Hoping for the BEST

“I am the Almighty God, able to fulfill your highest hopes and accomplish for you the brightest ideal that ever my words set before you. There is no need of paring down the promise until it squares with human probabilities, no need of relinquishing one hope it has begotten, no need of adopting some interpretation of it which may make it seem easier to fulfill, and no need of striving to fulfill it in any second-rate way. All possibility lies in this: I am the Almighty God.”

Marcus Dods, The Book of Genesis (New York, 1902), page 161.

Now this is just cool. I've had it sitting in an open tab on my computer for days, and every time I look at it, it makes me grin.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Reading McKillip

I think that when I grow up, I want to be Patricia Mckillip. Which could be discouraging, because when she was my age she'd had eight books published and won the Newberry. But I don't think that she'd had four kids. I'll take the trade. (And yes, #4 is still in utero, but I swear that he's taking more time and energy than the other three combined right now, just in the amount of extra sleep that been extracted this summer).

In the last month I've read Od Magic and Alphabet of Thorns, (together with a smattering of her short fiction from Harrowing the Dragon). McKillips prose is some of the best out there and the worlds she creates so rich, so layered, that I can actually get lost in them. Putting the book down can be like exiting the theater. "Oh, it's still light out. I had no idea--"

After spending a large chunk of yesterday reading, I could actually feel the need to transition. My head was swirling and it was a good thing, lost in speculation on the nature of magic and the power of words--but I had a first grader getting off the bus in ten minutes, and I needed to be ready to hear about recess and the bus ride, to provide hugs and snacks and start working on dinner. A completely different good thing.

This, I think is what has been one of the hardest things about trying to write over the years. It's not finding the time to write exactly, but I want to be able to submerge myself in the writing and reading--and that requires an emotional and mental energy that is not natural to parenting small children. It's not easily interruptible. I can't lose myself in ten minute allotments between loads of laundry and while keeping one ear open to negotiate squabbles.

I'm reminded of the Olympic biatholon. I'm told that one of the challenges of this sport is that the cross country skiing drives the athlete's heart rate up, while target shooting is most natural while one is calm, with a low heart rate.

I'm not sure that I have any answers. But maybe being able to articulate the problem a little more clearly will be able to clarify things a little. But I think that the start of an answer may be here: this is essentially the same set of concerns that swim around the issues of spirituality and religion and that so plague the church. We have an innate desire for our spirituality to be transcendent, to be able to lose ourselves in worship, to be able to touch the infinite. And yet the reality of Christian discipleship is mostly carried out in the frustratingly mundane. Christ does not pull us out of this world, but rather comes down into it with us--and sets about showing us how to interact with it. Hmm.

Pray for the church

This from Jonathan Edwards, via Ray Ortlund . . .

“If we look through the whole Bible and observe all the examples of prayer that we find there recorded, we shall not find so many prayers for any other mercy as for the deliverance, restoration and prosperity of the church and the advancement of God’s glory and kingdom of grace in the world. . . . The Scripture does not only abundantly manifest it to be the duty of God’s people to be much in prayer for this great mercy, but it also abounds with manifold considerations to encourage them in it and animate them with hopes of success. There is perhaps no one thing that the Bible so much promises, in order the encourage the faith, hope and prayers of the saints, as this . . . . For undoubtedly that which God abundantly makes the subject of his promises, God’s people should abundantly make the subject of their prayers. It also affords them the strongest assurances that their prayers shall be successful.”

Jonathan Edwards, Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:291.

How often do we pray for ourselves, and how our individual wants, and how often do we pray for our communities? I am reminded that Paul's confidence that God, "who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus," (Phil 1:6) is for the whole church in Phillipi . . .

The Christian life and fear

Take a moment to read this quote from William Gurnall, courtesy of Rev. Ray Ortlund.

Then think about God allowing Satan to bring the subconcious fears in our lives to the surface, not to torment us, but so that Christ can completely disarm Satan. So that there is nothing left for Satan to use against us because God has proved himself trustworthy, yet again.

True, fear is part of the human condition, but isn't it fun to look at it and think about it as a sign that we're winning? :)

Book Review: Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

It's a bit of a different thing reviewing the 10th anniversary edition of a New York Times bestseller than it is reviewing a new release. The book has obviously already resonated with a great many people and has staying power as well--they don't put out revised and expanded editions of flash-in-the-pan bestsellers. The questions a review should ask, it seems to me, tend more towards the reflective--not, "What will this book do?" but "What has this book done, and why? And is that a good thing? And what does that tell us?"

It's also a bit of different thing reviewing a book for which one is not the intended audience. This is a book for men, about men. It is a book about gender differences, and I am a woman reading and reviewing it. I can choose to believe its assertions or not. I can try to evaluate whether the worldview and system that Eldredge sets forth rings true with my observation and experience--but I cannot interact with the questions from the inside as he intends his audience (of men) to do.

Eldredge says that there are three God-given desires built into every man:

1. A battle to fight

2. An adventure to live

3. A beauty to rescue

Additionally, he says that every man is battling fear, primarily in the form of the question "Do I have what it takes?" That healthy men will operate out of their strength, through Christ to fight the battle, live the adventure and rescue the beauty. But that the wounds to a man's strength (from the world, the flesh and the devil) leave men so afraid that they are not "man enough" to pull it off that they end up either

--desperately over-compensating and trying to prove to themselves and everyone else that they can do it, or else

--abandoning it all as hopeless and left as weak, passive and ineffective.

The way out of this mess is the recognition and healing of the wounds, finding the source of true strength (God), and acceptance of the battles, adventures, and beauty that God has in store for each man.

It's easy to see why this book has been so popular and widely used. Eldredge is a good writer. Alternating anecdotes and explication, he unpacks his ideas thoroughly and carefully, making it virtually impossible to miss or misunderstand his points. Additionally, he invites the reader to go through the material slowly, taking time to process and apply the principles he lays out. This combination makes the book ideal for a church small-group study or class setting. In tone, Eldredge is relentlessly encouraging and positive. And the schema that he sets out is general enough to cover a full half of the human race, but the probing questions he uses to guide his readers through their own self-discovery and healing are the sort that are probably going to spur growth with just about anyone who interacts with them seriously and intentionally.

No single interpretive lens for categorizing and understanding people will give us the whole truth. Individuals are too complex and varied for that. Meyers-Briggs, the Enneagram, and perhaps even cat-people-dog-people can shed some light on who we are and give us tools to interpret and name and understand what we see and feel. By using multiple lenses we can see different truths and gain an ever more accurate and nuanced understanding of who we are as people. Eldredge's work in Wild at Heart (and its companion book for women, Captivating) give a valuable and truth-revealing lens to help us better see ourselves.

If you're inclined to read Eldredge's work, I would particularly recommend you do so together with Tim Keller's short (though challenging) book Counterfeit Gods. Eldredge's weak point is his theology. Wild at Heart is basically a work of Christian pop psychology--and quite a good one. While Eldredge's theology informs and shapes his views of people, I think that his worldview--his first lens, if you will--is a psychological, not a theological one. This isn't surprising, or even necessarily a criticism. The man was trained as a counselor, not as a pastor or theologian. Keller says in his promotional video on Amazon that "Idolatry is anything more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, or identity." Eldredge describes very clearly some of the ways that we go looking for happiness, meaning and identity apart from God--but he does not name them as idols--and he calls for a return to God to find identity, etc, but he writes as if simply recognizing God as the better source is sufficient. As if it were that easy. Keller recognizes how bent on idolatry the sinful human heart is. As he preached in his sermon at the Gospel Coalition in April 2009, idols must not simply be discerned--they must also be exposed and destroyed. The always excellent Keller gives some superb teaching in rooting out things that we'd rather not look square in the face.

All of us need help to see ourselves and to see God truly. We all need corrective lenses. (Scripture tells us that those who worship idols blind themselves, and though Christ comes to give sight to the blind, through our continuing idolatry we continue to screw ourselves up.) If you're looking for some self-understanding and encouragement, Wild at Heart (and Captivating) are certainly worth trying out.

Four stars out of five.

This review was written as part of Thomas Nelson's Book Sneeze Review program. I received a complimentary copy of the book to read and review. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

It's a great big universe . . .

shown here to scale. Very cool.

And of course, something like this needs Yakko Warner to add the music . . .

Book Review: Jesus Manifesto, by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

(Guest post by Rob, filling in for Sara)

The best summary of this book comes from the authors themselves, in the last chapter: Christians don’t follow Christianity; they follow Christ. Christians don’t preach themselves; they preach Christ. Christians don’t preach about Christ: they simply preach Christ. The purpose of the book is to lay out why that’s so and what that looks like, in order to address “the major disease of today’s church . . . JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder.”

Sweet and Viola do an excellent job of this; they have written a book which is truly centered on—indeed, saturated with—Jesus. Rather than resting on human wisdom, it rests solidly on Scripture, the word that contains the Word, “the cradle that contains the Christ,” in Luther’s phrase; this is not to say that they ignore the wisdom of Christians through the ages, but they only use it to expound and amplify the voice of the Scriptures as they speak of Christ. This book will make anyone who reads it with an open mind and heart aware of their hunger and thirst for Jesus; one hopes it will do the same for the American church.

This book was provided to me free by Thomas Nelson in exchange for a book review as part of their BookSneeze program. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review.