may you find God to be your Rest-Giver

the comment was made to me at work the other day about how i was more chipper than usually. i found that very interesting and also telling of how important rest is to us as humans.

for the first time in months, my wife and i took a real sabbath. we actually rested. i dont mean we sat around and watched TV. but we spent some time before the Sabbath, preparing the house and ourselves. we cleaned up and prepared for a time of rest. we had a wonderful meal to welcome in the day of rest. and then we rested. we knew we were resting and it was wonderful. so no surprise when i showed up to work immediately following the Sabbath more chipper than usual.

something i think that really set this Sabbath apart from the rest was the preparation to rest. growing up, we as a family never prepared to rest, we just rested. and that rest was good, but not great. my wife and i never really had a good rest either. we would always be bickering or whatever else came along. we just went wherever events would take us. there was no intentional rest.

however, as i studied more about seeing Jesus in a Jewish perspective, i found that Jesus would have considered a day to consist of an evening and a morning. (this is the order in which Genesis puts night and day) so in a hebraic mindset, the day begins at sunset and ends at the next sunset. a few months back, my wife and i decided to begin having our Sabbath begin in the evening of the day before and then go until the next evening. as a result of this a couple things happened. we found that we did more work to prepare for the rest than normal. and we found that work was rewarding. it feels good to have things in order. we found that the dedicated time at the evening meal where we would pray and read Scripture really helped us remember the Sabbath-Giver. finally, we found that our rest was much, much more restful.

i dont know why it is true, but we have found that keeping an evening/morning perspective has brought much more rest in our lives. but back to the present…

this Sabbath was the first time in months that we prepared the evening before. (mostly this has been due to my work schedule being erratic, however….) anyway, setting our minds on God and finding rest in Him really made our Sabbath, well, restful.

and for yall, may your Sabbath bring you rest. may you find God to be your Rest-Giver.

piper on prosperity gospel

“God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him in the midst of loss, and not prosperity.”

this is a quotation from john piper from a video i just watched here.

it is quite an interesting statement. and piper is very vehement about his discussion of prosperity gospel teachings. anyway, i just wanted to pass this on.

resist to the point of shedding blood

“in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”

i had never thought of this quote as having to do with sin, but it does. usually, i thought of it in regard to persecution from the outside. but i realized that its about us, about our sin.

i sin so much…

and recently, my sin has become so fresh and so excruciating to me. the thing that i want to do, i dont do and the things i dont want to do, i do. what a wretched man i am. who will rescue me??

anyway, i really and truly have been struggling enormously with sin. i have not resisted. i have given in. continuely. why is it so hard to resist? i certainly havent resisted to the point of shedding blood. this phrase eccos in my head right now. i need to resist. yet i dont. God grant me your Grace to resist. i want to resist. but i dont. may You strengthen me to resist, even to the point of shedding blood.

i find myself “talking” about missional more than “being” it

at the suggestion of rick @ blind beggar, wanted to speak a little of what (if anything) “missional” means.

i agree wholeheartedly that in america, we tend to take a word and then run it into the ground through overuse. it becomes meaningless because it may mean anything. with that said, i want to discuss “missional” in a parody of sorts….

as a member of a “missional” church, i see us always reaching our community. we are all focused on the mission of God. we have weekly “missional” church meetings to discuss what it means to be “missional“. and the pastor is always referencing “missional” concepts in his sermons and quoting the latest “missional” author. we have a line of “missional” clothing apparel that our youth group put together. we decided that the songs we were singing in church werent “missional” enough, so we started singing “missional” songs. we given an entire makeover to our church, we are “missional“. soon our whole surrounding community will become “missional” too, because we have opened up a weekly meeting to outsiders about what our “mission” as a “missional” church is. we are “missional“!

….one thing i find myself falling prey to far too often is the use of language. i am far too quick to talk about loving my neighbor as to doing it. i am far too quick to planning with other folks how we could have better race relations in our church. i am far too quick to talk.

i might use the term “missional” quite often. i might talk about it 24/7/365 and my entire church might too. but unfortunately, this is not enough. in fact, it is too much. the word(s) are useless, meaningless, and should not even have been spoken. there is no question, there is a time and place for talk, but i find myself talking far too much and doing nothing about it. that is the ironic thing about being “missional”, it has to involve our lives, not just our mouths.

let me conclude with a quotation from one of my favorite historical figures:

“preach the Good News always, use words when necessary”

We have to get a good job in order to afford to drive to work

i am reading a book called “Better Off” by Eric Brende. it is quite an interesting book so far. i am about halfway through and have enjoyed it quite a deal. before i discuss the book, let me tell you how i came to acquire it:

my wife and i went to the soulard market, which is a market that has vegetables, clothing, meat, pets, spices, etc, etc. quite an assortment of all kinds of stuff. so we were walking around looking at the variety and in search of vegetables, when we ran across a soap stand. there was a lady and her son behind the booth. as soon as we stopped to look, they treated us like we were old friends. anyway, along with the soap (which is handmade by the family) i saw a book that looked interesting called “Better Off”. i read the back cover and discovered that the book was about a couple who moved in with a group similar to the Amish and got rid of the electricity and modern technological lifestyle and found a more simple and more enjoyable lifestyle. the man was Eric Brende and his wife Mary.

the person in front of me happened to be Mary Brende. and i learned that they were living nearby to us in St Louis. they still lived a more simple lifestyle, but not in the country. they made soap and he was a rickshaw driver (a rickshaw using bicycle power) giving tours around historic areas of South St Louis.

so on to the book. so far, the book seems to really point out quite effectively that life can be more simple when one chooses not to be reliant upon technology. there is no question that in our culture, we are bound to technology. we have to get a high-paying job so we can have a big house with air conditioning and central heating. we have to have money so we can afford a TV and then cable to come along with it. and of course, DVDs must come along with that. we have to have an XBox to keep entertained. and we have to buy games once we beat them. etc. etc.

i think the most ironic part of our slavery is that we have to get a good job in order to afford to drive to work.

what do yall think?