Yesterday I was in a bank depositing some checks, and the teller saw that one of the checks was from Providence Reformed Church. So he asked me about that, and I told him about it, and that I was a pastor. He said he was too.

“Oh, really?” I said. “Yes. Well, I might as well be, anyway. I’m involved in ministry at Calvary Chapel”.

Might as well be. I just let that pass.

“Calvary Chapel? Over near Austin Bluffs, right? They’re the ones who meet in that big building, that used to be a sporting goods store, right?” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. “God has really blessed us. We started with 75 people and now we have about 4000. Like New Life.”

Something about this conversation really didn’t sit right with me.

This morning at breakfast we read this in Ecclesiastes 9:

2 All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; To the good, the clean, and the unclean; To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath.

3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

I think the point that the Preacher is making is that you cannot look to events on this earth to discover God’s plan for anything. From the perspective of this earth, it’s all madness and vanity. We tell ourselves that we should ask God for our daily bread, and yet we get no more of that bread than those who do not pray. We ask God for health, and we die at the same rate as unbelievers. If there is any difference in the lifespan of religious and non-religious people, attributing it to God’s active intervention seems to me very problematic. God’s active intervention is only worth a couple of extra years? And then when Aunt Jane dies of cancer, is that because I didn’t pray hard enough?

Likewise, a church will look on the fact that it is growing very rapidly as proof of God’s blessing. But very often the wicked prosper in this world even more than the righteous. Mormon churches grow. Muslim mosques grow. So how can I take the growth of my church as any proof of God’s blessing? How can I, in fact, take any event at all on this earth as proof of God’s blessing? The same things happen to the wicked and the unbelievers. Vanity and madness.

Only by casting my eyes out farther than the temporal horizon which is visible to me can I have any hope of seeing purpose in this life. It is only in God’s eternal plan for my life that things can make any ultimate sense. Because whatever happens in this life, we all go to the same grave, where all our works are forgotten by this cursed and mad world.

The good things that happen to me in this life should certainly be recognized as coming from the hand of God. Of course, so should the bad things. I must learn to be thankful for all that God does for me. But so often, we call something a blessing when it may very well be a punishment, and at the same time call God’s sanctifying trials on us a curse. A man becomes very rich, thinks he is therefore blessed of God, is consumed with arrogance and is destroyed. Another man loses his wife to cancer and believes he is cursed of God, but God sanctifies him and draws him closer to Himself through the trial.

Only the context of eternity can teach me the truth of what happens on earth. Trying to understand the events of this world without an eternal perspective is like using a tape measure with no numbers on it. You might know which dash the end of the board falls on, but you don’t know what the dash means, or how it relates to anything else. When we measure the world without the eternal perspective, all we’re left with is the judgments of man, and so we think a church with 4000 people in it is more blessed than the one with 75.

I got about two hours of sleep last night, and it was totally avoidable; completely my fault.

I drank way too much coffee at Bible study last night, ignoring my wife’s concerned looks. I’m not 18 any more, and more than 1 small cup of coffee after about 6 in the even will cause me problems. I had 4 (I think).

About four in the morning, I was reminded of Psalm 103, where it says “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him.” I remembered how sorry I felt for Katie when she would make her own life miserable by being so obstinate, refusing to submit to us, and getting punished as a result. I’d look at her crying, and think to myself, If only you’d just do what obviously needs to be done, or not do the obvious stupid things you’re doing right now, you’d be so much happier.

I’m pretty sure that’s what the Lord was thinking in re: me, at about four in the morning last night.

Another special person has my birthday too- Moxie!

She’s right about Capricorns, you know. And Moxie, I am a member of the VRWC, unlike the other Capricorns you mention.

Drew from the perplexingly named Darn Floor links and quotes a William Safire piece about the tsunami and God’s involvement in it, and comments on it.



I wrote a post about the book of Job a while back which you might find relevant as well. Drew points out the fact that Job’s trust in God is a much more important element of the story than the happy ending, and he’s right. But I don’t think it’s just tacked on- it shows that God has good things in mind for His people, but we have to learn to trust Him first. In the story of Job, we see that played out in terms of earthly blessings, just as the curses that came on him were earthly curses. But it points us to a spiritual truth, that God brings suffering on us for His own purposes, but that when we learn to trust Him with all things, we see that He works our good through everything that happens.

Just on the offhand that you read me but not Instapundit, check this out at Iowahawk. One of the best comic pieces I’ve read in a little bit.

Today is my birthday. Happy Birthday me!

Other people born today-

Rush Limbaugh

Rob Zombie

Kirstie Allie

Jack London

Charles Perrault

Jeff Bezos

Edmund Burke

The Amazing Kreskin

Herman Goring

Howard Stern

So there.

Yesterday Katie (2 1/2) was playing out by the TV, and I was in my office working. She came in to ask me to put on a movie for her, which I did. I came out, put the DVD in the player, and turned it on.

Katie then said, “Need the controller?” I said yes. She was pointing at it on the coffee table. So I picked it up, and immediately the cover for the battery compartment fell off. The tab that holds it in had been broken, and it had just been placed back over the compartment.

Katie put on a very surprised face, and immediately said, “Oh, is it broken?”

Stinker.

Little Katie is learning the power of language. Before, if she didn’t want to do something, she’d just yell “NO!” and run away. Now, she’ll say “I can’t! I’m too little.” Then if you say “You’re not too little” she says “I’m too big.”

“I’m too grumpy” is the new one. Who told her how to make excuses? She probably learned a lot just by watching her parents.

Also, now instead of saying she wants something, she always says “I need it.” “I need a piece of candy”. She has discovered that “need” is a more powerful concept than “want”, and uses it to try to get her way. And if we tell her no, or spank her, she tells us “we have to be nice.”

Two and a half years old, and already language is something used primarily to manipulate others into doing what you want them to do. She’s a walking illustration right now of the sinful use of language.

But she also knows her Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ Creed and the first question of the Heidelberg. Hopefully we can teach her the right use of language as well.

The US Army, apparently not realizing that a war is perhaps not the best time for social experimentation, is skirting the law to put mixed-gender support units in direct proximity to combat areas. Elaine Donnely comments on NRO:

“Under current regulations, women cannot be forced to serve in smaller direct ground-combat units such as infantry or armor battalions, or in companies that collocate with them. If the Defense Department wants to change these rules, law requires that the secretary must notify Congress no less than 30 legislative days in advance, when both houses are in session. Despite the “collocation rule” and the congressional notification law, the Army is unilaterally assigning women to previously all-male forward-support companies in its new “unit of action” land combat teams, which are key to the Army’s “transformation” to a lighter, faster force.”

I sincerely hope that this action gets all of the negative attention that it deserves.

Dad responds to George Will’s latest column:

The fact that you, Mr. George Will, do not know the God of the Bible, does not mean that the God of the Bible does not know you. What December 26 did was show the world that our sentimental and shallow view that God as a benevolent grandpa that will rush to serve up whatever we want, in spite of our denial of His Word and appointed Savior, is sadly out of tune with reality. It never was true and it isn’t true now. It is humanism and humanistic sentimentality that is exposed.

Read it all.