“There is a place smellier than the manger where baby Jesus was born - our hearts, yet that is the place where God choose and desire to dwell despite the jealousy/pride/greed/envy/strife/etc… because He desires to make it whole and clean again.”
—
December 2010
12 posts
“There is no half-way radical. We are radicals, through and through— rounded at the edges with wisdom and meekness; rooted at the core with doctrine and passion.”
—(via amongthethorns)
“A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.”
—Proverbs 16:9
“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.”
—Thomas Huxley
“And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves and it is this disobeying ourselves wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.”
—Herman Melville
little casa.
little casa LAUNCHEEDDD!!! It’s a blog on DIY by si hui and I, we will be blogging on everything we’ve made individually or together! vintage/handmade/little stuff we like =D
share the love and follow our blog! =D
click here or the above print screen to go to the blog!
November 2010
6 posts
God's Greatest Adversaries Are His Gifts
Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, “as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, “The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). “The pleasures of this life” and “the desires for other things”—these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God.
A Hunger For God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer.
And today is our last day for our 10 days Daniel Fast. Let momentum keep building as Deep Calleth Deep camp draws near… And let it be a spiritual explosion when it comes! Amen.
“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life”
—A.W. Tozer
“Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
—Jim Elliot
“
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness;
not health but healing;
not being but becoming;
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
Faithful Presence Amid "Continuous Partial Attention"
At this very moment, you’re multi-tasking:
- you’re likely at work, home, or at a “third space”;
- have multiple windows open on your screen;
- are listening to music;
- are reading another blog post;
- are talking to/thinking about someone;
- reading or writing an e-mail;
- are blinking;
- have a pulse.
Okay, scratch the last two. (And lest you surmise I suffer from the “I’m okay, you’re not okay” malady, ironically I’m multi-tasking even as I compose this blog post.)
So let’s pause now—really, right now—stop all multi-tasking: turn off your cell phone, don’t check e-mail, take a break from anything media related, and slowly work your way through this quotation from James Davison Hunter:
The very nature of modern life is its fragmentation and segmentation into multiple constellations of experience, knowledge, and relationships with each constellation grounded in a specific social and institutional realm of a person’s life. Under such conditions, we experience a fragmentation of consciousness—what someone has recently called, “continous partial attention.” This fragmentation is often reinforced by a world of hyperkinetic activity marked by unrelenting interruption and distraction. On the one hand, such conditions foster a technical mastery that prizes speed and agility, and facility with multiple tasks—for example, using e-mail, I-M, the cell phone, the iPod, all the while eating lunch, holding a conversation, or listening to a lecture. But on the other hand, these very same conditions undermine our capacity for silence, depth of thinking, and focused attention. In other words, the context of contemporary life, by its very nature, cultivates a kind of absence in the experience of “being elsewhere.” Faithful presence resists such conditions and the frame of mind it cultivates. (To Change the World, 252)
So what’s the corrective to this “fragmentation of consciousness?” Become lifelong card-carrying Luddite members to the Neil Postman Fan Club? Do we even need a corrective? Just how will we cultivate a theology (and lifestyle) of a distinctively Christian “faithful presence?”
Think about it and give it prayerful consideration, and stay tuned for Hunter’s answer.
extremely CHIM quote, but I kind of get it and like it… And of the above 8 tasks mentioned, I was doing almost all 8 when I read this =S
Am an extremely distracted person, and I do lack focus in every sense…
Food for THOUGHT for me.
Prayer Answered by Crosses
By John Newton
I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of his salvation know,
And seek more earnestly his face.
‘Twas he who taught me thus to pray;
And he, I trust, has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.
I hoped that, in some favoured hour,
At once he’d answer my request,
And by his love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this, he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Yea, more, with his own hand he seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe,
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
Lord, why is this? I trembling cried;
Wilt thou pursue this worm to death?
This is the way, the Lord replied
I answer prayer for grace and faith.
These inward trials I now employ
From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st seek thy all in me.
October 2010
3 posts
In the Mind of a Green: Lamentations 3, its message version →
wongpeiting.tumblr.com
I’m the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God’s anger. He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness. Yes, he’s given me the back of his hand over and over and over again. He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones, then broke the bones. He hemmed me…
Reblogging from wong, but it’s cut off so I put in the whole chapter as follows:
Note to self:
God Locked Me Up in Deep Darkness
1-3 I’m the man who has seen trouble,
trouble coming from the lash of God’s anger.
He took me by the hand and walked me
into pitch-black darkness.
Yes, he’s given me the back of his hand
over and over and over again.
4-6He turned me into a scarecrow
of skin and bones, then broke the bones.
He hemmed me in, ganged up on me,
poured on the trouble and hard times.
He locked me up in deep darkness,
like a corpse nailed inside a coffin.
7-9He shuts me in so I’ll never get out,
manacles my hands, shackles my feet.
Even when I cry out and plead for help,
he locks up my prayers and throws away the key.
He sets up blockades with quarried limestone.
He’s got me cornered.
10-12He’s a prowling bear tracking me down,
a lion in hiding ready to pounce.
He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces.
When he finished, there was nothing left of me.
He took out his bow and arrows
and used me for target practice.
13-15He shot me in the stomach
with arrows from his quiver.
Everyone took me for a joke,
made me the butt of their mocking ballads.
He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat,
bloated me with vile drinks.
16-18He ground my face into the gravel.
He pounded me into the mud.
I gave up on life altogether.
I’ve forgotten what the good life is like.
I said to myself, “This is it. I’m finished.
God is a lost cause.”
19-21I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
22-24God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.
25-27God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
to stick it out through the hard times.
28-30When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The “worst” is never the worst.
31-33Why? Because the Master won’t ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way:
34-36Stomping down hard
on luckless prisoners,
Refusing justice to victims
in the court of High God,
Tampering with evidence—
the Master does not approve of such things.
37-39Who do you think “spoke and it happened”?
It’s the Master who gives such orders.
Doesn’t the High God speak everything,
good things and hard things alike, into being?
And why would anyone gifted with life
complain when punished for sin?
40-42Let’s take a good look at the way we’re living
and reorder our lives under God.
Let’s lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time,
praying to God in heaven:
“We’ve been contrary and willful,
and you haven’t forgiven.
43-45“You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back.
You chased us and cut us down without mercy.
You wrapped yourself in thick blankets of clouds
so no prayers could get through.
You treated us like dirty dishwater,
threw us out in the backyard of the nations.
46-48“Our enemies shout abuse,
their mouths full of derision, spitting invective.
We’ve been to hell and back.
We’ve nowhere to turn, nowhere to go.
Rivers of tears pour from my eyes
at the smashup of my dear people.
49-51“The tears stream from my eyes,
an artesian well of tears,
Until you, God, look down from on high,
look and see my tears.
When I see what’s happened to the young women in the city,
the pain breaks my heart.
52-54“Enemies with no reason to be enemies
hunted me down like a bird.
They threw me into a pit,
then pelted me with stones.
Then the rains came and filled the pit.
The water rose over my head. I said, ‘It’s all over.’
55-57“I called out your name, O God,
called from the bottom of the pit.
You listened when I called out, ‘Don’t shut your ears!
Get me out of here! Save me!’
You came close when I called out.
You said, ‘It’s going to be all right.’
58-60“You took my side, Master;
you brought me back alive!
God, you saw the wrongs heaped on me.
Give me my day in court!
Yes, you saw their mean-minded schemes,
their plots to destroy me.
61-63“You heard, God, their vicious gossip,
their behind-my-back plots to ruin me.
They never quit, these enemies of mine, dreaming up mischief,
hatching out malice, day after day after day.
Sitting down or standing up—just look at them!—
they mock me with vulgar doggerel.
64-66“Make them pay for what they’ve done, God.
Give them their just deserts.
Break their miserable hearts!
Damn their eyes!
Get good and angry. Hunt them down.
Make a total demolition here under your heaven!”
