This week I have marveled again at how God delights in showing His strength in weakness. At the forefront of local news this week has been a young man in his early thirties who is an administrator at a small Christian school that many of our friends' children attend. One week ago, while his wife was visiting friends on the East Coast, he fell off a ladder in his garage and, unable to move, laid on the floor for about twenty hours until his father found him and got medical attention for him. While the outlook for his survival was quite bleak earlier this week, his family and friends are rejoicing that he is showing great signs of recovery; in fact, he may be moved to a rehabilitation hospital on Monday. His position as a small school administrator and the extreme trauma of the accident have brought a great deal of local media attention to him and his family. His father and wife have been interviewed on television, and the area newspaper has featured several stories. The family members consistently testify to God's faithfulness and to their dependence on Him, regardless of the eventual outcome. Strength in weakness.
We are, after all, just jars of clay. And our beauty lies in the treasure within us, the ministry of the gospel, and my sweet friend Alicia, at Gavin's Voice, writes beautifully about what she has gained through suffering, as she has loved and cared for her little Gavin through the illness, surgeries, and, at times, life threatening conditions he has faced in his nearly three little years. A jar of clay bursting with the treasure within her.
And yet another dear person, my niece Kristin, has been showing those who know her how beautiful a jar of clay can be. A wonderful wife and mom to two boys, Kristin gave birth to her daughter, Joanna Claire, this week. The problem, though, was that Joanna Claire has been experiencing heart failure since early in Kristin's pregnancy, and at 26 weeks, Joanna went to be with Jesus before she could even be born to this world. And if that weren't trial enough, Joanna joins her older brother, Noah, in heaven. Noah died shortly after his birth in 2006, a victim of a disease that Kristin and her husband were aware of through most of that pregnancy as well. Despite the trial of bearing two children that Kristin would never know in this world, she continues to testify to God's faithfulness and love. A jar of clay bursting with treasure for all to see. You can read about Kristin's pain and her godly response to it here
And in the midst of all this, I have been editing a book by first-time author Gay Hubbard entitled More Than an Aspirin. Gay, a wise and experienced counselor, writes about managing the pain and disappointment in our lives, and the conclusion of her book proves to be an insightful commentary about this life's journey through pain and why it is, as she describes it, a "grimly splendid option," which both Kristin and Alicia already understand. But as jars of clay, Kristin and Alicia would want to point not at themselves and their strength, but at the God who has protected them and kept them strong so that they will never break.
"In this life, the most important thing is not the pain or the joy or the ways in which we manage either. The most important thing is the person we become in progress through the long journey home.
In the end, we discover that one answer to the “why” question is a “who”—the person we can become.
Life, including both our joy and our journey through pain, provides the living space in which we may become family with whom God will be happy to spend eternity (Revelation 21:3–4). We can make vital connection with God through our joy, but the journey through pain provides a grimly splendid option. Uniquely there, we can come to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, and, in this knowing, become like Him (Philippians 3:10–11). It is a prospect to strengthen the weariest pilgrim, worn with the worst of pain.
I think at times about my own journey through pain in this way. It was not—and is not—where I would have wished to go. Nevertheless, this unwelcome journey provides for me the option of becoming who I intend to be. By God’s grace I shall arrive home at last. When I join that huge joyous family crowding around our first-born brother, Jesus (Romans 8:29), I intend that everyone present can know simply by looking that I belong to the family because I look so much like Him (1 John 3:2–3). There I will be glad for His forgiving grace and for every part of the journey—for the pain and the grief and the darkness itself. I will be glad for everything that changed me so that I could carry forever His family likeness in my face."
~From More Than an Aspirin by Gay Hubbard, releasing from Discovery House Publishers in October 2009
7/31/09
7/23/09
Eighteen
Once upon a time--July 26, 1991, in fact--a red-headed princess was born. It was the only time in her life she was ever early, but that's because this was a princess with lots to do, so she really needed to get things moving. Her mom and dad named her Kathleen Kristi Lynn, but because that was such a big name for a such a little girl, they called her Katie. And with the red hair and eventual freckles and all, it seemed to fit.
For the first few months, the princess cried--a lot! But after about four months, when she got big enough to sit up in a walker and push herself around the house, she stopped crying so much. This was a princess who needed to do stuff--all the time--and once she was able to do stuff, she was much happier.
Like most princesses, this one grew. She liked to talk (a lot), sing, and laugh. Everywhere she went, people asked her, "Where did you get that pretty red hair?" One day when the Meijer cashier asked this very question, the princess answered, "From God." And she was right.
The princess experienced some difficult blows. When she was four, her daddy died--and she was a daddy's girl if there ever was one. For different reasons, she had to change schools way too many times. That was hard. But she was a strong princess, and she continued to be very smart, and she always liked to talk, sing, and laugh.
As the princess grew, she became quite a companion for her lonely mom and went with her to plays, restaurants, and concerts. She developed her own unique sense of hair and clothing style. As she became less and less of a child, she grew to love children more and more. And they love her, too. She learned to see the things in the world around her with a different eye from most people, and she started taking pictures of the things she saw.
The most important thing that the princess could have done and will ever do, she did. She publically professed her faith in Jesus and vowed to serve Him with her life.
So with that most important event accomplished, the princess graduated from high school. And she begins a new chapter in her life this fall when she goes to college. It seems it doesn't really take very long to get to eighteen.
Happy birthday, Katie!
7/20/09
Solving the Problem
A brief, but interesting article by Mark Honneger in Modern Reformation's May/June 2009 issue entitled "The Problem Is the Problem" asserts that the gospel solves a problem. Honneger then considers which of the world's many problems it does, in fact, solve. And then simply, clearly, Honneger answers his own question: the problem is that the wrath of God has been revealed against all ungodliness. To make it simple, God is justly mad at sinners. Honneger points out that like Pilate of long ago, people today aren't interested in the problem that Jesus came to solve. The church's response to this has been to figure out which problems people want solved, and then appeal to them on that basis rather than simply tell them the brutal, ugly facts: people are sinners who need God's forgiveness. They need a Savior. Honneger goes on to describe current evangelistic appeals that the church uses today and why they fail to get to the heart of the matter.
I started thinking about the instances in the Bible where Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles confronted people with their sin and then explained the solution. One that came to mind was Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. If there ever were a person with "issues," this woman was one. She had had five marriages that had either ended in death or divorce. When Jesus meets her, she is living with a man who is not her husband. She's clearly a societal outcast; she comes to the well at the hottest time of the day to draw water to avoid the other women of the town. And there are issues of race as well. As a Samaritan, this woman was part of a racially mixed group--partly Jewish, partly Gentile. As a result, both Jews and non-Jews were disdainful of the Samaritans. This was a person with a lot of problems, someone who clearly needed Jesus (as we all, in fact, do).
So how would today's church attempt relevancy with this woman? Honneger describes the different approaches that the church today takes. How would this exchange look in the twenty-first century?
Clearly this woman has character flaws and is in need of moral or character reform, a problem people today care about. They want to improve themselves. We might appeal to her on the basis of her need to improve her character. She probably does feel guilty--and rightly so. So the church could teach her how to be a better person: how to be a better wife; how to communicate with her partner better; how to form a lasting relationship. But in the end, she would still be guilty before God, so character reform would not resolve her problems.
Another strategy is felt needs. Churches don't want to appeal to people on the basis of their sin because that would turn them off and drive them away. We could appeal to her concerns, and then she might hang around long enough to hear the gospel. She's probably lonely, in need of girlfriends, so we could invite her to the coffee bar and just talk with her. Coming to get water is difficult for her; we could arrange to have it delivered so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day to avoid the other women. Honneger points out that Jesus healed people not to avoid delivering the message of sin but to fulfill prophecy and to show that He was, in fact, the Messiah. He fed the crowds bread, but when He knows that they are following Him simply because of their felt needs--more bread--He drives them away. He urges them to turn their attention from earthly needs to eternal life. Likewise, meeting the woman's felt needs would not drive her to acknowledge her need to seek forgiveness of her sins.
Honneger points out that many use an appeal to people's needs to acknowledge past hurts before they can come to God and be saved. This woman, with five husbands in her past, no female friends, and race issues probably had a few hurts. But Honneger again points out that what separated her from God was not her past hurts but her guilt. To start to discuss all of the hurts in her life would turn her focus onto herself. She would be reminded of others' shortcomings. She wouldn't be driven to consider her own guilt before God.
According to Honneger, the church has lost confidence in the power of the gospel to transform lives when it adopts all of these other types of appeals. We've stopped believing that the simple message of the gospel can change the world. We need something more creative, relevant, updated, current.
And yet how does Jesus approach the woman at the well? Does He offer her "7 Tips on How to Improve Relationships?" Does He acknowledge her hurts, empathize with her, encourage her to work through it all so that she can come to Him and be saved? Does He try to help her figure out a way to get water more easily into her home so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day?
Jesus tells her that He has living water to offer--the Holy Spirit dwelling in her, making her alive. He tells her He can give her living water that will satisfy eternally. And He lets her know, gently and compassionately, that she is a sinner, and He knows it. And then He tells her that He is the Messiah, the one who has come to deliver her from her sin and guilt. And she, then, goes to share the good news with others. No programs, classes, coffee bars, or food pantry. Jesus, with a gentle whisper, shows her grace that forgives and resolves the problems of guilt and shame, demonstrating the power of the gospel to resolve our biggest problem.
I started thinking about the instances in the Bible where Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles confronted people with their sin and then explained the solution. One that came to mind was Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. If there ever were a person with "issues," this woman was one. She had had five marriages that had either ended in death or divorce. When Jesus meets her, she is living with a man who is not her husband. She's clearly a societal outcast; she comes to the well at the hottest time of the day to draw water to avoid the other women of the town. And there are issues of race as well. As a Samaritan, this woman was part of a racially mixed group--partly Jewish, partly Gentile. As a result, both Jews and non-Jews were disdainful of the Samaritans. This was a person with a lot of problems, someone who clearly needed Jesus (as we all, in fact, do).
So how would today's church attempt relevancy with this woman? Honneger describes the different approaches that the church today takes. How would this exchange look in the twenty-first century?
Clearly this woman has character flaws and is in need of moral or character reform, a problem people today care about. They want to improve themselves. We might appeal to her on the basis of her need to improve her character. She probably does feel guilty--and rightly so. So the church could teach her how to be a better person: how to be a better wife; how to communicate with her partner better; how to form a lasting relationship. But in the end, she would still be guilty before God, so character reform would not resolve her problems.
Another strategy is felt needs. Churches don't want to appeal to people on the basis of their sin because that would turn them off and drive them away. We could appeal to her concerns, and then she might hang around long enough to hear the gospel. She's probably lonely, in need of girlfriends, so we could invite her to the coffee bar and just talk with her. Coming to get water is difficult for her; we could arrange to have it delivered so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day to avoid the other women. Honneger points out that Jesus healed people not to avoid delivering the message of sin but to fulfill prophecy and to show that He was, in fact, the Messiah. He fed the crowds bread, but when He knows that they are following Him simply because of their felt needs--more bread--He drives them away. He urges them to turn their attention from earthly needs to eternal life. Likewise, meeting the woman's felt needs would not drive her to acknowledge her need to seek forgiveness of her sins.
Honneger points out that many use an appeal to people's needs to acknowledge past hurts before they can come to God and be saved. This woman, with five husbands in her past, no female friends, and race issues probably had a few hurts. But Honneger again points out that what separated her from God was not her past hurts but her guilt. To start to discuss all of the hurts in her life would turn her focus onto herself. She would be reminded of others' shortcomings. She wouldn't be driven to consider her own guilt before God.
According to Honneger, the church has lost confidence in the power of the gospel to transform lives when it adopts all of these other types of appeals. We've stopped believing that the simple message of the gospel can change the world. We need something more creative, relevant, updated, current.
And yet how does Jesus approach the woman at the well? Does He offer her "7 Tips on How to Improve Relationships?" Does He acknowledge her hurts, empathize with her, encourage her to work through it all so that she can come to Him and be saved? Does He try to help her figure out a way to get water more easily into her home so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day?
Jesus tells her that He has living water to offer--the Holy Spirit dwelling in her, making her alive. He tells her He can give her living water that will satisfy eternally. And He lets her know, gently and compassionately, that she is a sinner, and He knows it. And then He tells her that He is the Messiah, the one who has come to deliver her from her sin and guilt. And she, then, goes to share the good news with others. No programs, classes, coffee bars, or food pantry. Jesus, with a gentle whisper, shows her grace that forgives and resolves the problems of guilt and shame, demonstrating the power of the gospel to resolve our biggest problem.
7/16/09
Piper on TV and Movies
Here is a brief, but excellently reasoned response from John Piper to a question about why he doesn't own a TV and rarely goes to movies:
I suspect that Mark [Driscoll] and I would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.
I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.
If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.
There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.
I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.
I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).
Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.
All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.
But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.
One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.
TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it.
Pastor John
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
I suspect that Mark [Driscoll] and I would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.
I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.
If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.
There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.
I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.
I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).
Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.
All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.
But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.
One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.
TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it.
Pastor John
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
7/9/09
A Year in the Life . . .
This was us, a year ago on Saturday. While the year has blissfully flown by, it feels like I've been married to my dear Henry forever--in a good way, in the way that you can't really remember what life was like before. What a happy day--the day I became Mrs. Gysen. Happy first anniversary to us!
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned. ~Song of Songs 8:6
There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage. ~Martin Luther
Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. ~Charles Dickens
[W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally
Love, how did I find you?
Was I even breathing before I knew your name?
Who could ever have planned this?
Arranged a whole planet to all turn out this way.
Hey, only Heaven knows
The dreams behind these things I'm asking
Even our angels look surprised
To bump their wings in passing
I love you
How can I say,
I love you
Let the words escape
Though you snuck up behind me
I thought I was hiding
But oh how I fell for you
~Chris Rice, "Let the Words Escape"
*photo by LVL Photography
7/6/09
The Boring Things
Anyone who believes in global warming should really go on one of our family vacations because we tend to pick the record-breaking cold weeks--like last week. And yet we still managed to have a good time during our beach/hiking/pool/outdoor activity oriented vacation, even though we kept hearing things like "Nice day--for October," or "Welcome, fall."
But what are you going to do when it's 62 degrees on July 2, gray, and drizzly--and you're on vacation? You go see a movie. And so instead of slathering on sun block and heading outdoors, Henry, Jonathan, and I (Katie had not joined us yet) headed off to see Pixar's Up!, which I had already seen; Henry and Jonathan were seeing it for the first time.
I'm always hesitant to say too much about a movie here because I don't want to spoil the story for someone who hasn't seen it yet. It is one of the most charming films I've ever seen, and I cried both times I watched it. The movie tells the story of the adventures of Carl Frederickson, the most unlikely hero of a children's movie you could ever imagine. While we get a brief recap of Carl's life, Carl is a senior citizen at the beginning of the movie. He misses his wife Ellie, the love of his life and best friend, who has recently died. And to make matters worse, he is about to lose the house he has shared with Ellie during their entire marriage, and he's being forced into living at the Shady Oaks Retirement Home.
Carl feels like he and Ellie have missed out. They were unable to have children, and their dream of visiting Paradise Falls in South America never worked out. But in a desperate escape, Carl, a balloon salesman at the zoo, attaches balloons to his house and floats off for the adventure of his life.
At the risk of spoiling the movie for those who haven't seen it yet, I'll stop there. But the thing I love the most about this movie is Carl's interactions with a young boy named Russell, who accidentally ends up as Carl's companion on the adventure. We learn Russell has a deep yearning for his dad, who really isn't around much. In a poignant moment, Russell tells Carl about an experience he shared with his dad when they went out for ice cream. The two of them sat on the curb eating ice cream and counting cars--red ones and blue ones. It was a game to see who could count the most. Young Russell reflects on this time and tells Carl that while this may not sound very exciting, "it's the boring things I think I remember the most."
I love that thought--coming especially from the mouth of a child. And as the movie continues, Carl learns that this is a truth that Ellie had come to realize as well. She understood that adventure is in the things that we experience every day. In the end, it's the small things that matter to us. And I think of my own "boring things." Playing Old Maid with my own family when we were on vacation during a cold, rainy stretch and laughing hysterically at my little sister's antics. Walking into my grandma's house on a cold winter day after school to find warm, buttery cinnamon toast waiting. Competing with my siblings to get the ice cream off the ice cream maker blades after my dad finished making ice cream. Sitting on the steps with my cousins to eat a meal at my grandma's house because there wasn't room for us all at the table and sharing the sofa bed with my sister and at least one other cousin when we went to bed (things were always a little cramped at Grandma's house).
It was the perfect movie for a family that was a little disappointed in the weather to see--to be reminded that the real adventures don't just happen on the beach or in the woods or at the swimming pool; they can happen wherever we are if we're with the people we love.
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