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In Dan Allender’s book Sabbath: The Ancient Practices, he defines worship as “our response to beauty as we offer awe and gratitude [to God] for the gift of goodness” (44). That leads me to wonder: When, during the past week, did you offer awe and gratitude to God for the gifts of goodness that poured into your life? When were you alive to wonder? When did you experience the euphoric sensation of a meaningful life—even if only for a moment, and praise came tumbling out of your mouth?

Three occasions from the past week brought forth praise from my lips. Let me share them with you.

First, I praised God for Matthew Bingham’s book A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation. Irenic in tone, gracious in disagreement, straightforward prose. This is my favorite kind of theology to read. Highly recommended.

Second, I praised God for J. R. Briggs’s new book The Art of Asking Better Questions: Pursuing Stronger Relationships, Healthier Leadership, and Deeper Faith. “Think about how different the world would be if language was composed only of declarative statements, commands, and assertions. There would be no way to engage with another person other than to talk at them” (15). How stale and unpleasant would that be? Thankfully, we can embrace an explorer’s heart and learn more about our conversation partners.

Here’s a question from the book I’ll set before you: How will you make your life count for someone beyond yourself? 

Third, I praised God for Heather Cappetta’s and Michael Scott’s willingness to share with me (and by extension all of you) how they connect with God throughout the week. (In response to this past Sunday’s sermon on ordinary rhythms and the way God calls us to faithfulness week by week, someone suggested I share how some of our own members live this out in their daily lives.)

Heather connects with God by going on walks, reading the Bible and then writing letters of encouragement to fellow believers, and also by singing along to worship songs throughout her day.

Michael communes with God through daily Scripture reading (he uses the Lectio365 app), playing his guitar and singing to the Lord, and also by sitting outside and beholding the beauty of creation—he and his wife Bonnie have even named two groundhogs they see frequently: Gerald and Geraldine. Amazing!

So, get outside, get in God’s Word, and get ready to praise the Lord.

After a week away from sharing three things I liked with you, it’s good to be back! Here’s what I got for this week:

First, I liked this new band I discovered while in Florida. They’re called Khruangbin—pronounced “Krung Bin.” Go here to listen. You’ll notice that there are no lyrics to their songs. It’s just good music. Or at least that’s my opinion.

Second, I liked an insightful section of Joan Chittister’s book Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. For context, Chittister describes Benedictine spirituality as listening in three directions: 1) listening to God, 2) listening to the wisdom of others, and 3) listening to your life. Chittister’s comments on listening to your life struck me:

The Rule [of St. Benedict] teaches us to listen to the circumstances of our own lives. We have to begin to face what our own life patterns might be saying to us. When we are afraid, what message lurks under the fear: a horror of failure, a rejection of weakness, panic at the thought of public embarrassment, a sense of valuelessness that comes with loss of approval? When we find ourselves in the same struggles over and over again, what does that pattern say: That I always begin a thing with great enthusiasm only to abandon it before it is finished? That I am always reluctant to change, no matter how good the changes might be for me? That I keep imposing unsatisfactory relationships with people from my past on every new person I meet? That down deep I have never given myself to anything except myself? Not to my friends. Not to my work. Not to my vocation. (21)

Rather than simply reacting to the patterns in our lives, we can learn to pay attention to them and ask what they might be revealing about us.

Third, I liked this prayer from Lectio365’s Sunday afternoon devotional:

Jesus, will you put a new song in my heart? Give me words to name your beauty, your life, and your joy. Sing through me the story of the God who gives favor for a lifetime. Expand my belief that, even when sorrow is present now, joy comes in the morning. 

AMEN!

Until next time . . .

How did God’s cascading grace come flowing into your life this week? As is typical around here, it came into my life through words. In particular, through the words of three authors—Curt Thompson, Crystal Stine, and Bruce Shelley.

So, may God’s abundant grace flow into your lives as you ponder these questions, comments, and counterintuitive truths.

First – Questions: In his book The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe about Ourselves, Curt Thompson draws attention to the three questions Jesus asks each of us:

What do you want me to do for you? (Mark 10:51).

Who do you say that I am? (Mark 8:29).

Do you want to be healed? (John 5:6).

Jesus asks about our desires. He calls us to faith. And he probes, discerning whether we really want healing. This latter question reminded me of Trevin Wax’s thought-provoking article, “Who Would I Be If I Was Happy?” (You should read it.)

Second – Comments: This one comes from the book You Got This, which our very own Children’s Ministry Director, Alisha Rivera, gave to my youngest son, Dominick. He likes when I read to him at night before he drifts off to sleep. A few days ago, I was struck by Stine’s article, “Is It Better to Be Right or Kind?” Here’s what got me:

Have you ever been around one of those people who has to be right all the time? They argue, point out errors, look things up online to prove you wrong, and correct you when you aren’t specific enough about what time it is or what the temperature is outside. Frustrating, right? It’s hard to want to be around someone who cares more about being right than being a good friend, a loving son or daughter, or a kind sibling. You start overthinking what you’re going to say, or you avoid conversations altogether because you don’t like being corrected constantly.

Reading this made me want to pray: Lord, make me the kind of person who listens more than he corrects; make me curious rather than argumentative; make me someone who cares more about connecting with others than someone who views conversations as a competition; make me a man worth knowing and a friend worth having.

Lord, free me from a life of self-obsession, self-fascination, and self-importance—and every other self-hyphenated word I can think of!

Third – Counterintuitive Truth: My oldest son, Anthony, starts a class on church history this year. For the class, he’s using a book I had to read in seminary. It’s Church History in Plain Language, by Bruce Shelley. Before I passed it along to him, I decided to peruse it myself once again. The first page immediately arrested me—and reminded me of how counterintuitive the gospel is:

Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God. . . . Crucifixion was a barbarous death, reserved for agitators, pirates and slaves. Jewish law cursed “everyone who hangs on a tree” and the Roman statesman, Cicero, warned: “Let the very name of the cross be far, not only from the body of a Roman citizen, but even from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears.” Part of the victim’s punishment was to be whipped, and then to carry the heavy cross-beam to the place of his own death. When the cross was raised, a notice was pinned to it giving the culprit’s name and crime. In Jesus’ case INRI: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

A good reminder for all of us.

It brought to mind this collect from The Book of Common Prayer: 

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Until next time . . .

The three things I liked this week were inspired by three pieces I read—two books and one blog. Let’s get started.

First, in Julie Smith’s book Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? she addresses a variety of topics that help readers better understand their emotions, navigate difficult experiences, and develop practical skills for improving their mental and emotional well-being. I found her comments related to emotions particularly insightful. She writes:

Emotions are real and valid, but they are not facts. They are a guess. A perspective we try on for size. An emotion is the brain’s attempt to make sense of the world so that you can meet your needs and survive. Given that what you feel is not a factual statement, neither are your thoughts (101).

I found this helpful because I’ve seen how easily I, and others, can be hijacked by our emotions, treating what we feel as though it were necessarily true. Learning to recognize that an emotion is real without assuming that it is always telling us the truth may help us respond to anxiety, depression, and other difficult emotions with greater wisdom and freedom.

Second, I was intrigued by (I didn’t necessarily like or rejoice in) Tim Challies’s article Why Fallen Pastors So Rarely Walk Away. (The reality of fallen pastors is grievous to me.) Challies asks why pastors who have disqualified themselves from ministry so rarely walk away from it but instead find ways to reappear in another church or denomination. I agree with his assessment, and I find the phenomenon troubling. But his article also prompted another question—one that’s been rattling around in my brain for some time now, and one I hope to address when I finish my thesis (which I hope is soon!). Here’s the question: Why do so many pastors, even those who have served faithfully for decades, seem so reluctant to step out of the spotlight? Why, when their formal ministry comes to an end, do more pastors not embrace a quieter life of prayer, contemplation, and obscurity?

Third, I liked (inspired is a better word) Matthew Arbo‘s description of early Christianity’s confrontation with, and response to, persecution. Read the following carefully:

The earliest Christian communities were widely and ruthlessly persecuted. Christians were maligned, castigated, deprived, tormented, and executed. Children were torn from their parents. Spouses were executed before one another’s eyes. Whole communities were slain en masse, sometimes for the entertainment of the coliseum. This era of intense persecution defined the shape of the church’s life and mission for more than a century. . . . To be a Christian required courage. At least until Constantine’s fourth-century edict decriminalizing Christianity, churches accepted the prospect of arrest and execution. Churches met secretly in catacombs. No one was assured another day. It took courage to believe. There were no latent social advantages to being Christian, as there may still be in certain parts of the world today. Quite the opposite—believing was perilous. To bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ was to risk everything (66–67).

Let’s remember this as we bear witness to Christ each day and gather with his people weekly. And don’t forget to pray for persecuted Christians around the world.

It’s not so much that I enjoy sharing three things I liked each week with you as much as I enjoy sharing life with you. Each weekly post invites you into my life, and you invite me into yours by relaying to me how one or more of these items connected with you in a meaningful way.

So, let’s keep this going.

My first like for this week comes from Martin Laird’s book Into the Silent Land. In his chapter, “The Liturgy of Our Wounds,” he distinguishes between genuine repentance and preoccupation with sin. I found this distinction helpful, and here’s why:

For whatever reason, Christians sometimes confuse thoroughgoing repentance with incessantly replaying their past sins. Maybe we think this continual self-flagellation will prove to God and others that we’re truly sorry. I honestly don’t know.

But I think Laird is onto something when he warns that sorrow for sin can be (not that it has to be) co-opted by our mind games, and that it’s possible for preoccupation with sin to “become a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder” (130).

Here’s what we—or should I say I—need to remember: Genuine repentance turns Godward. True, self-examination is a biblical injunction (2 Cor. 13:5). And also true, there’s a “godly grief” that “produces repentance” (2 Cor. 710). But God’s grace is far more astounding than my continual rehearsals of my past failures. Turn to God, repent, make amends when and where necessary, and move on.

My second like for this week comes from Brett Stephens’s op-ed, “I’m Begging You, Never Write with AI.” While I’m sure many people (including Christians) will disagree with Stephens’s overall thesis, I can’t help but agree with his overall point: Constantly using AI to help us write papers, craft arguments, or compose emails is “mentally enfeebling.”

As someone who feels called to write and wants to improve as a writer, I can tell you: Writing is hard. It’s supposed to be hard. I’m not saying it’s wrong to use AI for certain things—of course not (though I won’t take the time to list those things here). But I want my readers to know that the words they read are written by me. Hence all the imperfections!

Finally, I liked Margaret Elizabeth Sangster’s poem “Oft for Our Own.” As you’ll see, the poem centers on the rather sad truth that we often reserve the worst treatment for those closest to us.

If I had known in the morning
How wearily all the day
the words unkind
would trouble my mind, that
I said when you went away;
I would have been more careful, darling;
nor given you needless pain;
But we vex our own
with a look and tone
We may never take back again.

For though in the quiet evening
You may give me the kiss of peace;
Yet, it might be, that never for me
The pain of the heart may cease.
How many go forth in the morning
and never come home at night,
and hearts have broken
for harsh words spoken
That sorrow can never set right.

We have careful thoughts for the stranger
and smiles for the sometime guest;
But oft for our own,
the bitter tone,
though we love our own the best.
Oh, lips, with curve impatient
and brow with a look of scorn
‘ Twere a cruel fate
were the night too late
to undo the work of the morn.