How Great is Our God
This morning sunrise was amazing on the way into work and I just had to agree with Chris Tomlin. How great is our God. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. How Great is Our God The splendor of a King, clothed in majesty Let all the earth rejoice, all the earth rejoice He wraps himself in light, and darkness tries to hide it trembles at his voice, trembles at his voice CHORUS: How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will see How great How great is our God And age to age He stands and time is in His Hands Beginning and the End, Beginning and the End The Godhead, three in one Father, Spirit, Son the...
Happy Thoughts?
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. – Philippians 4:8 So, um … this is really hard, is it not? I’ve spent some time this week reflecting on this verse and holding my thoughts up to it. I’ve discovered a couple of things: * Sometimes following this advice makes me feel very boring. There, I admit it. Nobody likes a Pollyanna. Except God, of course, whose opinion ought the be the only one that matters … * Most things I can think of comprise both lovely and unlovely aspects, and yet my mind jumps first to the unlovely, then (perhaps) to the lovely. When I do...
Are the "Sins of the Father" a Curse?
Anne Lamott is my literary soul mate. She writes in the same style and tone that I do, and her work tends to contain the same level of self-deprecating, sarcastic cynicism as mine does. Or at least, I’d like to think so. Therefore, it goes without saying that I’ve taken a lot of the advice in her book on writing, “Bird by Bird” to heart. Which means that I have spent quite a lot of time recently thinking and writing about my family. To be a writer, you have to not only think that you are interesting enough that people would care to hear what you have to say, but also delusional enough to believe that people would pay money to read your work. In a word, you have be be a cocky crazy person. I am without a doubt a writer. The common knowledge on ...
Authentic Christian Cool
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading Brett McCracken’s book Hipster Christianity. It’s a pretty good book overall, although I personally think Brett could have done more research for the chapter on the emerging church. And he does suggest that social justice is just another fad. But Brett does bring up some good points. For example, near the end he explains the differences between authentic Christian cool and being a self-righteous hipster jerk. Hipsters, as Brett explains, are all about individualism. Everything they do is a self-conscious attempt to be better and cooler than the average square (do people still say “square?”). Jesus, on the other hand, calls us to be other-centered instead of self-centered. ...
The Questions of Surrender and Sacrifice
I have been thinking of a lot of things lately. Mostly I have been sitting silently, contemplating the goings on of people around me, and wondering how the different events in the lives of other people may have an influence in my own life. It has been a personal thought experiment on the butterfly effect on my own life. How will I act, or react, when the time comes for a decision? What will be my motivation when I decide? Will I be given a choice to act or a choice to accept whatever comes? Then this verse pops into my head. Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Then a question or two comes: What...