July 25, 2006
If you will forgive my just musing, I want to share what I’ve been contemplating. Unfortunately, I have no answers.
It seems that, lately, everything we do is to to survive – sleeping, cooking, eating, working. These are all the basic tasks we must accomplish in order to get on to the business of living. The problem is, we aren’t doing much living, when all is said and done – just these essential tasks.
Now we move on to the bigger question, and one that it’s scary I can no longer answer: what is living?
The Westminster Catechism says that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But what does it mean to enjoy God? What does this look like, day in and day out? And how does it merge with these essential tasks of survival? And just as importantly, how do we pass it on to our children?
July 22, 2006
I was reading the following passage today:
He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? Therefore I will also make you sick by striking you, by making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied; hunger shall be in your midst. You may carry some away, but shall not save them; and what you do rescue I will give over to the sword. You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread the olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; and make sweet wine, but not drink wine.” (-Micah 6:8,13-15)
and I was convicted (don’t try to follow the logic here, because there really isn’t any; it’s just one of those things where God used these words to speak to me what I, personally, needed to hear right now) of having never had the elders pray for me and anoint me with oil (James 5:14-15) for this adrenal fatigue and related symptoms. I was convicted of having focused on what I need to “do” to fix the problem myself, with prayer as an incidental “back-up,” rather than trusting God to take care of it, and me being the back-up.
July 21, 2006
I talked in a previous post about who sends calamity. Biblically, the answer is God. (If you want to debate that, please do it on that post, rather than this one.) Naturally, the next question that follows is, “Why?” While I don’t believe that we can necessarily know why God causes each and every individual event (and He doesn’t owe us an explanation!), we can know what some of the reasons are that God does these things, in general. How? By looking to the Scriptures to see why He has sent calamity in the past. (The following is not intended to be a comprehensive list.)
In the past, God has sent calamity to…
- bring about a blessing for someone else. (“Therefore understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.” – Deu. 9:3)
- prove the faith of a Saint. (See the entire book of Job, but especially chapters 1-2. Do not miss the second half of verse 2:3, “And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited [i]Me[/i] against him, to destroy him without cause.”)
- make known that He is the LORD. (“And they shall know that I am the LORD: I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them….So I will strech out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.” -Ez. 6:10,14)
- bring His children to repentance. (“For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away: I will take them away, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” – Hos. 5:14-15)
- humble the proud. (“Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that He will say, ‘I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.’” – Is. 10:12)
- punish the wicked. (“Hear, O earth! Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people – the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it.” – Jer. 6:19″)
July 15, 2006
Imagine this scenario:
A young man earnestly desires, and fully expects, to be a doctor. However, he thinks that perhaps his plans won’t work out. Maybe it will take a while to find a job in that field. Maybe after he’s been working for a while, the hospital will downsize. Because he cannot be perfectly certain of his future in the medical field, he decides to go to law school – not because he plans to be a lawyer, mind you, just in case doctoring doesn’t work out. Oh, he’ll read a few anatomy books and bandage a few wounds, but most of his time, money, and effort will be poured into law school.
Most of us would agree that this young man needs some serious training in logic! The question is, then, why do we encourage our young ladies to do exactly this?
If we expect to be homemakers, devoting our time, money, and energy to training in some other career is not only poor stewardship, it could very well be self-defeating. Studying nursing, for example, just because “it could be a while before I get married” or “my husband could possibly someday die or ditch me” is really no different than studying law because medicine might not work out. Meanwhile, we are ill-equipped for the career we do intend to have.
God has promised to meet our needs. If the unexpected happens, we can worry about it then. In the meantime, lets just concentrate on preparing for the expected.
(reading chronologically)
