Book Review: "The God I Don't Understand."

I had never heard of Christopher Wright until I saw this book at Barnes & Noble. It looked very interesting, but I didn't buy it quickly. Instead, I researched him online and discovered that he's somewhat of a disciple of John Stott - whom I have a lot of respect for. So I bought it & read it in about 5 days.

The best thing that I can say about this book is that Wright's study of Scripture drove me to my Bible. I often sat with this book open & my Bible open next to it. I love this. His respect for Scripture was quite obvious.

Wright begins by humbly saying that there are many things about life & God that he does not fully understand. And he mentions the numerous Bible characters who felt the same (Moses, David, Ruth, Jeremiah & Job to name a few). But he's careful to say that there are plenty of things that he does understand (so don't assume that he's saying we should give-up cause it's too hard to understand). He says, "faith seeks understanding, and faith builds understanding, but faith does not finally depend on understanding."

He then launches into several difficult questions that he has wrestled with, and that he offers some Biblical insight into. The three most helpful sections for me were:
-How do you explain the violence in the OT and also say that God is loving?
-Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? (He pushes through to some deep ideas surrounding this fundamental question.)
-What about the "end times."

I found Wright's study to be excellent, his thoughts to be provoking and his writing to be easy-reading. I'm not sure I agree with one or two of his interpretations but they are relatively minor (and I appreciate his view). I'd recommend this book to anyone.

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I was reminded again of why I hate sin

His arm cocked back all the way and he threw the ball as hard as he could at his little boy...

This weekend I witnessed something that traumatized me. I haven't felt what I felt in a long time - if ever. Honestly, I've had to talk it through with someone who could help me, and I've had to wake my wife up to talk about it. I'm not going to try to tell the story, but it's enough for you to know that I saw it and responded to it in the best way that I knew how. I'm glad that I did respond and I'm thankful that the situation didn't get uglier than it already was.

The whole thing has left me hating sin more. Sin messes us up. It leads us down paths that we never thought we'd go. It blinds us. It robs us of compassion. It robs us of common sense. And it robs our friends & our families. It robs so many children.

I thought a lot about my friends who have struggled with addiction, depression & anger - and the common theme for many of them is that they struggled with stuff because they had unresolved issues with their fathers. Their fathers may have ignored them, or may have abused them. And it left them with scars that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Some find healing. (Which I very much believe is possible through Jesus). But some don't find healing.

And sin causes so much confusion. I found myself having to choose between a bunch of bad options. And I know sometimes my sin has caused others the same problem. Sin does this to us. It wears us out. And it can take away joy, peace and rest if we don't deal with it.

I can find two good things in all of my pondering:
#1 God's Word works. It's right. When followed, it leads to healthy living & healthy relationships.
#2 My longing for the new creation has grown. Oh for the day when sin is no longer at play, when evil has no power and Satan has been dealt the final blow. We will feel so rested, secure and hopeful. We will experience a fullness of joy and peace. Until then, we must hang-on to Jesus, praying & working & waiting.

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James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

In the days that James wrote this, there were two important things happening:
1. Unwanted children were often just abandoned. Left to the mercy of a passerby, or an animal, or the elements... distress.

2. Women rarely worked outside of the home. If their husband died, than they lived with their children. If they had no children...distress.

James didn't want us to exclude others from acts of mercy. But he did want us to notice those who are most vulnerable. And he wanted to make sure that Christians didn't confuse rituals, gatherings & worship services as being true religion. All of these can be good, but they don't make someone in step with what God had in mind.

When we changed our Sunday morning routine a few months ago, in order to serve people in our community, we were saddened to hear a few people grumble about "not having church." And a few people just didn't show because they didn't think it was worth their time. We were sad because apparently they didn't understand that our "worship" or "service" or "church" or "religion" that morning was at in it's most pure form. But we were were overwhelmed with joy that so many people happily participated. And lives were changed. And the reverberations can still be felt in our community. It was pure. It was good. It was right.

I wanted to include some resources that accompany my sermon (June 28).

Widows and orphans were singled out as protected by God:
Dt. 10:18, 14:28-29, 16:11, 24:17, 26:12
Jer. 22:3
Zech 7:8-10
Mal. 3:5
Acts 6:1
I Tim 5:16

Pure & faultless are words associated with ceremonial cleanness. (Luke 11:39-41)
Godliness is more than outward ceremony. (Micah 6:7-8)

And check out these links:
Cardinals All Star Albert Pujols cares for the needy

see how some churches are promoting adoptions and foster care (note: see the June 28, 2009 publication.)

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We Passed

Our adoption was approved in an Ethiopian court this morning. Shurabe (shur-ah-bee) Eden Jennings is officially our daughter. We’ll probably leave on July 11 to travel to Ethiopia, but that date will be confirmed in a couple of days.
We are relieved, thankful & celebrating.
Thank you for your prayers!

Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
Your sons come from afar,
And your daughters are carried on the arm.
Then you will look and be radiant,
Your heart will throb and swell with joy!
-Isaiah 60:4-5

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"Don't Do It"

We watched a hilarious video this morning, in honor of fathers. If you want to see it again (or for the first time) here ya go...
Don't Do It

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The Big Fish

I took Levi, my 5 year old, on a little camping trip this weekend. I've been trying to be more intentional about spending one-on-one time with my boys. After our trip, I'm even more convinced that this is an important thing. There is something about getting away and being totally focused on just one.

OK, now to the fishing story: We were next to a small lake (or is that a big pond) and we wanted to fish a bit before we lit our campfire. I put a minnow and bobber on Levi's "Batman" kids fishing pole. We sat down on the deck as darkness settled in.

We were about ready to quit when the bobber disappeared. I hung onto the pole with Levi as it doubled-over. We spent 7 or 8 minutes trying to reel in the submerged monster. I was trying to let Levi do some of the work, but was also trying to keep the pole from breaking. I also pressed the string against the pole with my thumb some because the fish was more than the reel could handle. But we finally wore the fish out & pulled it up to see how big it was. I thought I would see a catfish, but it was a bass, about 18 inches long (with it's tail on the ground, it's mouth was at the bottom of my kneecap). Our friend John figured it was 3-4 pounds. I'm pretty sure it was bigger than anything that I've ever pulled out of fresh water. We tossed it back so that John could catch it later, and because Levi thought it was cute & didn't want to hurt it. He's so sweet.

We laughed a lot and talked about it all night. I think I almost enjoyed it as much as Levi, because I'm not, as I've mentioned before, a knowledgeable fisherman. (Which was proved when I decided that our bucket of minnows would be fine staying outside all night since there was a lid on it - we woke-up to discover that the lid was off & all the minnows were gone.)

If you are asking if we have pictures, the answer is "No. Darn." I didn't have our camera with me. But you can ask Levi, and there is no way he would be that excited about a story that we made-up. And you should definitely ask him. It's a story better told by him.

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Chosen

In about an hour I'll be preaching on "adoption" and Ephesians 1. One of the issues that arises from Ephesians 1 is the idea of predestination. Taken to its extreme, the idea is that God chooses who will love Him and who won't. We just live-out what He has already chosen for us. I personally believe that this is a tragic theological error. It's one that I can't fit within the idea of a loving God.

It's interesting how those who support this view (at least all that I've heard) are some of the "chosen ones." Lucky for them, eh?

I do believe that I may not be able to fully understand how all of this plays out, but I do believe that Jesus' story of the Wedding Invitations in Matthew 22 sheds some light for us. The King chose to invite people (so they were chosen). But not everyone accepted the invitation (so they were not "the chosen ones").

Perhaps the word "predistined" is what throws us off. That word literally means "To set boundries in advance." God did certainly set the boundries for choosing to follow Jesus.

Here are some Scriptures that seem to clearly state that God desires all to come to Him, and that anyone can do this through Jesus:
John 14:18-20
Matthew 22:1-14
Luke 13:5
John 3:16-18
Acts 2:38, 17:30
Revelation 22:17.

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Time

I got to spend an entire day with my boys yesterday. Making a way to spend entire days with them sometimes is important. It helps me know them more and understand my wife better too.

My two favorite quotes of the day were:

Levi, "I hope Canon (1 year old friend) is having a good day, cause he is my little cutie."

Cole to me after we borrowed a friends baseball video game, "I'm gonna be Alfred Pujols."

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Your Adoption Story

On Sunday I'm going to tell two stories:

Story #1: Our adoption story (incomplete as it may be). God has done some amazing things in our lives over the past few months related to our adoption efforts, and I am going share just a few of those with you. My prayer is that this story will be much Less about us and much More about God.

Story #2: Your adoption story. Yes, you. Ephesians 1 uses lots of "adoption" language as it refers to God choosing us. That's pretty remarkable. Check out the first 14 verses in Ephesians 1 & look for the "adoption" language. It's pretty awesome.

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Dreams

Last night I woke-up three times, after three dreams.

Dream #1: I met Eden (the little girl we are adopting from Ethiopia) and she had some physical problems that were going to need more medical attention than we thought. But I was really glad to meet her. And she was a couple of years older than I thought.

Dream #2: I met Eden and she was about 12 years old, up to my chin, beautiful and spoke fluent English. And I was really glad to meet her.

Dream #3: I met Eden and she was a really cute little three year old. She gave me a hug & I was really glad to meet her.

Well, now you know what's on my mind. The challenge is to try to live in the present when my dreams are in the future. I think I did a really good job of this until about 2 weeks ago (when we failed our first court date). It's become harder ever since. Time hasn't gone by this slow since Algebra class. In the next day or two, I'll tell you a few things that have kept me sane and energized for the present.

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Forgiveness

I had the privilege of being part of a pretty powerful morning. We hit the theme of Forgiveness this morning. Jesus says, "If you forgive others, God will forgive you; if you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you" (my paraphrase of Matthew 6:14). We also had some people help me teach Matthew 18, had a really funny drama to set the stage, an amazing "forgiveness" testimony by my friend Charlie, and most importantly, we had a time where people took the critical first step in moving towards forgiveness. I told people that our time together couldn't fix all of their forgiveness stuff, but that it could be the beginning.

I really appreciate the help I got from some Celebrate Recovery leaders. They reviewed my sermon manuscript and gave me some helpful advice last week. They rock!

As a funny side note, I wish you could have seen me driving early this morning with my large wheelbarrow bungee-tied into the my very small trunk. I needed it for a prop, and it was well worth the trouble.

If you missed it and want to check it out, we should have it on our web site by Monday afternoon. hp website

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Did not pass court

We found out this morning that we did not pass court in Ethiopia. There is an Ethiopian Govt. agency - I think called the Ministry of Woman's Affairs - that has to write a letter on our behalf for us to pass court. This did not happen. We aren't sure if it wasn't written because they noted something with our paperwork of if they just didn't have time to do it. They are being extremely particular right now and lots of other people have also not passed over the past few weeks.
A new court date for us has been scheduled for June 18. Our agency is going to try to get them to move our date forward.
We are really disappointed, but will try to be patient. Perhaps God knows something about the timing that we don't (wouldn't be the first time). Please pray that our court date could get bumped up and that we could pass soon. We appreciate your concern and your prayers very much.

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A Picture of my Sermon

There is a website that creates a word-picture of any submitted text. Here's what I mean:
I pasted the text of the sermon that I'll be preaching into a box on the website. Then it made the words that I used the most, the biggest. The fewer times I used a word, the smaller it appears. It's useful for me to See what I'm trying Say. It could also be helpful for writers/bloggers, teachers, musicians and students. To see my sermon or to play around on the site, click here. You'll have to make sure you have the latest Java update. The "Help" site on the page can get you there.

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Our Capacity to Love

Cole is playing baseball this year and we are having a good time. It's all first graders and a coach pitches to his own team. I'm our designated pitcher. Tonight Cole was up & after he missed the first pitch, I reminded him to step towards me. As the catcher was getting the ball, Cole rehearsed his swing in slow motion. He continued to do so as the catcher got, threw it to me, and I waited. I hollered at him several times before he came out of his trance.

I looked up in the stands and saw Beth smiling & I just had this Dad moment where my sense of love for Cole overwhelmed me. I smiled & I could feel my heart warm. My next pitch wasn't even close to being hittable, so I had to calm myself down. He ended up hitting one pretty hard though the infield for a single.

It's amazing how our capacity to love increases as new people are added to our life. Beth added a whole new dimension of love in my life, and our boys have done the same thing. Even the two that we are waiting on have added this new love for me. And loving our next two won't detract from how much I love Beth and the boys. It's one of the beautiful things about love. And thinking about all of this makes me so grateful for God and his unfathomable love.

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Getting Older

I had a good friend ask me to go to the hospital today in order to visit her good friend (whom I had met but didn't know well). My friend had to work today.

I got to spend over 30 minutes visiting with an 84 year-old lady, who is full of life. She's going to be in the hospital for over a week but was really upbeat. She recently saw some picture of our church's teens helping tutor children, and do work projects for others. She was so excited about that. Before I left she told me to let her know if we ever needed help; she would try to meet any need we or others had.

I loved her attitude. I hope as I grow older that my passion for helping others only increases. I hope when others leave my presence, they feel encouraged, blessed and motivated. Isn't it funny how when we try to help people that we end up being the ones who are blessed.

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Does Jesus Ride in Mini Vans?

They nurture, love, take kids to the doctor, work... and they often are seen in mini vans*. Lots of moms work really hard and are very busy. It comes with the territory. When we recently found out that we were expecting again, and we were in the middle of a busy day, I told Beth, "Don't worry, it will slow down in 18 years."

Sunday is going to be a lot of fun at HPCC for lots of reasons (we have a really funny surprise planned), but I also think that we're going to be talking about a Bible story that will help moms. Specifically, my prayer is that we will help moms find rest in God in the midst of their mommy duties. There are many people and tasks pulling us in a hundred directions, but there is one thing that we cannot sacrifice in the midst of our busyness. On Sunday I pray that all of us will find spiritual encouragement and some practical help too.

*I also have often been seen driving a mini van. I recognize that mini vans are gender-neutral vehicles.

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