Okay, i’m starting to fall a bit behind, but we’re continuing forward… this chapter talks a bit about the story of Moses, the early figurehead of deliverance, since he was the leader of the Israelites as they were led out of Egypt…

the point is made that Moses was prepared to be the leader of this deliverance, because he himself had been delivered… and in fact a pattern of deliverance had been established in his life from a very early age… i’m not entirely certain that i agree with the spotlighted quote here, “A great leader can’t lead where he hasn’t been led before”… but i’m sure it’s simply meant to tie into the experience piece of last chapter…

It’s funny how we always end up needing to be delivered though, isn’t it? for all our advancements, and for all our attempts to control the world around us - even to the point of assuming the role of global deliverer - we can’t avoid the realization that we’re oppressed in our own way and that we need the Messiah…

the greatest revelation of the grace and glory of God is the redemption and deliverance of us sinners…

peace… love… bdg…

i like the quote that’s spotlighted there… “He uses our scars as beauty marks…” of course, they knew that it would be a popular quote, so that’s why it’s spotlighted… i’m just noting it, because it’s one of the could that have actually stuck out to me…

anyway, this chapter is about how our personal triumphs and failures (mostly failures) enable us to reach out to those who are coming in along facing similar problems or struggles… basically, no on can minister more effectively than someone who has been in the same shoes…

now, this touches a little bit on a sore subject for me as it ties in with sharing your testimony… i always had a problem sharing my testimony, because it’s not much of a testimony… well, actually, it’s more than it seems on the surface, but the point is that people place such a higher importance on testimonies that have shock value or is fraught with sensationalism… it becomes a competition and it almost (if it doesn’t) encourages people to run off the deep end, before they get saved so that they have a better story to tell…

there is a Biblical principle at play, i suppose, where i think Jesus says, something like: she loves much because she has been forgiven for much, but he who is forgiven for little, loves little… that’s in regards to the prostitute and i think it’s more about how much we recognize that we’ve been forgiven… we’ve all been forgiven of much, but we don’t all admit it…

anyway, i’m way off track… this chapter is about using our experiences to become more effective ministers… i think it applies to everyone - even those of us with “boring” testimonies…

this is also the halfway point of the book… halfway… yikes… it’s all downhill from here… (i mean that in a good way… i think…)…

peace… love… bdg…

When i was growing up, the big scare within the Christian sub-culture was the “new age movement”… and not to write that concern off as frivolous - i’m sure that there have been plenty of folks who fell victim to the arguments presented by this belief system - but as i look back on it now, it seems like it was just another distraction, blown out of proportion…

i distinctly remember writing up a paper for health class regarding the concept of what was called “Creative Visualization” (the belief that your thoughts and desires shaped your reality)… i laced that paper with absurd conclusions and biting sarcasm all with the hopes of proving to the teacher, a firm believer in such things who had led the class in group meditation exercises as part of the mental health part of the course, that she was foolish for believing what she believed…

i bring this up, because the topic of declaration - and i’ve seen this addressed many other places - seems at face value to be the Christianized repackaging of Creative Visualization… now that’s a very superficial look at both viewpoints, but this “declaration” aspect of faith has been misused to support the whole “name-it-and-claim-it” religion that we’ve seen preached from various pulpits… and the potential - if mistreated - is that our faith is reduced to nothing but a spiritualized mantra that invokes a magical genie who will in turn grant us our wishes…

On the flip side, i’d be remiss to ignore that there is and must be a mystical aspect of our faith and that indeed the Bible does give some serious weight to that which we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts… and in the spirit of giving David the benefit of the doubt, that is where we find ourselves in this chapter… we explore this notion in some greater detail here and come to recognize the importance of knowing what God promises and accepting those promises…

i kind of feel like this is the second chapter in a row that i’ve landed a bit on the critical side of things, but i want to also point out that the passage from Eccl. included here is great, but does not prove the point that David asserts it to… the terms are paired together simply because they’re opposites… there’s nothing much to extrapolate there other than that the author uses a common literary device to show the broad variety of activities for which time allows…

peace… love… bdg…

i have to admit, on first read, this chapter seems (in my opinion) to contradict the chapter about accountability… i suppose there are some subtle differences here, but i’d say that the two in combination put friends in a difficult position…

before that, however, it builds nicely off of the Suffering chapter, with a personal account of a time of suffering… and a Job-like situation where someone confronted him, accusing him of hiding a sin which had in turn caused the situation…

so here’s the thing, though, David encourages us to never miss an opportunity to just shut up… and not confront one another… that seems to go against the policy of accountability… and i’ve been in that situation myself, where a good friend has made some really bad choices and it’s a very fine balance of knowing how to show support while at the same time pointing out that some things could’ve been done differently to avoid this predicament…

i’m all for being a good friend and standing by offering a shoulder for support or encouragement, but there’s more to being a friend than that… it is all about balance and i guess i’ll leave it at that…

peace… love… bdg…

if you can just indulge me for a moment… “thufferin thuccatath!”…

thanks, that’s generally the first thing that comes to my mind when i see or hear the word “suffering”… anyway… the second thing is actually much more appropriate for this discussion… when James says that we’re supposed to rejoice in the midst of suffering…

this chapter takes a different tone as it’s written as if it were a letter from Job, the figurehead for Biblical suffering… Satan’s punching bag so to speak… and Job is offering advice to all of us since suffering is part of life… he basically says that we need to suck it up and deal… or at least allow God to teach us through the trials… makes sense, but it’s hard to swallow…

pretty basic message here… and a short chapter…

peace… love… bdg…

David talks about horse racing and i all but tune out… i’m not really into the whole racing scene - horses, dogs, cars, whatever… i didn’t really tune out and i read the chapter of course (of course)… the illustration is actually more a story about care… a championship caliber racehorse broke its leg at the beginning of a race… it would’ve kept going despite this injury, which would’ve only made things worse, but the jockey was aware enough to stop it…

the point is that we don’t always know when we need to quit… or when we’re off the right path… just today, we were talking about Joshua in church and the pastor asked, “Would you rather win (or lose) on your own terms, than to submit to God?”… i think most of us would natually choose to try it our own way…

we need each other to remind us to stay on course… one of the verse references for this chapter is “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”… besides being a great hip-hop album by The Procussions, it’s a great reminder that we can’t do it alone… we need to be held accountable by someone…

peace… love… bdg…

Well, this is awkward… we don’t talk about or acknowledge sin in this day and age, right? We should probably just skip this chapter in case someone might get offended by the harsh and judgemental language… yeah right…

Anyway, this chapter talks about how sin grows in our lives until it finally manifests itself in a big way… it’s never the “big” sins that start things off, it’s always a little lie… a wrong decision here… and then after time… you’ve been desensitized, your guard is officially down, and WHAM! you wake up wondering what happened… how did we fall so far so fast?

King David is a perfect example with his unkingly encounters with Bathsheba… but the real question is, how does God reveal His glory in our shortcomings, in our sinfulness?… doesn’t seem to make much sense, but really it reminds me of Romans when Paul is talking about how, where sin abounds, grace abounds even more…

because of our sin, God can show the world the full extent of His love… that, even in our sin, He loved us enough to die to provide a way for our salvation… but, should we then continue in sin so that His grace can increase to its fullness? Heaven forbid!

peace… love… bdg…

Fearing and now not fearing? why don’t you just make up your mind?…

obviously, this is a different definition of “fear” - gotta love the English language, right? - and the point is no less poignant…

i know and have known many people who have allowed their lives to be ruled by fear… fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being embarrassed, fear of not looking “Christian” enough, fear of losing a job, fear of [you name it]… and fear is a common thing and it’s a natural response to the world around us… i mean, how many times does the Bible directly say “do not be afraid or discouraged,” am i right?

But here’s the thing… and i’ve been afraid many times in my life… specifically, as i read this chapter, i was reminded of 9-11 - obviously a scary moment of time in all our lives, but being in the shadow of DC and in the flight path of Dulles Airport and surrounded by a handful of key operational facilities, it was a particularly fearful time… and then not long after that, we had a sniper driving around shooting people at gas stations and what not - some within 5 miles of my house - it’s easy to be scared… Virginia Tech is another tragic example… there’s a constant unknown about life that can instantly bring death… and it’s scary at times…

But here’s the thing… and maybe i’ll actually get to it this time… we don’t have to be fearful and most certainly shouldn’t be marked by fear… which is how i would describe a number of folks that i’ve worked with or encountered in my lifetime… we have not been given a spirit of fear… we’ve been freed from fear because we have been given a glimpse of the bigger picture…

i think of Elisha in the city of Dothan surrounded… and he could’ve been scared… but he saw the bigger picture… he saw God’s glory revealed…. oh that’s the point of this book, isn’t it…

side note: the other day, my son was singing “God is bigger than the boogie man” and he doesn’t even know what the boogie man is… but he can see the bigger picture (except when it comes to the big bad wolf apparently)…

anyway, that’s what i got from this chapter…

peace… love… bdg…

We live in a world where individuality and personal identity seem to be the most important things we can hope to attain and maintain… this chapter opens with a description of what it takes to be an effective soldier… basically, you give up your individual needs in fear (or reverence) of those who outrank you…

we struggle with this for sure… this is why so many marriages end in divorce… we’re a selfish society… we can’t bring ourselves to sacrifice anything for the greater good… a lot of us don’t even believe that there IS a greater good…

i also love the comparison of being buddies with God versus working out our salvation “with fear and trembling”… big difference… there’s a song that i honestly think is pretty corny, but the point is pretty important and relevant… it’s called “I’m Not Dude, I’m Dad” by Ceili Rain… basically the same idea… you can be friendly with your child, but they need to know that your in charge and that it’s not an equal partnership…

a lot to unpack from that short chapter actually…

peace… love… bdg…

I was seriously laughing out loud at this story example here, though, reading that it’s not appropriate behavior was a little convicting (as if i didn’t already know that)… i’ve certainly given people the wrong phone number and avoided others because i knew meeting would end up in the dreaded conversation… some people you just don’t want to have a conversation with…

of course, i’m sure some people feel the same about me… and it’s good to know that God overlooks that aspect of my personality and still reaches out to me…

i’m not much for conversation in the first place, but i learned in my days of retail management that conversations are crucial to relationships of any kind… i learned this in several ways, but we’ll leave it at that…

it’s cool to realize that God is speaking to us throughout nature… and convicting to be asked if we’re listening…

peace… love… bdg…