Reflections on Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest

I just started reading this wonderful book by Oswald Chambers the other day and I am already struck by the incredible richness inside it's pages. I am reading the updated English version (I am usually a purist on these sort of matters, but I want to make sure I mine out a ton of good insight contained herein).

Some thoughts I find myself reflecting on:

• August 30 - The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service - rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you do not have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ.

OK, he nails me the very first day I read anything by him. This guy is good.

• August 31 - Joy should not be confused with happiness...The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father-the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do.

Ok, now he is correcting me. He is two for two. I am doomed. This is going to be a good ride.

A Quote I Enjoyed - #2

"Credo ut intelligam" – I believe in order that I may understand.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

I found this in "Who Needs Theology" by Stanley J Grenz and Roger E Olson. It was quoted in the context of faith being a Christian acknowledging that God has claimed his or her life; theology being the pursuit of knowledge to understand with the mind what the heart already believes.

Faith before knowledge, I like that order. Seeking knowledge of God before having faith in Christ does seem like the wrong order, because it becomes about you, your preconceived notions and prejudices. Better to have Christ find you, and then have Him lead you on the journey of intellectual discovery that will enhance your ability to explain and defend your faith.

I can see where having faith before knowledge is a better road than pride before a fall.

I Have Been a Pipe, I Wanna Be a Tree

Yesterday in my introductory bible study class, Prof made a statement that really struck me (that's what we call him; he has been teaching at seminary longer than I have been alive, and that is saying something. I have not only been around the block a couple of times; but I have been up the driveway, into the backyard, through the hedges and over the fence more than once). Prof said we needed to be trees, not pipes. Both convey water, but the water passing through a pipe does nothing to add to the growth of the pipe as it does to a tree.

As I sit in Turpin Library today, I realized how much I liked that. I have been a pipe way too long in my life, most of my corporate existence was pipe-like; passing information to and fro with no benefit to or growth within the host organism. Now I am trying to learn to be a tree; drawing sustenance from the water flowing through me, trying to grow so that I can provide shade and shelter to others.

I have a long way to go, but with men like Prof teaching and pruning me along the way, I know I will make progress. Thanks, Prof. Keep 'em coming.

To Befriend and De-friend

As a professionally trained accountant, I spent decades tracking, measuring and reporting numbers. I apparently have some talent for doing so, or else people have just been nice to me in the past; telling me that and paying me for supposedly doing that. I do not do that anymore for a living (Hi. My name is Andy, and I am an accountant), but I still in my mind measure and track numbers from time to time.

So I notice when numbers change. Like when I lose a Facebook friend. I may not know who, and I do not try to track them down and find out why (But Mom! I am your youngest son! How could you de-friend me like that! What are people going to think? What are they going to think about ME?)

But what is apparent is how easy it is to make friends in social media, and how darned easy it is to get rid of them. Click a hotlink and they are gone; and they might not even know you are gone as well. And let's be honest, you have probably been on both sides of that equation. Haven't you? I thought so.

My questions are:

• What responsibility to we have to maintain, to cultivate friendships that spring up for us solely on social media; friendships in which the chance of any face to0 face encounter is quite small?
  
• Do we run the risk of becoming quite callous in our casual friendships?
  
• Will this attitude spill over into the face to face interactions we have?

Sign(s) the End Is Definitely Coming ...Sometime -- #2

OK. This one is pretty strange to watch! It does some weird things to your browser window, but let it ride. Not sure I should say anything else. (Brought to you by my doodling around with StumbleUpon and ScribeFire).

Sign(s) the End is Definitely Coming...Sometime -- #1

clipped from www.evilmilk.com

So here I am playing around with StumbleUpon and Clipmarks. Just trying out to see if I could actually do a post using stuff like this without messing it all up.

There is a lot of odd stuff on the Internet if you look at the Bizarre/Oddities category of StumbleUpon, no doubt. Maybe I'll start tracking some of it from time to time.

If there are just 3 adorable animals to imaple (their words, not mine), why does the whale need four tusks? Why would a whale need a spare? Why does a whale even have tusks? Expecting to run into some hostile aquatic elephants? And where is the whale going to carry the spares in the first place? Heck of a thing to teach our kids.

A Quote I Enjoyed– #1

I am positive that in pursuing my seminary education I am going to run across some quotes that I will really enjoy, learn from and want to share. I am positive of this because I found one today. This one is in J P Moreland's "Love Your God with All Your Mind", in which Moreland quotes another deep thinker. I think one of the definitions of a good quote is one that when you read it, you see great relevance for today's world, regardless of when it was written.

Here goes:

"In an age in which infidelity abounds, do we observe them [parents] carefully instructing their children in the principles of faith which they profess? Or do they furnish their children with arguments for the defense of the faith? They would blush on their child's birth to think him inadequate in any branch of knowledge or any skill pertaining to his station in life. He cultivates these skills with becoming diligence. But he is left to collect his religion a she may. The study of Christianity has formed no part of his education. His attachment to it-where any attachment to it exists at all-is too often not the preference of sober reason and conviction. Instead his attachment to Christianity is merely the result of early and groundless possession. He was born in a Christian country, so of course he is a Christian. His father was a member of the Church of England so that is why he is, too. When religion is handed down among us by hereditary succession, it is not surprising to find youth of sense and spirit beginning to question the truth of the system in which they were brought up. And it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are unable to defend. Knowing Christianity chiefly by its difficulties and the impossibilities falsely imputed to it, they fall perhaps into the company of unbelievers."

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) - Real Christianity

We need to think, not just feel, Christianity. We need to question, in order to learn, in order to defend, our faith. And that hasn't changed all that much in the past couple of hundred years. I am so enjoying seminary.