John Barros - Proverbs 24:10-12

This video found here made me weep with sorrow and shame and encouragement and conviction. Do you doubt that standing outside of an abortion clinic can do any good? Meet John Barros. God has used him to rescue 1,000 babies, and minister to countless women in crisis. What honor is due a man who willingly embraces such shame, to rescue souls from death. How like our Savior!

When You Don't Like Your Job

Recently we've been studying the book of Job on Sunday mornings in our series on suffering. The catalytic question of the book is found on the lips of Satan in mocking challenge of God's assessment of his servant Job:

Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face." (Job 1:9-11)

Satan is saying that Job is an religious mercenary. He claims that Job "fears" and "trusts" and "loves" and "worships" God because God has given him so many gifts. Were God to take them away, Job's fair weather faith would be exposed and he would curse God. His fear of God is suspect precisely because his life is so circumstantially blessed. How can it be clear that Job wants God for God when he has it so good?

So the challenge begins. Is God worthy of fear and trust and love and worship "for nothing," that is, for who he is in himself alone -- even if all else is taken away?

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering what in the world this could have to do with advice for someone who doesn't like his or her job (yes, you read the title correctly the first time - this post is not about not liking the man from Uz). Here is the connection.

The main reason you are in your present place of employment is to glorify God (because that is the main reason for existence, and everything in it! 1 Cor. 10:31). So, how do you magnify the glory and worth and goodness of God in your job? There are lots of ways. Doing your work with excellence. Refusing to be a slave of expedience and the bottom line and genuinely striving for good goods and services that really do have your clients' good in mind. And on and on. But the one I want to focus on is your attitude - of heart, in speech (what you say and don't say), in body language, etc.

If you had your dream job surrounded by a bunch of people who thought you walked on water and with whom you just loved to work, if the compensation was more than you could ask for and the benefits were great, if the work environment was always healthy and positive and growth was always up, up, up, then guess what? Your contentment and joy and gratitude would be suspect. Is he or she so happy because of God or because of enviable employ? Who needs grace to be gracious in an environment like that? Who needs supernatural support to stay away from slander and the gossip mill when there is no temptation? Who needs grace to be content and patient and grateful and joyful when the world is your oyster? Who needs grace to keep from complaining when there's nothing to complain about?

Job's faith was not mercenary. And yet God tested him sorely in order to make that fact abundantly clear (and to purify him to make him shine even more like gold). Job's life magnified the worth of God precisely because he didn't curse God when everything was taken away.

If you don't like your job, Job would like you to know that you have a unique opportunity to magnify the worth of your God. You can show even more clearly that your joy and contentment and gratitude and peace and hope and life are not dependent on a dream job. They are dependent on the God of Job.

The Conveyer Belt of Time

 
The conveyor belt of time is moving. We're all on it. It slows for no one. It's either moving you away from the glory days and the good (ol') days, or it's moving you toward The Glory Days and the best is yet to come.

Trying to make heaven on earth is a futile business. You will drive yourself into the ground in disappointment. You will resent the sand-through-your-fingers slipperiness of the tastes and glimpses you do obtain (but can't retain). And you will keep buying the lie that your ultimate happiness is just around the next consumer or relational (or whatever) corner.

There is so much good in this life, but it is never going to fully satisfy you, and it most certainly never lasts forever. But fullness and forever satisfaction is what we long for, and we know so much discontent and dissatisfaction and frustration and emptiness because we keep falling short of it. But that is not a bad thing. In fact, it's an intentional thing. A divinely intentional thing. We long for fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore because we were made by God, for God. Only in him is that quality and quantity of joy ever really found.

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Hebrews 10:34

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

A place at the right hand of God is only obtained as a gracious gift, by faith in the Savior Son of God who sits now at his Father's right hand. The better and lasting possession is only inherited by the children of God, adopted by the grace of God, purchased on the cross by the Son of God. Fullness of joy and pleasures forever only come through Jesus; it's only found in Jesus.

John 6:35

Jesus said ... "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

Revelation 7:15-17

Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

The conveyor belt is moving. For those who stop trying to make heaven on earth, counting all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus, each day on the conveyor belt is lived with their Treasure, moving closer to their Treasure.

Their lives echo Paul's from Philippians 1:21 & 3:7-8

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ... [because] whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Their lips echo Asaph in Psalm 73:23-28

...I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

God is at the end of the conveyor belt for every person. He will be there -- as glorious Treasure or awful Judge. You can travel the conveyor alone, trying to fight its indomitable control, and will you arrive alone at the foot of the Treasure you've "said" is not worth your time. Or, you can travel the conveyor with Jesus, glad for his indomitable control over your present and your future, and you arrive with him to enjoy fullness of joy, forever, in God's immediate presence.

You can't make heaven on earth. But when you know God through Jesus Christ, it's heaven on earth (John 17:3), until heaven comes to earth (Revelation 21:1-7).

Action Plan For Anxiety

We all face anxiety. We don't all face it with a good game plan. No wonder we lose the battle so often. 

Justin Taylor summarizes a game plan for dealing with anxiety that was written by CCEF counselor David Powlison. His advice is sage and practical. I highly recommend it.

Steve Saint's Definition of Suffering

I quoted Steve Saint's definition of suffering this past Sunday as we looked at Job chapter 2 in our Suffering Series. Here it is, along with the link to the message in which it is found (which I highly recommend):

"Suffering is our expectation divided by our experience."

And then he said,

"As I was thinking about that, I thought, that's exactly the same definition for blessing. Both suffering and blessing are relative to what we expect."

There is profundity bound up in the simplicity of those definitions. I think they are worth pondering. In case you have trouble wrapping your mind around those definitions, I gave a little primer for the thought pump on Sunday in the form of four simple questions. 

• Why are there extremely poor people who are extremely content and happy?
• Why are there extremely rich people who are extremely discontent and unhappy?
• Why are there people who suffer extreme physical pain or limitation who are extremely joyful?
• Why are there people who are the picture of healthy and vitality who are mad at the world?

Why are these things the case? Because suffering is our expectation divided by our experience. And so is blessing. May the Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ continue to inform and shape our expectations.

Philippians 4:12-13 

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Together For Adoption

Have you heard of this online resource for adoption? If you have adopted or are thinking and praying about adoption, you may want to consider attending their upcoming conference. It's the weekend of October 4-5 in Louisville, KY. They've extended their early bird rate ($79) until next Friday (8/16).

HT: JT

Parents: Think About What "Just Wait" Means

You've heard it before -- especially if you're a parent of young children. You've had a tough day or you've shared a challenging parental moment with a parent of older children (or more children). What happy, hope-filled word of gospel-saturated encouragement do you hear?

"Just wait."

 Or,

 "It only gets harder from here."

 Or,

"I remember the days when I only..."

Mother Lindsey Carlson writes wisely about "The Phrase That Enslaves Moms In Every Season." It's applicable to dads as well. Please read it and then cut "Just wait," with all it's condescending, "That's nothing!" unhelpfulness, from your parent-to-parent conversations. Or, just wait...maybe you should read to the end of her post and find out how we can redefine and reuse "just wait" in a way to give grace to those who hear.

Steve Saint's Accident...and One Year Update

Last June (a week after the accident):



Last July (shortly after the surgery his accident required):



One year later:

Steve Saint's Story of His Daughter's Death

Yesterday, in the first message on the book of Job in our series on suffering, I struggled to make it through reading the story Steve Saint tells of his daughter's death. Here's the link, for those of you who asked. For those of you who weren't there yesterday, here's enough to encourage you to go and read the whole thing.

Saint said:

I believe God planned my daughter’s death. ... 

We have an idea that if we do what God wants us to do, then he owes us to take the suffering away. I believed that; I don’t believe that anymore. ...

...Grandfather Mincaye...saw her at the hospital, lying on a gurney with a tube down her throat and needles in her arm, and he grabbed me and said, “Who did this to her?”...

I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, Mincaye. Nobody is doing this.” 

And just like that, this savage from the jungles grabbed me again and said, “Babae, don’t you see?” 

No, I didn’t see. My heart was absolutely tearing apart; I didn’t know what was going on. 

He said, “Babae, Babae, now I see it well. Don’t you see? God himself is doing this.” 

And I thought, what are you saying? ...

Why is it that we want every chapter to be good when God promises only that in the last chapter he will make all the other chapters make sense, and he doesn’t promise we’ll see that last chapter here?

Job 1:20-22 (ESV, emphasis added)

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

If you want to listen to the message where he told the story, you can find it here.

The Archer and the Arrow

Psalm 127:4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.

Speaking of children and arrows…

Lily shot an arrow through our downstairs bathroom window not long ago. I was giving Ben a bath in the tub that sits just below said window. Yes, glass crashed into the tub. I extracted Ben very quickly. No harm done. Threw open the curtain and my eyes soon focused on the metal point, followed by the blaze orange shaft, now held fast by the screen it had first penetrated.

As my eyes focused out from the window to ten or fifteen feet outside the window, there was Lily. She was just slowing down, having hurried toward the window after her mistake. She looked horrified. The tears and apologies started immediately. I told her to go inside and wait for me in our room. I yelled for Beth and passed off the naked bather Ben so that I could attend to my little archer.

Now, first off, let me say that Sam’s “Little Bear” bow and arrow set is normally only used by him after parental permission has been granted. I’ve been with him enough that he is allowed to shoot it on his own, as long as his target is situated wisely and he is careful. Lily, on the other hand, has not yet been granted this privilege. I have no idea what thought process convinced her it would be okay. Probably there was no substantive thought process. But, hey, she’s a kid. I did some really dumb things when I was a kid. A lot of dumb things, actually. Like the time when I tried to puncture a pressurized aerosol can (there was still a lot of that fun spray stuff swishing around inside!) or the time I accidentally threw a baseball through one of the stained glass windows at our church or the time that I tried to do an “endo” (a.k.a. "stoppie") on my bike when I was traveling downhill way too fast. Anyway, setting up the target on the ground about 10 feet from the house, directly below the bathroom window, is probably not going to be a problem for an experienced archer. But Lily isn’t exactly Susan Penvensie…yet.

So, how do you respond as a parent? How do you deal with your little arrow when she shoots one through your window? How do you take advantage of this opportunity to straighten your precious little arrow, and not snap her spirit?

Did she need to be disciplined? Yes. But not so much for breaking the glass. She didn’t mean to do that. The real problem was that she took up arrows and bow without asking permission. She knew better. Zinging an arrow WAY over her target is, in a way, a problem (I want my girls to be crack shots, of course!). But I know she wasn’t cackling as she nocked that arrow, “I know what I’ll do to Dad! Give him another DIY project! Let’s see how he is at window replacement! Hahahahaha!”

Was it a costly mistake? Yes. Do I feel like paying that cost? No. Does she need to know, in a gentle and clear way, that mistakes have costly consequences? Yes. But what she didn’t need was me to “make her pay” in an angry, hold-it-over-her-head sort of way. What we parents tend to do, when our children make costly mistakes, is load the cost to us into the punishment. It’s why a dad angrily yells at his young son when he accidentally spills his milk at the dinner table. The dad has had a long day and wants a peaceful dinner. And no one better threaten that. He doesn’t want anyone else to take even another ounce, let alone a pound of flesh. So, 6 ounces of milk on the table means the child has “taken” comfort and peace from dad. And the dad is going to make him pay. Usually with interest.  So, the reaction goes something like this. “What in the world???!!! What are you THINKING?! C’mon!!! UHHHHHH! Don’t just sit there! It’s spilling over the edge of the table! Grab your napkin and stop it! (slams down fork on plate, stands up angrily in a huff and leers down on child who is now frozen in fear and filling with shame) C’MON! UHHHH! Why can’t we just sit down and eat dinner in peace?! Why can’t you be more careful?!”

He’s tired of the demands made on him through the day and he’s empty. He didn’t come home full of gospel grace and peace and truth. He came home empty, so he’s going to be on the take. He’s going to bite and devour. He’s got nothing to give and no strength or desire to serve.

The exchange could be simple. “It’s okay, buddy. I know you didn’t mean to spill it. Can you run and grab the paper towels and help me clean it up? Just try to be careful when you reach for the food in the middle of the table. It’s really easy to forget about your milk glass when you pull your arm back toward you plate.” Instead, it turns into a tantrum – Dad’s.

I’ve been guilty of such paternal tirades. To my shame, it wasn’t all that hard to write the “hypothetical” verbal reaction of the father. And yet, by God’s grace, I’ve been repenting and seeking more grace to come home full of grace and peace and truth to love and serve my family.

Back to Lily. So, how do you respond? How do you take advantage of this opportunity to sharpen your precious little arrow, and not snap her spirit?

One of the pieces of parenting wisdom we have been thankful for is the principle that discipline should be the result of rebellion and/or clear disobedience to parental authority, not for accidents or mistakes you haven’t yet prohibited. If your toddler opens your cabinet and distributes the contents of your flour container around your kitchen like a budding Jackson Pollock, don’t discipline him. Should you tell him, “No” with clarity and firmness? Of course. But this first act of flour art wasn’t necessarily borne of rebellion. He was curious and having multisensory fun, not sinisterly scheming against you. That being said, after that first fun event, and your clear flour flinging prohibition, you should most certainly discipline Billy for any further flour forays. He’s willingly disobeyed your clear command.

I can guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lily was not thinking of breaking windows, threatening the chubby flesh of her beloved baby brother when she took up bow and arrows. She had no intention of costing me a couple hundred dollars, or the time spent on another house project. She apparently wanted to show the neighbor kids her brother’s archery equipment and (presumably) her archery skills.

So, with Ben safely in Mommy’s care, I walked up to our bedroom to talk to my little archer, praying all the way for wisdom. I know she loves dearly her little brother. She was a wreck over the thought of harming him. She had already paid dearly. She did need to be disciplined, but I wanted it to be clear to her what for.

I told her first off that I loved her and gave her a big hug and kissed her head. I told her that I knew that she didn’t mean to break the window or endanger Ben. I did tell her what could have happened; not to turn the knife, but to reinforce the potential seriousness of such mistakes. I told her that God had protected her little brother, for which we can all be thankful. I told her that the window would have to be replaced and that she couldn’t afford to pay for it. I didn’t say this with a sneer, but calmly and clearly in order to reinforce the grace and truth of the gospel. We have all sinned and made mistakes and we can’t pay the cost of our sin. Jesus came and paid our debt for us. I wanted my fatherhood in that moment to reflect the willing love of our Heavenly Father. He didn’t send his Son and deal with our debt begrudgingly or bitterly. He did it willingly, with all his heart.

After all that, I did then tell her I needed to discipline her, but again made it very clear that it was because she had taken and shot the bow and arrows without asking me. In that regard, she did know better. After disciplining her, I hugged her and told her again I loved her. I held her face in my hands and looked her in the eyes and told her that it was over. She could be at peace and turn the page.

I want her to know, in times like this, that she doesn’t have to work her way back into my favor by being extra nice for awhile. She is not loved based on her performance – loved more if she’s a help and not a bother. She is loved because she is my daughter. My love is not fickle or something she has to work for. It’s just as clear and strong when she’s done something costly and dumb as when she’s done something cute or helpful.

Oh, how I long to faithfully reflect my/her Heavenly Father, and raise her in a home with gospel grace and truth pervading the atmosphere. We fail at this all the time. And we pray all the time that we will grow to do it better.

Her wheels were turning through all of this. She listened to all I had to say. She pondered it. And I watched her walk out freed and happy. I know she doesn’t fully grasp the cost to me, but she doesn’t need to know it all.

The will of my little Lily arrow needed bent and straightened that day, but I sure didn’t want to break her spirit. One day all too soon I’m going to have to nock her and shoot her out into this dangerous world. I can’t guarantee her flight path and destination, but I sure want to do all I can to shape and sharpen and set her trajectory. I’m so thankful for this little moment. I’d replace a hundred windows if it meant a hundred more times the kind of gospel grace and truth investment this situation afforded.

Psalm 127:4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!