His Righteousness

"I will give to the LORD the thanks due to His righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High."
Psalm 7:17

Conversations With Boo

Today Daniel and I were reading the story of the six blind men and the elephant when I realized that Daniel probably didn't know what being blind meant. So I explained to him that being blind meant that a person could not see. Their eyes are broken. Daniel immediately started crying. He does not like the idea of part of a person being broken or hurt or sick. I assured him that his eyes and my eyes were not broken, but that some people's eyes were and that it was okay because God had made them that way.

He was still a little teary so I sat him on my lap and we had a little talk. I told him that when God made everything, it was perfect and nothing was broken. But that when sin came into the world, things started to break. But the good news is that Jesus came and He is perfect and He died to take away sin and brokeness. And that when He was on earth he started fixing things, and that one day, and this is where Mommy started crying, He would fix everything and everyone. No one would be broken anymore. What Good News! The curse reversed forever.

Now even though Daniel has autism, I don't think he is something broken that I need to fix for his life to be worth something. But the truth of the matter is that the curse is affecting Daniel through this autism. The thing is, though, that even through this, yes, there is grace. God has given this to him and us because of His grace. Another chance to learn to lean hard on Him and, with His help, to teach Daniel to do likewise.

Righteous Anger

I never realized something until today. I was reading in Psalm 4 and came across the verse used to defend what is called a righteous anger. And I am not saying that there is no such thing. But I was surprised by the rest of the verse.

"4 Be angry,and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent."

This verse says that there is a way to be angry without sinning. But it seems like some conditions are put on this. It doesn't seem to be an anger that explodes all over the place verbally, but an anger that is silent and pondering. Now I do realize that there is a type of anger that seethes and nurses hurt until it finally explodes (yes, that is me). But in the context of the whole chapter it seems that what the angry person is to be meditating on is God and His power to hear and help in distress. It is an opportunity to trust and realize that God is the only one who will not disappoint. And it is a chance to have your anger turned into joy because you have realized again that if you have God, you have all that you need.

This is interesting because how do you talk to a person who is verbally ranting and raving all over the place and claiming this is a righteous anger. They usually see it as righteous because there is often a genuine wrong committed against them and so they see it as just of themselves to be outraged at this sin. They see it as something to be called attention to. But they are calling attention to themselves and their rights and their hurts, not to their God. But that doesn't seem to be what this verse is saying. This righteous anger is not calling for recognition of a wrong committed against them. It is not demanding immediate satisfaction or sypathetic outrage from others. It is silently putting its trust in the God who will make all wrongs right, and it is taking comfort and joy in its God.

Makes me think about some of the rants I have written.

(Now I am not saying that we should not be outraged at sin. We should. But there seems to be set forth in scripture a proper way of doing this. But that proper way does not seem to be a verbal rant to anyone who will listen to you. How often I have said, "I just need to let it out". But is that really what I need? Or do I need my vision refocused?)

Come on, people. Tell me what you think.

The Grace of the Wilderness

Deuteronomy 8:11-16
11"Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today;
12otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them,
13and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies,
14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
15"He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint.
16"In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end.

So often when I come to a wilderness in my life I mourn the time lost in the wandering. Granted some of these wildernesses come through sin and neglect of my own doing. But there times when God leads us along into a wilderness. But in both cases there is grace. And how like our God to turn our own sin into grace.

I mentioned a while back that one of the things that God has been pressing in on me is the fact that His will for me was never that I reach a perfection in and of myself to where I would never need Him much because I had the Christian life down and I had attained. God's plan from the beginning is that I realize how much I need Him every second of every day for every little thing. The plan is not for me to grow into independence, but to grown into my dependence on Him. To lean hard on Him and to realize that He is all that props me up.

These wilderness wanderings are not a time to mourn. The sin that might have cause them, yes, but the time spent there, no. Because there I learn my need of Him. I am humbled to see my sinfulness, my lack, my desperation. And it is all "to do me good in the end". It is good that I see how much I need Him. It is good for me to see that I need to lean and lean hard. I need to roll it all over on Him and He will sustain me. Just like the Psalmist said, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." Grace in the wilderness.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

let me get this straight. This is the new moral high ground. Interrogation techniques that do not lead to death or permanent damage of terrorist who have killed or want to kill as many people as possible is bad. While torturing unborn children to death in or out of the womb (if they survive the torture inside the womb) for being conceived through no fault of their own is good. The new high ground is a new low.

We've Lost That Loving Feeling

I was thinking about love today and discussing it with Markus on Sunday. For some time I have had this little fear playing around in the deep recesses of my soul. This fear was that I did not really love the Word. There was no burning desire to be in the Word, and I think it made me run from the Word a bit because I was afraid to go to It and come away cold. Then my fears would be realized. When I did come to it, it always warmed me, but still did not feel like I loved the Word.

Did you catch the key word in that last sentence? "FEEL". Now I have learned in this wonderful adventure of marriage that feelings come and go. When you wake up one morning to something less than perfect, and he wakes up to something, by the way, far worse, you realize that is life, and love is a choice to be faithful, to cover sins, to seek the best of the other and to work at this marriage.

For some reason or another, it escaped me that the same principle applies to other things that we love. I will not always have a warm fuzzy feeling every time I think about reading the Word, but I choose to love it by reading it, valuing it, meditating on it and working at it. And the thing is, as I start to do those thing my love will grow--just like in marriage.

But this is also a good warning, because I can say that I love the Word, Christ, the Church and a host of other things (and even have the warm and fuzzies) but act in a neglectful way that shows there is no real love at all.

But now the thought is a comfort to me, because I can with my choices show my love to my God and my love for the Word that tells His love for me. And, yes, it does take me a while to realize the simplest things.

Blessed Is The Man

Psalm 1 has been on my mind this weekend. I was thinking on it in the terms of internet usage. Now I am not attracted by the dark side of the internet. My problem is more subtle, and as I was thinking about Psalm 1 I came to a sort of revelation.

There are some blogs and sites that I visit where I rarely agree with anything posted there. One blog is written by women who would claim to have be Christians but are now agnostic or atheist, and they have attracted like to their site. This blog is devoted to their experience in movements that I would consider to be unbalanced. Some of their formerly "biblical" beliefs are twisted interpretations of Scripture setting up the straw man that they deftly knock down. Since these are mainly women's issues, the site has attracted those who claim Christ but have sought alternative meanings to Scriptures that would support a husband led marriage and male led church.

So here is a site where the majority of commenters either mock the God and faith that I hold or adamantly oppose teachings that are Scripturally supported. Even though I do not agree with these commenters, there I am reading their posts and their views antithetical to the Lord I hold dear. I realized that being there, I am effectively standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of the scorner. As opposed as I am to their beliefs, filling my mind with their thoughts will have some sort of effect on me, no matter how subtle it is. Especially, if being on these sites takes away time from delighting in the Law of the Lord. My meditation after being on these sites is usually on the words there and not on the Living Word that can make me flourishing and fruitful.

Now am I saying that one can never checkout these sites to see what is going on out in the world. No, but I am saying that the majority of my time needs to be spent on things that will fill my mind with good and will aid me in my growth in godliness.