Thankful for Someone to Thank
Last night my brother asked this question on Facebook:
His question brought to mind an ODB (Our Daily Bread) that I wrote back in 2005, but which (to my knowledge) was never published. That year I was just finishing chemotherapy and was about to begin radiation. I was extremely thankful to all the friends, family, and physicians who had given me so much attention. But at the top of the list was God, who had equipped all of those people with gifts of compassion and the knowledge to treat deadly diseases.
My devotional doesn't answer Jim's question, but it does address the same subject . . .
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. —James 1:17
Read: James 1
Magician Penn Jillette believes there is no god and claims that his life is better for it. Not believing in God is good, he says, because he has to “treat people right the first time around” since he can’t be forgiven.
Of course it’s good to treat people right, but his conclusion doesn’t address inevitable failures. What do we do with our guilt? Jillette doesn’t offer an answer. Instead he implies that believers are beggars.
“I'm not greedy,” says Gillette. “I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. . . . It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.”
When I heard Gillette’s essay just before Thanksgiving in 2005, I thought, yes, he has all these things, but one thing is still missing: He has no one to thank for all this goodness. He doesn’t even have an explanation for goodness. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
I feel sorry for people who think that the only reason for believing in God is so we can beg Him for more. Believers aren’t beggars; we’re worshipers. We believe in God not because we want more, but because we’re grateful for everything He has provided—especially forgiveness. —Julie Ackerman Link
Who do people thank who don't have a saving faith in Christ?
His question brought to mind an ODB (Our Daily Bread) that I wrote back in 2005, but which (to my knowledge) was never published. That year I was just finishing chemotherapy and was about to begin radiation. I was extremely thankful to all the friends, family, and physicians who had given me so much attention. But at the top of the list was God, who had equipped all of those people with gifts of compassion and the knowledge to treat deadly diseases.
My devotional doesn't answer Jim's question, but it does address the same subject . . .
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. —James 1:17
Read: James 1
Magician Penn Jillette believes there is no god and claims that his life is better for it. Not believing in God is good, he says, because he has to “treat people right the first time around” since he can’t be forgiven.
Of course it’s good to treat people right, but his conclusion doesn’t address inevitable failures. What do we do with our guilt? Jillette doesn’t offer an answer. Instead he implies that believers are beggars.
“I'm not greedy,” says Gillette. “I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. . . . It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.”
When I heard Gillette’s essay just before Thanksgiving in 2005, I thought, yes, he has all these things, but one thing is still missing: He has no one to thank for all this goodness. He doesn’t even have an explanation for goodness. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
I feel sorry for people who think that the only reason for believing in God is so we can beg Him for more. Believers aren’t beggars; we’re worshipers. We believe in God not because we want more, but because we’re grateful for everything He has provided—especially forgiveness. —Julie Ackerman Link
Greetings from Africa
This is my first Internet connection since my brief connection at the airport in Grand Rapids. I was too cheap to pay the fee to connect for a such a short time at Detroit or Amsterdam.
Here is a rundown of our trip so far. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use Grand Rapids time:
Friday, 30 October
1:30 pm | Leave Grand Rapids
2:30 pm | Arrive Detroit
5:00 pm | Leave Detroit
Saturday, 31 October
12:30 am | Arrive Amsterdam (5:30 am local time)
5:20 am | Leave Amsterdam
1:00 pm | Arrive Nairobi (8:00 pm local time)
After arriving in Nairobi, we spent approximately one hour waiting in line for our Visas. Then, after retrieving our luggage, we found our MAI greeters at the airport entrance. Our driver took us to the van, where we were later joined by three more people who had come in our flight (Jeanette Windell, Esther Zimmerman, and Ian Darke). We then waited for the 9:30 flight coming in from London. A few of us were just about ready to go back to the airport for a drink of water and a potty break when Alice Lawhead arrived. After rearranging the luggage so everything would fit, we headed for Brackenhurst. We drove through Nairobi, but by now it was nearly 11 pm local time, so the city was quiet. We headed “upland” through much fog, which, because of the elevation, may have been clouds (I’m still not sure which it was).
After a few wrong turns, which took us down some very deserted roads, and a few phone calls, we finally found Brackenhurst. We drove into the complex and found the reception area, which was totally dark. However, this was the place where the driver was told to drop us off, so he unloaded our luggage and told us that someone would come to show us to our rooms. So there we were, the six of us and our luggage, standing in complete darkness waiting for someone to show up. A short time later, four people appeared out of the darkness and let us into the reception hall. One of them gave us keys to our rooms and told us to follow the other three to our rooms. The person Jay and I and Alice were to follow was bundled from head to toe in heavy clothes and had a thick red scarf wrapped around his neck and head. The temperature probably wasn’t lower than 60, but apparently it was cold for him.
We hauled our luggage up a hill along flagstone walkways, then along a grass-covered driveway, up some flagstone steps, along another flagstone walkway, and finally to our room.
We didn’t waste any time getting settled into our room. Although it was only 6:30 pm Michigan time, we hadn’t had any real sleep since getting up the day before at 6:30 am.
Getting from the airport to our room took 5 ½ hours. If my math is correct, that’s only 2 hours less than it took to get from Detroit to Amsterdam.
We slept until about 11:00 Sunday morning, and got up just in time to get ready for lunch, which was delicious and plentiful. After lunch, Jay went to an afternoon session, and I went back to the room to work on my workshop for the next day. I had somehow managed to leave at home the copy on which I had made my last-minute changes, so I had to try to remember what they were. I finished in time for supper.
At the Sunday night session, a band from a Presbyterian church in Nairobi led worship. They were excellent. Very talented and very enthusiastic. Nothing can compare to an international worship experience. The keynote speaker Sunday night was Kenyan Ambassador Bethuel A. Kiplagat. What an amazing person. I’ll have to write more about this later. I’m in a hurry to finish so I can get online and get this uploaded.
Sunday night when we got back to our room, the power was off. We’d been warned that Kenya has temporary power outages, so we had flashlights. We set our alarm clocks and went to sleep hoping the power would be back on in the morning. It was, but only temporarily. Before the water heated up, it went off again. So we had to take luke warm showers. The power was on briefly when Jay dried his hair, but it went off again before I got to use the hair dryer. So I had to show up for breakfast with a wet head.
Oh, well, it’s an adventure.
Jay was supposed to visit a couple of sites with an organization located nearby, but they couldn’t go because the roads were closed due to so much rain. I forgot to mention that part of the story. Apparently this is the rainy season. Thankfully it was raining in Grand Rapids when we left, so I have my raincoat with me. Everyone here is jealous.
If we have power in our room tonight maybe I will upload some of the pictures I took today when it wasn't raining.
Oh, my workshop today went well. Thanks to everyone for your prayers. I think Jay said there were 16 people there. Of course, he was one of them. I was honored also to have Alice Lawhead and Nicholas Gray attend.
That’s all for now. It’s almost time for supper.
Here is a rundown of our trip so far. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use Grand Rapids time:
Friday, 30 October
1:30 pm | Leave Grand Rapids
2:30 pm | Arrive Detroit
5:00 pm | Leave Detroit
Saturday, 31 October
12:30 am | Arrive Amsterdam (5:30 am local time)
5:20 am | Leave Amsterdam
1:00 pm | Arrive Nairobi (8:00 pm local time)
After arriving in Nairobi, we spent approximately one hour waiting in line for our Visas. Then, after retrieving our luggage, we found our MAI greeters at the airport entrance. Our driver took us to the van, where we were later joined by three more people who had come in our flight (Jeanette Windell, Esther Zimmerman, and Ian Darke). We then waited for the 9:30 flight coming in from London. A few of us were just about ready to go back to the airport for a drink of water and a potty break when Alice Lawhead arrived. After rearranging the luggage so everything would fit, we headed for Brackenhurst. We drove through Nairobi, but by now it was nearly 11 pm local time, so the city was quiet. We headed “upland” through much fog, which, because of the elevation, may have been clouds (I’m still not sure which it was).
After a few wrong turns, which took us down some very deserted roads, and a few phone calls, we finally found Brackenhurst. We drove into the complex and found the reception area, which was totally dark. However, this was the place where the driver was told to drop us off, so he unloaded our luggage and told us that someone would come to show us to our rooms. So there we were, the six of us and our luggage, standing in complete darkness waiting for someone to show up. A short time later, four people appeared out of the darkness and let us into the reception hall. One of them gave us keys to our rooms and told us to follow the other three to our rooms. The person Jay and I and Alice were to follow was bundled from head to toe in heavy clothes and had a thick red scarf wrapped around his neck and head. The temperature probably wasn’t lower than 60, but apparently it was cold for him.
We hauled our luggage up a hill along flagstone walkways, then along a grass-covered driveway, up some flagstone steps, along another flagstone walkway, and finally to our room.
We didn’t waste any time getting settled into our room. Although it was only 6:30 pm Michigan time, we hadn’t had any real sleep since getting up the day before at 6:30 am.
Getting from the airport to our room took 5 ½ hours. If my math is correct, that’s only 2 hours less than it took to get from Detroit to Amsterdam.
We slept until about 11:00 Sunday morning, and got up just in time to get ready for lunch, which was delicious and plentiful. After lunch, Jay went to an afternoon session, and I went back to the room to work on my workshop for the next day. I had somehow managed to leave at home the copy on which I had made my last-minute changes, so I had to try to remember what they were. I finished in time for supper.
At the Sunday night session, a band from a Presbyterian church in Nairobi led worship. They were excellent. Very talented and very enthusiastic. Nothing can compare to an international worship experience. The keynote speaker Sunday night was Kenyan Ambassador Bethuel A. Kiplagat. What an amazing person. I’ll have to write more about this later. I’m in a hurry to finish so I can get online and get this uploaded.
Sunday night when we got back to our room, the power was off. We’d been warned that Kenya has temporary power outages, so we had flashlights. We set our alarm clocks and went to sleep hoping the power would be back on in the morning. It was, but only temporarily. Before the water heated up, it went off again. So we had to take luke warm showers. The power was on briefly when Jay dried his hair, but it went off again before I got to use the hair dryer. So I had to show up for breakfast with a wet head.
Oh, well, it’s an adventure.
Jay was supposed to visit a couple of sites with an organization located nearby, but they couldn’t go because the roads were closed due to so much rain. I forgot to mention that part of the story. Apparently this is the rainy season. Thankfully it was raining in Grand Rapids when we left, so I have my raincoat with me. Everyone here is jealous.
If we have power in our room tonight maybe I will upload some of the pictures I took today when it wasn't raining.
Oh, my workshop today went well. Thanks to everyone for your prayers. I think Jay said there were 16 people there. Of course, he was one of them. I was honored also to have Alice Lawhead and Nicholas Gray attend.
That’s all for now. It’s almost time for supper.
13 August 2009
"Sticks & stones may break my bones,
but names will never hurt me," is a lie.
Words Hurt
Click here for today's Bible reading: Job 25-28; Proverbs 14:12-24.
The trouble with people who say stupid things is that they seldom realize they have said anything dumb. This means that I too have surely said my share of stupid things, perhaps even hurtful things, and that I am going on with my life oblivious to the hurt and anger I’ve left in my wake. I feel bad about this and wish that ignorance didn’t accompany stupidity because if I knew who my victims were I would go back and apologize and ask them to please not blame God for my wrong-headedness.
People who say stupid things often mean well. (I am trying to give others the benefit of the doubt that I want to claim for myself.) Perhaps they are simply trying to reconcile their beliefs with their observations. When you desperately want to believe in a loving God, you see only two obvious options to explain suffering: either you have to close your eyes to all the suffering or you have to come up with an explanation that gets God off the hook for allowing (or causing) so many bad things to happen.
But sometimes people cross a line (granted, it’s my line, not God’s) and speak as if they are an oracle from God to explain the reason for someone else’s devastating circumstances. Usually they are trying to provide comfort. Nearly always they do the opposite.
Which brings me to a story that I heard this week.
A child is born with a serious disability. The parents are devastated. And some stranger tells them that God did this to make them better Christians. Ouch! What kind of theology is this? And on what basis does anyone dare to claim that he or she knows the reason for someone else’s suffering?
Again, trying to give the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the comment was an attempt to defend God—to excuse his bad behavior by claiming that good will come out of it. But does God really need this kind of defense? I think not.
So here’s my question: “Why does God give everyone so much freedom of speech?” I mean, he has, on occasion, made people speechless (e.g., Zechariah, Luke 1:20). Why doesn’t he use this technique more often? I can think of many times when a little imposed silence would have served him well.
For the most part, however, God lets people blab. Even more surprising, he has published some of the outrageous comments made by people who are speaking lies about him. Surely he doesn’t condone lying. Yet God has demonstrated amazing patience when it comes to people who tell lies about him.
That seems to be what’s going on in the book of Job, which I “just happened” to be reading when I heard this story.
When really bad things start happening to Job, the only way his friends can explain them and still maintain their belief in God’s fairness is to conclude that Job deserves punishment. They have not seen Job sin, so they believe he must be hiding it. Their belief system has no place for a God who allows an innocent person to suffer.
Their faulty theology led to two faulty assumptions: First, that God was causing Job’s suffering. Second, that Job deserved what was happening to him.
For me to criticize them for their wrong thinking would be unfair. The only reason I know they’re wrong is because God has revealed a lot more about himself in subsequent centuries. In fact, God used their faulty arguments and false allegations as an opportunity for further revelation. Their mistaken beliefs provided the backdrop for God’s startling soliloquy at the end of the book.
So perhaps I have answered my own question. Why does God allow us to speak so freely? Because our speaking reveals what we believe (Matthew 15:18), and by airing our erroneous arguments, we give God an opportunity to correct our faulty thinking.
But God’s ability to use our stupid comments does not mean that we should continue to carelessly provide him with opportunities. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2).
Heavenly Father, may I not compound my stupidity with arrogance by assuming that only other people say stupid things. Please seal my lips and keep hurtful words from escaping. When they manage to sneak out, make me immediately aware of them so that I can quickly repent and ask forgiveness.
Have you ever been hurt by someone’s unkind, unthinking, ignorant, or insensitive comment about God’s role in your circumstances? How did you process it? Did it make you angry at God? Do you think the world would be better or worse if God didn’t allow us to say stupid, hurtful things? In what way?
“Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds of the air.
Destruction and Death say,
‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’
God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens . . .
And he said to man,
‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.’ ” —Job 28:20-24, 28
“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'” —Jesus (Matthew 15:18)
Click here to see the complete one-year schedule.
11 August 2009
Click here for today's Bible reading: Job 17-20; Proverbs 13:13-25.
Then Job replied:
"How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
Ten times now you have reproached me;
shamelessly you attack me.
If it is true that I have gone astray,
my error remains my concern alone.
If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and use my humiliation against me,
then know that God has wronged me
and drawn his net around me.
"Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response;
though I call for help, there is no justice.
He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
He tears me down on every side till I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree. —Job 19:1-10
Click here to see the complete one-year schedule.
Then Job replied:
"How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
Ten times now you have reproached me;
shamelessly you attack me.
If it is true that I have gone astray,
my error remains my concern alone.
If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and use my humiliation against me,
then know that God has wronged me
and drawn his net around me.
"Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response;
though I call for help, there is no justice.
He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
He tears me down on every side till I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree. —Job 19:1-10
Click here to see the complete one-year schedule.
9 August 2009
Click here for today's Bible reading: Psalm 93-95.
Storm coming in over Lake Michigan at Whitehall.
The seas have lifted up, O LORD,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the LORD on high is mighty. —Psalm 93:3-4
Click here to see the complete one-year schedule.
Storm coming in over Lake Michigan at Whitehall.
The seas have lifted up, O LORD,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the LORD on high is mighty. —Psalm 93:3-4
Click here to see the complete one-year schedule.
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