Quotation of the Week

Remember how boring life used to be. You’d wait in a line and just think, or sit on a plane and stare out the window, or relax on the couch and do nothing at all. I think of how much more my mind used to wander on walks and how I was better able to concentrate on books. I think of how bored I was on long car rides and at meals with adults and, yes, even in church. Of course, some boredom is just boring. But boredom also teaches us the discipline of sitting still and the invaluable lesson of being alone with our thoughts.

Kevin DeYoung

Comments

The walking, talking providence of God

Today I met a man in Israel I will never forget. Fifteen years ago he was voting in a primary for candidates of the Likud party. At the polling station, two Palestinian terrorists burst in upon the crowd who were choosing their candidate for the next election. They sprayed the crowd with automatic gunfire. Seven people fell to the floor, wounded by the barrage. The terrorists moved among the fallen, stopping to shoot each one between the eyes to make sure that they were dead. Six people died that day. Today I met the seventh. He was wounded four times in the initial burst of gunfire - once in each leg, once in the arm and once in the side. The terrorists then put a gun two feet from his face and put a bullet between his eyebrows. I saw the deep scar with my own eyes. The next year he spent in a coma. Today I met him at the little restaurant he owns outside the gates of the ancient ruins of Beth She'an. He stood in f...

Oops!

I can be a real klutz. I have very few manual skills and I never grew out of the "tripping over my own feet" stage of life. I have fumbled and dropped more than my fair share of balls. In other words, "oops" has been a regular part of my vocabulary. It is not only in the physical world that I have fumbled things. I have messed up relationships. I have prejudged people before ever getting to know them. I have used and abused those who love me most in this world. I have failed and sinned my way into more than one tight corner and created untold disasters. Oops is not even sufficient for the ways that I have blown it. Perhaps that is why something Paul, our worship leader last Sunday, said resonated so deeply with me this week. He said "Oops is never said in heaven." Our God never is clumsy. He never makes mistakes. His plans never go belly-up. He never fails. He never ever has to say oops - and that comforts me.

Getting Ready for Friday

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, "Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might become what I was not." --Martin Luther

The Plodding Preacher

Search This Blog