze, glory-gaze. And in the ‘stuff’ of your ever-day life, “stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.” You will find unfailing faithfulness and captivating love.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Job 37:14
Psalm 8:3-4, 19, 45:11, 147:3-5
Song of Solomon 6:2
Isaiah 62:4
Romans 1:20


WRITTEN: November 23, 2006

Seemingly Contradictory Truth

Just some initial thoughts. There is a lot more to explain and investigate here.

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19

We are called to grasp the love of Christ yet we are told we will never understand its fullness. Does this make His love not true or not real if we cannot grasp it? Of course not. It is not the understanding of something that makes it true, it is true because it is.

A paradox is simply a seemingly contradictory truth. We recognize the truth of a matter even though we don’t fully understand it. For example, sometimes people describe their relationship with another person as a love-hate relationship. They both love and hate the person. This seems to contradict itself. Do you love the person or do you hate them? However, that is not the point of the statement. The truth is that they both love and hate the person and describing the relationship as such gives us a deeper understanding of the relationship.

Therefore, we are not to be frustrated with seemingly contradictory statements. We should not pick a side of the contradiction and deny the other. The truth is not in either side of the contradiction, rather the truth is in the contradiction itself. A seemingly contradictory statement should lead us to investigate the interaction of the contradiction and many times will result in us simply having to accept both sides even though we do not fully understand the mechanics of the interactions in the contradiction.

There are times when two statements are contradictory and there is no resolve, because the truth is that one side is not true. For example, if there is a coat that is only one color and one statement claims the coat is red and another claims it is blue, then one of the statements is not true. Proof by contradiction is commonly used in mathematics and is a valid method to discover truth.

Therefore, there are three different scenarios. Two statements can be complementary, contradictory, or seemingly contradictory. Complementary statements are statements that reinforce the other truth. Contradictory statements oppose each other so that only one can be true. Seemingly contradictory statements seem to oppose one another, but the truth is in the contradiction.

I have found that the bible frequently uses seemingly contradictory statements to explain a truth. Biblical truths are often very complex and cannot be simply explained with a single statement, so Scripture utilizes seemingly contradictory statements.

Romans 3:28 says, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” While James 2:24 says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer presents a fascinating paradox when he explains that grace is free, but it is not cheap. In Luke 22:42 Jesus prays, “not my will, but yours, be done.” Yet in Mark 11:24 Jesus seems to take a different stance on prayer when he teaches, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 1 Samuel 15:29 says, “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Then just a few verses later 1 Samuel 15:35 says, “And the Lord regretted that he made Saul king over Israel.”

Where humans have gotten in trouble is when we fail to accept seemingly contradictory truth and try to fit truth into a neat model that we can grasp better. We pick the side of the contradiction we like best, then devise a whole system of thinking around that half-truth.

There is a truth and rarely do we find someone who completely rejects truth. Rather, we frequently observe perversions of the truth all around us. Islam recognizes that God has a high standard regarding morality and they seek to live a life fully obedient to the law. However, they fail to recognize that God could also be gracious. Islam rightly recognizes that there is only one God. However, they fail to recognize that God can reveal Himself as a man and still be one. Unitarians cannot comprehend how Jesus can be fully God and yet fully man, so they resign to the belief that he must have only been man. They stumble because they try to simplify truth into a simple model.

Truth is found only in submitting to seemingly contradictory truths and relying on Christ to enlighten our hearts to a deeper understanding.

Three Loves

I believe that all of God’s creation and all of history are pointing us towards Himself. A father’s love for his child is a great thing in and of itself, but in even a greater way we see a glimpse of God’s love for His children. The spring flowers can captivate you, but are also a picture of the new life Jesus gives to those who turn to Him.

And so marriage is a wonderful thing in itself, but it is also a picture of the relationship between Jesus (the groom) and His people (the bride). This comparison is made in Ephesians 5:22-33 and Hosea 2:16-20. I have sat and listened to married couples describe the different loves they experience at different times for their spouse and realized it was a beautiful picture of the way we love God. So even though I recognize I am no authority and have little experience in this area, I have attempted to identify three types of loves we have towards our spouse and God: intoxicated, affectionate, and devoted.

Intoxicated love is what the world typically refers to as “falling in love” or what has been called by some an infatuation. The key distinguishing feature of this love is that it sees no wrong in its object. The spouse, or more typically boyfriend/girlfriend, may have the most annoying habit or have character flaws, but the lovers are intoxicated with one another and see beyond any differences or problems.

There is no doubt that this intoxicated love has led to some poor decisions between lovers to get married. Then the intoxication wears off and the drug cannot be easily bought and the problems suddenly appear. However, we should not consider this love to be wrong or something to be avoided because of its dangers. Proverbs 5:18-19 says, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” If you need further proof just go read The Song of Solomon.

Nevertheless, intoxicated love should always be led by wisdom. Earlier in the very same chapter of proverbs it says, “My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding…For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.” (Proverbs 5:1,3-4)

Affectionate love is different from intoxicated love in that it sees problems and flaws in the spouse, but loves in spite of. However, the primary drive in affectionate love is to love because of. The lovers love because the other is beautiful, charming, funny, passionate, focused, etc. and the lover is gladly willing to overlook the problems. Affectionate love may not be accompanied with the “emotional high” of intoxicated love. But this love goes beyond friends, as there is a romantic aspect to it. Perhaps the best way to visualize affectionate love is what we see when an 80-year old couple hold hands as they walk down the street. Married couples may refer to this as still being “in love.” I think that is a fantastic way to describe and express it, but make no mistake, they are not always experiencing intoxicated love, although affectionate love may arouse intoxicated love from time to time.

Affectionate love is developed between spouses. Affectionate love is not hard, but it does take work. Romance may not just happen, but it must be cultivated. Buying flowers, candle lit dinners, holding hands, and kissing are all ways to cultivate affectionate love. Affectionate love is the love that makes for happy marriages.

I cannot seem to classify the beautiful love that C.S. Lewis described. I originally thought he was describing intoxicated love, but have come to the conclusion that it is also true of affectionate love. He wrote to describe a man in love, “He is full of desire, but the desire may not be sexually toned. If you asked him what he wanted, the true reply would often be, ‘To go on thinking of her.’ He is love’s contemplative.” Intoxicated and affectionate love are preoccupied with the other person.

Devoted love loves because of a commitment and covenant. Devoted love sees the problems in the spouse and has little or no desire to love in spite of, but disciplines oneself to love and be faithful nonetheless. But make no mistake about it, it is no worse of a love or less beautiful of a love. It is God’s declared will that we should remain married, and this will mean loving in some difficult times. When you make a covenant before God to be faithful until death do you part, then you hold to the covenant. (I do recognize the issue of a spouse committing sexual immorality and believe divorce is permissible then, but those issues are beyond the scope of this article.) Devoted love is beautiful because it reveals tried and true love. Devoted love is the love that holds marriages together.

Each of these three loves is just a picture of the love for God we experience.

Intoxicated love is what many people experience when they are born again or saved (when people make an initial decision to follow Jesus Christ and surrender to Him their whole lives). It is also frequently experienced at a retreat or conference. It is an awakening to the person of Jesus in a new way, which leads to an emotional experience that cannot be easily described. Intoxicate love for God is wonderful and should be encouraged, however, if it is not accompanied by the following two loves, it is empty.

Affectionate love is the daily love for God, accompanied by emotions, pleasures, and passion. It may not be as high energy as intoxicated love, but affectionate love derives great pleasure just from knowing God. Serving God with sincere motives rather than merely out of conviction is a distinguishing characteristic of affectionate love.

Affectionate love for God or in serving God is described all over the bible. Psalm 16:11 says, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Romans 12:11 says, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.”

After deciding to call this love “affectionate” I was reminded of the book by Jonathan Edwards, a great theologian in the 1700s, called Religious Affections. In this book he wrote, “That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in his word, greatly insists upon it, that we be good in earnest, ‘fervent in spirit,’ and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion.”

A key attribute of intoxicated and affectionate love for God is that they are preoccupied with the object of their love as C.S. Lewis described in the love between people. It is not the benefits from God which excite us, although they are great and worthy of much thought, but it is God Himself which preoccupies us.

Devoted love for God is the love that we show in the dry periods of our walk with the Lord. Or we may be experiencing great trials and may feel abandoned by God. Nevertheless, we are called to persevere and to continue to serve Him. Devoted love wakes up early and spends time in the Word and in prayer even though there doesn’t seem to be any benefit. Devoted love keeps its commitments to serve even when there is no longer any passion or desire. Just as devoted love is beautiful between people, it is not to be despised in your love for God.

Devoted love requires a person to preach to themselves often. Satan’s deceits are all the more tempting when we are not passionate for God. Nevertheless, we must preach the truth to ourselves over and over again that we may not fall. Memorizing Scripture will pay its biggest dividend when we are in this stage; reading the Word daily is at this time most critical.

We ought to strive for the former two loves for God in our walk with Him, but not despise a devoted love for no doubt it will be all that we have at times in our lives. Scripture tells us to worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). This worship is experienced when we love God with an affectionate or intoxicated love. However, there are times that all we have is to worship in truth, and in those times we worship in truth. If we keep worshipping in truth and pursuing greater passion for the things of the Lord then there is no doubt that affectionate or intoxicated love will return.

What do you do if all you have is devoted love? Donald Whitney wrote, “Meditation on the truth, rightly done, can kindle the emotions of worship.” One method of romancing your spouse is to cut off contact with the world and focus only on one another. Take a weekend or a night and remove all your other commitments and just be with each other and forget all the pressures. How much more this is important to kindle emotions in our walk with the Lord! Shut off the cell phone, get in a dark room with a lamp, open your bible, get on your knees, sing, whatever, but get intimate with God.

Is your walk with God dull and dry? Consider how you have aroused passions with your spouse in the past. The relationship with your spouse is meant to give you a foretaste of what it is to love our great God.

Do you know that God desires intimate relationship with you? Perhaps you have perceived all this “God stuff” as dull religious duty. Perhaps you only perceive God’s commands as rules that ruin all the fun. It is simply not true. God’s commands are meant to protect as a loving husband protects and guards his wife. Furthermore, the God of this universe desires intimacy with you. God created romantic human relationships to communicate in a very vivid way the type of relationship He wants with us.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Give up your weak, petty desires and pursue a much greater desire. Pursue that which pleases beyond what you can now imagine. Pursue God.

Cold Days, Grateful Hearts

I wrote this a while back, but needed the reminder again today.

Today was a cold day in Manhattan, Kansas. A 30-ish high, nine-degree wind chill, 20 mph wind - one can’t really argue. Needless to say, as I walked home from class this afternoon, my attitude wasn’t the best. I was wishing for the lovely fall weather we had on Tuesday, that my ear muff thingies would quit blowing off, and that my jeans were wind-proof.

I grabbed the mail as I blew into the door of my house. This month’s edition of “The Voice of the Martyrs” was among the letters and flyers. I opened the first couple pages to read about a Pakistani woman named Yasmeen. This incredible sister lived in a barn with her three small children for three years after her husband converted to Islam and divorced her. At one point, their clothes literally rotted off of them. They were only eating once a day, and the mosquitoes bit them constantly. But Yasmeen did not wish she were somewhere else, she thanked God for His provision. She prayed, “You are God. You give me help! Wherever You put me, I will thank You.”

I was so humbled and convicted by this woman’s grateful heart. My 15 minutes of discomfort as I walked from class was NOTHING compared to what Yasmeen and her children endured for three years. Yet, she praised God, and I pitied myself. Though I walked from a warm building where I get an education to a warm home where I have plenty of food and more clothes than I can wear in a day. What’s worse is my poor attitude can be evoked by even more trivial circumstances than the weather. Oh, to have a heart that rejoices in all things! That does everything without complaining!

As I was rereading that passage in Philippians 2, the importance of a joyful heart hit me hard.

Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life…

To rejoice in all things is to be set apart. It is to be light in darkness. It is to be a child of God. Is there any greater calling!?!

In examining my own heart, I realized I complain way too much; because, really, once is too much. (Although, I can assure you, one-complaint-a-day status is something to which I can only aspire.) It doesn’t matter if I get frostbite from the cold and lose limbs. It doesn’t matter if all of my teachers give me 50 assignments due Monday. It doesn’t matter if my neighbors deprive me of sleep from partying all night long. Petty or paramount, whatever it is I deem complaining-worthy ISN’T! It can’t be. I have no need to complain. I have Christ!!!

So fight, brothers and sisters! By the grace of God, fight to do all things without complaining. Fight to be a light that stands out in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. You have Christ. You need nothing else. If everything you hold dear is stripped away, you still have more than enough in Him.

May we be so saturated in the love and grace of our Savior that no matter what comes our way, this world will only see our hope and joy in Him.

WRITTEN: November 29, 2006

Music: My Love Language to God

I discovered that music was my love language to God when I was in Turkey. Since I couldn’t walk around the streets of Istanbul or Ankara singing, I just didn’t ever sing in the first week or so of my time there. After a while, I began to feel suffocated. (I would imagine it was kind of like getting to email or write your significant other but never getting to hear his/her voice.) So I had no choice but to smuggle a song in whenever I could from then on. The transformation was amazing.

I was reminded of my special language to my Lord tonight. I was working at the church after everybody else was gone, so I decided to play the piano on my way out. The only lights were shining on the altar –everything else was dark. It was just me and my God in His sanctuary. I’m not an amazing piano player by any means…I wouldn’t even classify myself as good. But regardless of my skill, I have always played my best when my Father is the only One listening. Now, it’s not like He transforms me from an 8-year-old plunking “Chopsticks” to a virtuoso performing Chopin –although He could (and I would like it). But it is amazing how He turns my weakness into something beautiful for Him…for His pleasure alone.

It is somewhat like my daddy listening to me practice my saxophone when I first began playing in the fourth grade. I’m sure it was nothing short of pitiful; but Daddy enjoyed listening to me. Yet, if he could have turned me into Kenny G, he would have because he knew we would both enjoy the music so much more. That’s what my Heavenly Father does when I sit down to love Him on the piano. How can anyone deny that Yahweh is personal and intimate?

Music is my love language to the Lord. Singing is how I declare my love to Him before others. But playing the piano…that’s how I whisper my love to Him, from my heart to His.

WRITTEN: November 20, 2006

A Thought on "The Weight of Glory"

In this sermon, C.S. Lewis said:"The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."

As I read this, there was no doubt in my mind of its validity. But I did wonder at the extent of my part in God's happiness to which Lewis refers: "to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness..." I believe, by God's grace because it is too much to carnally comprehend, that the Creator is pleased with me...loves me. But I wonder, can I really be an ingredient in His happiness? That word is the crux of the matter. To me, ingredient infers that without it the product wouldn't be the same. For instance, a chocolate chip cookie without the ingredient of chocolate chips is no longer a chocolate chip cookie. I can't believe God NEEDS me to be happy. He is perfectly happy whether I'm in the picture or not. Then it just hit me: apart from CHRIST, I cannot please God. Apart from CHRIST, I cannot make God happy. Could it be that Christ is, in fact, the ingredient to God's divine happiness? I think that's more likely the case than me. Without Jesus, I'm just a chocolate chip.

When You Know the Plague of Your Own Heart

1 Kings 8:37-40
When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men), that they may fear You all the days that they live in the land which You gave to our fathers.

Last Thursday in my time with the Lord, I read King Solomon’s dedication prayer for the temple, and this passage was one of the sections which really resonated in my heart; specifically, the phrase “when each one knows the plague of his own heart.” I’m typically an ESV advocate, but in this case the wording of the NKJV was more effective at powerfully getting the point across to me. My heart is more than “afflicted” with sin -it’s “plagued” with it. And as soon as I read that word, some flicker of acknowledgement crossed my mind, but I didn’t quite know what to do with it. So, I was greatly encouraged by Solomon’s dedication and went on with my day.

Little did I know how much my Lord would make that phrase painfully real to me. By the end of the day, I knew my heart’s plague of selfishness more acutely than ever before. The first conviction was that which I shared in the previous blog, “Pray First.” But that was only the beginning. The offenses just kept piling up: a selfish prayer request, selfish concern for my own agenda -on multiple occasions, and others. I was so disgusted with my own wretchedness! Yet, at the same time, this “plague insight” caused me to cling to the grace of my Lord all the more. It made the death and resurrection of my Savior all the sweeter!

It occurred to me that more than 2000 years earlier, when Solomon prayed “when each one knows the plague of his own heart”, he had been praying for me. King Solomon, the son of David and wisest of all men, had been praying for Cristi Marie Antholz. What a humbling realization! And how awesome is my Sovereign Lord to ordain such prayers!?! While I praise God for the encouraging blessing of this direct, concrete connection to the Old Testament, I am reminded of and strengthened even more by Jesus’ prayers for me. At Gethsemane, King Jesus, the Son of the Living God and Wisest of all, prayed for me -and even now at the Throne of Grace, He continues to intercede on my behalf.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea:
a great High Priest, whose name is Love,
who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,
my name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
no tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look, and see him there
who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.

Behold him there! the risen Lamb!
My perfect, spotless Righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of glory and of grace!

One with himself, I cannot die;
my soul is purchased by his blood;
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is good that we should know the plague in our hearts, for such knowledge sends us to our knees before the Lord in helpless confession. Such knowledge makes us to treasure His Grace…to weep in thankfulness for Christ’s sacrifice…to marvel at the prayers of those who have gone before us…and to praise the One who forever intercedes on our behalf. May your plagues turn you to the foot of the Cross!

Pray First

This morning I was prayer journaling for a friend, and I realized, once again, how selfish I am. The sin issue for which she had asked me to pray was one that I had recognized in her prior to our discussion this week. And we had talked about it before. However, I realized that when I first noticed it, my initial thought processes were about how much those mannerisms were "unbecoming" on my friend, and how much they made her not as fun to be around. My thoughts could pretty much be melted down to how much her sin issue was an imposition to me. As I journaled to the Lord for her, I was convicted that I'd handled the situation in an unloving manner. The first thing I should have done when I noticed this area of sin in her life was pray for her. Not think about it for a week, not talk about it with other believers, or anything else...just take her to the throne of Grace. Out of all of those initial reactions, prayer is the only one of any benefit. Prayer alone is the action honorable to my friend -and the Lord. I know rebuking might be a later step, but I'm convinced it all needs to begin with prayer. So I have purposed, by the grace of God, to first respond to my friends' sin by covering them in prayer, not wallowing in selfish pity.

I sought him, but I found him not.

The following is today's morning entry from C.H. Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. I've underlined/bolded the parts which were most convicting to me. How is it that I do not watch my Savior every moment for fear of losing sight of Him? I'm afraid I'm far too easily distracted by the things of this world. Oh, that my focus would be fervently fixed on Christ! Jonathan L. Graf shares the story of his grandfather having such a great love for the Lord that when his mind wandered from the present -it wandered to God! What blessed communion!

"I sought him, but I found him not." Song of Solomon 3:1

Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place to find him. Have you lost Christ by refraining from prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find him. Did you lose Christ by sinning? You will find Christ in no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Christ in the Scriptures. It is a true proverb, "Look for a thing where you dropped it, it is there." So look for Christ where you lost him, for he has not gone away. But it is hard work to go back for Christ. Bunyan tells us, the pilgrim found the piece of the road back to the Arbour of Ease, where he lost his roll, the hardest he had ever travelled. Twenty miles onward is easier than to go one mile back for the lost evidence.

Take care, then, when you find your Master, to cling close to him. But how is it you have lost him? One would have thought you would never have parted with such a precious friend, whose presence is so sweet, whose words are so comforting, and whose company is so dear to you! How is it that you did not watch him every moment for fear of losing sight of him? Yet, since you have let him go, what a mercy that you are seeking him, even though you mournfully groan, "O that I knew where I might find him!" Go on seeking, for it is dangerous to be without thy Lord. Without Christ you are like a sheep without its shepherd; like a tree without water at its roots; like a withered leaf in the tempest -not bound to the tree that gives it life. With thine whole heart seek him, and he will be found of thee: only give thyself thoroughly up to the search, and verily, thou shalt yet discover him to thy joy and gladness.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Yesterday I was discussing good books with my friend, Becca. She recommended For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. I haven't read this book yet; but I've heard great things about it -from men and women alike. One point Becca found particularly interesting was the results of a survey conducted by the author. I don't know the exact conditions or wording, but the gist was that men were given the option of choosing between a life of loneliness and rejection or a life without respect. An overwhelming majority chose the former. Because of conversations with my brother and pastor, the radio program of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s president, Dr. Albert Mohler, and other means I can’t specifically remember right now, this information didn’t really come as a surprise to me. Where women need to be nurtured, men need to be respected.

So why is this blog-worthy? If I’m not mistaken, the book targets romantic relationships between men and women. But as I thought about the matter, I decided that men probably aren’t respected like they should be, regardless of the relational context. This topic of biblical manhood and womanhood has been written about, frequently discussed on Dr. Mohler’s program…and there’s even been an organization created for it. (The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood - www.cbmw.org) Obviously, we have some things on which we need to work.

My next thought process was to determine what this means to me. As a single woman, how can I be intentional about showing my brothers in Christ that I respect and love them? Apart from having a cerebral lapse at that moment, I sadly came up with no black and white answers. (And at this point, I haven’t done extensive research, either.) So, brothers, what can we do? As your sisters, how can we love you through our conveyance of respect? I realize your responses may be personal opinions and not general rules for all men; but at least they will give us a point from which to work. It’s not inconceivable to take your personal suggestions and apply them to the brothers with whom we have direct contact, if not yourselves. :)

Maybe I’m being too spontaneous by appealing for your response in this manner. My own dear brother believes matters such as this are best dealt with in “real” relationships, not via the Internet. I whole-heartedly agree with him. However, I also believe there is merit in using technology as one more communication tool. So this endeavor isn’t to replace “real” relationships, merely reinforce them.

All Who Desire to Live Godly Will Suffer Persecution

As I was reading in Matthew 16 one morning last fall, I was a little stunned at Jesus' reaction to Peter in verse 23. He'd just begun sharing how He would suffer and die (v. 21), to which Peter takes Him aside and says, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." And this is Jesus' response, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me."

Why did Jesus give Peter, who He had just called 'blessed' in verse 17, the same rebuke He gave His archenemy, Satan (Mt. 4:10)? As I began to look at the parallels and search a little more, the Holy Spirit showed me that both parties tempted Jesus with the same message: suffering isn't part of your job, avoid it. The devil said (4:8-9), "Worship me, and You won't have to suffer on this earth any longer." And my translation of Peter's words: "Seriously Jesus, You're the Son of God. You're not really gonna suffer and die at the hands of mere men." But suffering and dying are at the core of Jesus' messianic purpose -and He knew it.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on himthe iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6)

The last words of His rebuke to Peter really convicted me: "For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." How deeply-ingrained the “It’s all about me” mentality is in our lives! Suffering as our Savior suffered can’t really be part of the deal. But Paul’s words to Timothy resonate through the generations to all of us who call God our Lord today, “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12).

Directly after His rebuke to Peter, Jesus tells all His disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (verses 24-26).

Too often I fall into Peter’s boat of setting my mind on the things of man. Too often I react to my struggles with a “woe is me” attitude. But in 2 Timothy we see it is to be expected and in Philippians 1:29 that it is a privilege to suffer for Christ. Our trials also test the genuineness of our faith so that it will be found to “praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7). Furthermore, without trials, without frustrations, without hardships -I would never know what it means to be held in the arms of Jesus.

Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there. ~William Cowper, from "Welcome Cross"

I pray that each of you, by the grace and strength of God, can break free of our carnal "woe is me", complaining attitudes in the face of struggles, and turn to the radiant embrace of our Savior.