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Bible Tuesday

You discern my going out and my lying down;

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

You know it completely, o Lord.
Psalm 139: 3-4

Some Bible translations use the word acquainted in place of familiar.    Both of these words feel wrong to me in the context of the verse.  I think it is my modern interpretation for these words that cause the problem.  When I say ‘familiar’, I mean that I have a vague idea about something.  When I say I am acquainted with someone or something, again I am alluding to a very casual knowledge of that person or subject.    Surely David is not implying that God has a vague knowledge about us?

The answer, of course, is absolutely not.  And I can prove it.  The Hebrew word for ‘familiar’ in verse 3 is ‘sakan’.  That same word is also found in Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

None of us would suggest that Jesus had a casual idea of suffering.  He knew suffering in a deeper way than any of us can imagine.  Now go back to Psalm 139.  God knows our ways like Jesus knew suffering.  That is to say totally, completely, in every way it can be known.

You are no surprise to God.

There is nothing about you that God does not know.

He is familiar with you.

Ask and you shall

Receive!

Who knew Santa would be so accommodating?

Christmas Shopping

Customize a free slideshow Only took me three months to get these posted!!!  Progress :)

Quoted

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life:

  It goes on."

- Robert Frost

Ain't it the truth, Robert.  Ain't it the truth.

Wonderworks - December 2011

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All the fun you can handle for a mere 100 bucks...

Bible Tuesday

    And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  

Genesis 2:8-9

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

Genesis 2:15-17

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"   And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,  but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"  But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."   So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.  

Genesis 3:1-6

So there you have it.  'The Fall'.  I have read this story many times.  I have sat through many, many sermons about it too.  And I have always believed that this first sin was simple disobedience.  God said 'don't', Adam and Eve did.  Pretty simple, right? 

But I am beginning to think that might be too simplistic of an explanation.  I think the sin in this 'fall' is Adam and Eve's inability to be satisfied with the good things that God had given them.  They had more than enough.  God had placed them in a paradise.  It appears that all the animals were friendly.  There is no indication that they had to deal with any danger whatsoever.  They were given dominion over everything and every tree in the garden was given to them for food...except one. 

And the serpent can't wait to point out what God has withheld from Eve.  Does he do that to you too?  If you're not sure, I can help.  Is your life pretty dang awesome?  I mean, are your kids healthy?  Do you have running hot water?  Access to antibiotics?  If you have all these great things but you are constantly worried about getting something else, there's a pretty good chance that's the devil.  And please don't let that exempt you from personal responsibility.  When the enemy starts reminding you about what you don't have, try telling him what you already possess.  Imagine if Eve had said to the sepent, "Look snake, you can't seriously think I would be interested in one piece of fruit when I have all these other things to choose from?" 

In 10 Conversations You Need to Have With Your Children, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach puts it this way:

"Do you know what the greatest destroyer of mankind is?  It's his insatiability.  Nothing is ever enough."

 He goes on to say:

"The classical, Jewish interpretation is that the serpent is a metaphor for insatiability.  The snake slithers along the ground eating dust, which is plentiful but never satisfying...
Now he spreads his insatiability by biting Eve and putting that same poison into her, and she in turn passes it on to Adam...Nothing excites them anymore...Only the forbidden fruit captures their interest, and so they become fixated on what they can't have.  And that is how it begins...This is what drives them out of the garden.  They will never be satisfied.  Paradise is lost to them."

We live in a world of more.  Every Christmas season is an orgy of consumerism (I'm guilty here big time.)  January brings an avalanche of "Get organized" sales wherein we are urged to buy pretty plastic boxes to hold all the crap we no longer have room for.  We spend thousands on systems to 'organize' our closets so that we can keep enough stuff to clothe an small African village.  We hire professionals to tell us where to put all our stuff and none of them ever seem to suggest Goodwill.  We are ashamed to open our garage doors because that's where we hide all the stuff we can't seem to fit anywhere else.  And despite all that, not a shopping mall in the whole country will be empty this weekend.  Because it's just never enough.

Christmas 2011 - Better late than never

Make a photo collage I know what you're thinking.  Where is Dylan?  And the answer is simple.  Dylan is 20 years old.  He showed up for Christmas morning three hours late.  He opened all his presents and loaded them into his car while I was upstairs putting batteries in something.  So just try to imagine the happy look on his face.  That's what I did.

Quoted - Blue Like Jazz Edition

"I love to give charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace."

- Donald Miller

Book Review - A Northern Light

This book broke my bad reading spell.  Reading it was like eating a Krispy Creme Doughnut after starving for a month.  It was that good folks.

A Northern Light is actually classified as a young adult novel.  This is the genre that provided us with The Hunger Games so it's definitely not just for kids. 

Matty Gokey is a young woman growing up in a difficult situation.  Her mother has died.  She has three younger sisters to take care of.  Her older brother has run off leaving her to help their father run a farm that is far more than she can handle.  Worse than all this, Matty is a writer who dreams of going to college.  She earns a scholarship but her father, initially, will not allow her to get a job at one of the local hotels to earn the money she will need for travel, books and lodging.

This book has a 'story within a story' about the murder of a guest at the hotel.  It's loosely based on the story of Chester Gillette. 

The whole thing is so well written.  I couldn't find one sentence in the whole deal to make fun of. 

Quoted

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

—Albert Einstein

Begium and some other places

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Bible Tuesday

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
a little child to the cheek,
and I bent down to feed them.

Hosea 11:3-4

“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboyim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come against their cities.

Hosea 11:8-9

At 5AM on February 14th, I came to this passage in my normal bible reading plan.  God's ability to speak directly to me through His word never fails to thrill me.

God sent me a Valentine.

Hosea 11 is one of my all time favorite passages in scripture.  (I say that too much don't I?  Sorry.)  It's the juxtaposition of two kinds of love presented here that overwhelms me.  In verses 3 and 4, God is Father.  Do you remember when your kids were learning to walk?  If you were like me, you walked a thousand miles bent over holding onto little hands.  That's the picture here. 

But verse 8 is much different. God has determined that His people must pay for their sin.  They have followed idols, sacrificed to other gods and generally ignored the one who created them.  (Sound familiar?)  But, He just can't do it.  And I am so humbled to know that the only thing that can change God's mind is His consuming love for us. 

Date night in Brussels

After spending the day wandering around Antwerp, Kevin called from his work venue with a proposition.  "Let's take the train to Brussels and have dinner at this amazing place I know there."  (How can you not love a man who knows a great place to eat in friggin Brussels, Belgium?)  Instead of saying "Yeah!"  I responded with my usual nonsense.  "It will be late.  The train ride is too long.  We have to go right back to Brussels in the morning to catch a flight home."  Blah, blah, blah.  Kevin would not take no for an answer and what followed may well be in the top five best evenings of my pitiful life.  I'm ashamed that I almost missed it.

We made the 15 min walk to the train station in Antwerp.  Just the sight of that beautiful building was worth the walk.  We caught the train to Brussels and settled in for the 45 minute ride.  We talked the whole way and Kevin didn't fall asleep once (which is pretty awesome considering he had been up since 6AM and had been presenting all day.) 

Once in Brussels, we made our way out of the train station through a series of dark nondescript roads until we emerged to see this.

I know, right?   Are you kidding me?  I was literally speechless.  Friends, it ain't easy to rob me of speech. 

We wandered around until my eyes were tired of all that awesome.  Also, we were starving so we headed to the 'place' that Kevin had mentioned.  It was a small place.  A disgruntled looking waitress shook her head at us as we walked in and pointed at the crowded dining room.  She motioned for us to try upstairs.  We headed to the secondary dining area  feeling like we were being punished until we were seated at a table with this view.  I thought the whole deal couldn't get much better but I was wrong.

The food...Sweet Jesus.  First we had cheese croquettes.  Sounds like the Belgian version of mozzarella sticks, right?  Nuh unh.  These things were...well let me just say, if heaven is a place prepared for me, I will be eating those cheese croquets throughout eternity.  I ate them so fast I forgot to take a picture.  But it wouldn't do them justice even if I had.  We each had different entrees which were ten kinds of awesome respectively. 

We waddled out of the place feeling fat and happy.  We wandered around downtown Brussels window shopping and wishing our stomachs could hold a chocolate waffle ( a Belgian specialty). 

Seeing Brussels would have been great in almost any situation but being able to share it with Kevin is what really made it special.  We get so excited to spend any time alone together whether we are at Costco or a fancy pants eatery in Europe. 

I cheese croquette love that man.

Quoted - C.S. Lewis Edition

Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

- C.S. Lewis


Better yet...just quit worrying about your happiness.   It's tiresome.

Ugh

I'm in a book slump.

It's killing me.

I finally forced myself to go back to the library.  I had made it through the holidays with some used books I bought and a few freebies on the Kindle but they couldn't last forever.  I hadn't been in six weeks.  The exact amount of time that Anna's book was overdue.  After 45 days of saying "Found it yet?" and getting "nope, I forgot to look" for an answer, I handed the librarian 25 bucks and begged forgiveness. 

With my record sponged clean, I began to browse with a sense of excitement.  15 minutes later, I trudged to my car empty handed.  Not one thing there interested me. 

Undeterred, I went back three days later determined to take home an armload of literary masterpieces.  I picked up 7 (!) books and headed home.

I started with this one.



Here's what happened on page 3.

"Emily Sanders? he says with a voice that sounds like warm t-shirt sheets, fresh from the dryer."

Have you EVER, in your entire life, read a more contrived sentence?  I'm convinced that publishers don't even use editors anymore.  How could they and still let such a sentence be printed in a book people actually pay for (unless they're cheap and get it from the library, like me.)?

Here's the author pic from the back cover.

I searched everywhere for the full size picture to post.  You can't get the full effect without seeing the way she is contorted to hold both hands on one crossed leg.  This has nothing to do with her as an author, it just amuses me.

While searching for the picture, I did discover that this book had been the basis for a really bad sitcom starring Heather Graham and that the author is married to the defensive coach for the Tennessee Titans. 

So I am on to book number 2.  If it doesn't work out, I might take up knitting or Tae-bo...again.



Scenes from Kline Manor

Ava:  "Mama, when am I going to be able to get baptized?"

Me:  "Well, we have to wait until you are old enough."

Ava:  "Old enough for what?"

Me:  "Old enough to know what you believe."

Ava: "Well I already believe in God.  And I believe in Jesus...
          and princesses.

Bible Tuesday

“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” 

Romans 3:20

I think most everyone knows God’s laws by now.  Sure there are some dicey areas, mostly surrounding shellfish.  But for the most part, even the most avowed agnostic knows God abhors murder, adultery, stealing, lying, etc.

But if the law leads us to aknowledge our sin, we’re only halfway there.  Relationship with Christ is the only thing that can lead us to true repentance.  If you ever have that experience wherein you accept the full weight of how much you are loved and how much God sacrificed for you through Jesus, all your past, present and future sin will tear you to shreds.

That encounter won’t make you sinless.  It will just make you blameless. And I assure you, you won’t feel like you are getting away with something.  You will however spend the rest of your life in awe that God knew exactly how much it would cost to forgive you and chose to pay it anyway.

Primary!

Watching the GOP primary fight has been the highlight of my winter.  The whole thing amuses and horrifies me.  Wanna know my dirty little Republican secret?

I have a crush on Mitt Romney.  I mean, just look at him.

 

Doesn't he look like he would take you out to dinner and let you order anything you want?

Although I would rather eat my own toenails than have to deal with seeing Newt Gingrich on my teevee for the next 18 months, the alternative might be worse.  Whenever Romney shows up on screen, I have to stop whatever I am doing and say "Hello Handsome".  Also, I have to say it in a weird, Kathleen Turner voice which sends me into a fit of hysterical giggles.  I don't have time for all this people.  I got laundry to do.

Quoted - Blue Like Jazz Edition

"I would hear about grace, read about grace, and even sing about grace, but accepting grace is an action I could not understand. It seemed wrong to me not to have to pay for my sin, not to feel guilty about it or kick myself around. More than that, grace did not seem like the thing I was looking for. It was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I had earned my forgiveness, as though God and I were buddies doing favors for each other."

- Donald Miller

Antwerp

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Quoted

This would be the first step in apostasy; men first forget the true, and then adore the false.

- Charles Spurgeon