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"Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23 On the reality show The Little Couple , Will might be seen as more vulnerable than most. He, like his adoptive parents, is a little person. In one of the episodes, he falls backward and is saved from head meeting pavement – by his Halloween costume. The shell of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle he is portraying elevates him enough to keep his head off the ground. We lose something as we pass six or 16 and leave behind some of the capacity to see ourselves in different identities. Wearing a Halloween costume to work would in most jobs be unduly distracting, but perhaps to too great an extent the adult begins to see himself or herself as the role for which we clock in at a particular time. If I am only counselor, or accountant, or doctor, or parent, or spouse, if I don't measure up at any given moment as that, I'm as vulnerable as Will's head. Better than I Halloween co...

From 1 Corinthians 12 – 15 If the foot should say, "Because I had my hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? 16 and if the ear should say, "because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? One of Sinclair Lewis's descriptors of tyranny in It Can't Happen Here is to call it "imagination hating." Although as I recall, Lewis means that in terms that tyranny's grip on social conformity is threatened by the individual's imagination, I'm afraid we tyrannize ourselves far more than any feared government regime ever could. Consider the self talk Paul spells out and sets up in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16. Is focusing on whatever gift or function God has not given to us at the moment. It is bitterness on continuous replay. It is imagination hating. Who on the outside can be expected to compete with that? Who among those humans who care about us most can be expected to continuously suture tho...

From Ephesians 5 – 18 And do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Betty Hart reports a striking disparity in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children . Half of working-class parents' interactions with their 12 to 18 month old's were affirming. 80% of those interactions from affluent parents were affirming, and only 20% for children whose parents were in poverty. I'm not sure the distinction stops with age, or parenting, although it is particularly sobering in that context. When we see ourselves as deprived, feel pressed that more is expected of us than we have the resources to give, our speech will reflect it. Our treatment of others, in turn, will reflect how we believe life is tre...

And Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained the days of the years of the life of my father's in the days of their pilgrimage." Genesis 47:9 This week I was reading a collection of Charles Krauthammer's writings put together by his son after his death. Speaking to his son's graduating high school class, Krauthammer warns that we never realize the serendipity of our own times. We take current blessings for granted, especially if they are widespread. Part of the serendipity of my own times is the streaming of a wider variety of music than anyone would ever buy at no additional cost. Granted the serendipity, I would call it grace, to sample from the music of the ages while attempting to be gratefully present in the present at work, I discovered Joni Mitchell, whom the rest of the world has known about for decades. Her songbird range an...

From Isaiah 3 – 1 For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water, 2 the mighty men of war, the judge and the prophet, and the diviner and the elder; 3 the captain of the fifty and the honorable man, the counselor and the skillful artisan, and the expert enchanter. Russell Kirk penned in The Conservative Mind , “If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.” What has come down to us as the kickoff of Isaiah's third chapter shows us the counterpoint. The lack of order in the individual soul, the chasing after the idols of short-term gratification, especially on the part of the nation's leaders will have consequences throughout the whole society. The factors of social cohesion the Lord says he will take away, listed one by one, remind us of the attributes of His blessing which are so easy to take for granted o...

Isaiah 2:20-22  English Standard Version (ESV) 20 In that day mankind will cast away     their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship,     to the moles and to the bats, 21 to enter the caverns of the rocks     and the clefts of the cliffs, from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty,     when he rises to terrify the earth. 22 Stop regarding man     in whose nostrils is breath,     for of what account is he? "My heart is swayed," worships and confesses John Piper in the seventh reason of his book,  50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die , "and I embrace the beauty and the bounty of Christ as my Treasure." Considering Isaiah 2:20-22, I find something especially moving about Piper's word MY. He finds beauty and bounty in Christ as his particular treasure, just as the repentant in that section cast away the idols of gold...

Isaiah 2:17-19 English Standard Version (ESV) 17 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,     and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,     and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 18 And the idols shall utterly pass away. 19 And people shall enter the caves of the rocks     and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord,     and from the splendor of his majesty,     when he rises to terrify the earth "God's holiness," warns Tim Keller in  Songs of Jesus ' entry on Psalm 93, "is more threatening than the stormy sea." Accordingly, in Isaiah 2:17-19, the waves stirred up by the storm of His glory reach inland to submerge all rivals. As He begins to display His character more fully, pretenses to comparison are exposed for their ridiculousness. Bring arrogance, questions Isaiah 2:17? He punctures it and enforces humility. Pride is groundless. Idols were not alive to beg...

From Isaiah 2 – 15 Upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall; 16 upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops… In  Becoming Dallas Willard , biographer Gary Moon captures his subject's essence as a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California when he writes that Dallas wasn't satisfied with the divisions between philosophical schools. He kept digging underneath the barriers to the deeper unity. This is the sort of quest on which the checks of God's judgment in Isaiah 2:15-16 insist we go. To the prophet, God displays His willingness and ability to undermine our defensive self assurance, whether the walls we put up our of physical or psychological protection. Our high towers that, we think, will allow us to spot trouble in advance are coming down. God alone is sovereign over the future, and He will not share the honor of provident protection with mere men or their engineering. While protecting His glory, His overarching ma...

From John 13 – 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, "Lord, are you washing my feet?" 7 Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this." 8 Peter said to Him "You shall never wash my feet!" Jesus answered him, "if I do not wash you, you have no part with Me." In his book on the decade The Fifties , David Halberstam considers how Allen Ginsberg measured himself. "He had to be a genius, or nothing." In the Gospel of John's narrative of the intimate occurrences in the upper room, we might see some similar thinking and Peter, and in ourselves. Among the disciples, Peter was the first among equals. He had the Lord's commendation that Heaven revealed to him Christ's identity as Messiah, and no doubt some sense of self-worth for declaring it first. Right or wrong, Peter is wired to speak up first, and most often. He even has the misguided courage to take Chris...

From Hebrews 6 – 7 for the earth which brings in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears arms useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. 9 But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. 10 for God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His Name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister "How can I be sure I will not lose my follow-through between the altar and the door?" This is Casting Crowns' appropriately self-critical query as the lyrics in "Between the Altar and the Door" admit to how often are tears of repentance are dry before we even leave the floor. Our emotions are uneven, they know. Our resolve falters. The author of Hebrews knows this as well. He warns sternly agai...

Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.' So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 1 Samuel 3:9 Yesterday morning began with fumbling. Between the dark, thick buttons required to go through thin holes, fingers made less cooperative by cerebral palsy and less patience and strength for the process because of the remains of a recent cold, this tableau of struggle was set to be a miniature from the day ahead. "But what if you get it?" I figured the Holy Spirit had more important matters to speak to than buttonholes, but His whisper and accompanying insight were unmistakable. He prompted the realization, again, that I put a lot more intensity into unresolved struggles than resulting, if incremental, victories. If I was prepared to complain that two or three attempts at sliding a button through a hole what consigned yesterday to be one of THOSE Mondays, what would act...

From Genesis 28 – 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." 17 And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven!" Robert Creamer regales like the writer I want to grow up to be. He took on colossal figures like Babe Ruth with his pen, but this time it is his own story he breathes life into as the Ken Burns baseball series opens its chapter of the 1940s. Creamer says he was spending a World War II October far from home. It was too warm to evoke thoughts of the World Series. Just as he was feeling forsaken, he says an old sergeant came into the PX and lit up a fragrant cigar. The sweet smell instantly reminded him of the Polo Grounds, and his enlivened imagination added in the salty scent of popcorn to transport them home for a moment. Jacob in Genesis got that also. A little like Creamer he was far from home. He was feeling...

And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people, for the Gentiles shall seek Him, and His resting place shall be glorious. Isaiah 11:10 Union, intones Jonathan Edwards, is spoken of in Scripture as the peculiar beauty of the Church of Christ. Likewise, Isaiah 11:10 finds the very essence of testimony there. As the old prophet has in that chapter already proclaimed Christ the sustaining Root beneath sustaining manifold flowering's of new growth, so he does again. But the root can operate unnoticed and unappreciated by men. Isaiah simultaneously declares Christ's glory, His reputation as the sustenance below AND the banner which lofts over and draws together Jews and Gentiles. The standard, the banner, is usually associated with martial glory. So it is in Song of Solomon, designating an army fearsome with banners. Isaiah sees such coiled might in this verse, however, that the gathered host is glorious even in rest. The strength whic...

"The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. Hebrews 2:1 John Calvin wrote with great assurance on Philippians 1:27-30, "Even sufferings themselves are evidence of the grace of God." Juxtaposing separate stops in verse-by-verse progress through Isaiah and Hebrews, I got to see just how true that was. Christ's kinship with me and with my fellow sons of Adam was a moment-by-moment choice. With a glimpse at His power in Isaiah to rewrite the laws of nature, to undo the impact of man's fall in a stroke, the fact that He instead chose to suffer alongside and on behalf of humans is all the more amazing. Realizing this, I might n...

From Isaiah 11 – 1 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow from his root. 2 the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. “How pitiful," adjudicates Ignazio Silone, "is an intelligence used only to make excuses to quieten the conscience.” Steven King takes a shorter route to the same point in his novel 11/22/63. "Thoughts are not choices." Confronting our stumps of positive aspiration is that Christ in full fruition envisioned by Isaiah 11. The previous chapter has rendered God's judgment on the forest of our hypocrisy. Now only the root remains, in the root that is Christ is enough for a new beginning that encompasses more than intention. Although looking far into the future, Isaiah helps us to see 360° of the righteousness of Christ. As we would hope to be in our clearer moments, He has the wisdom, ...

But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren. Luke 22:32 I'm reading Joseph Plumb Martin's memoir of his experience as a soldier in the American Revolution. Early on, Martin reflects that when he first considered fighting his courage had sprouted but hadn't fully germinated. This is the product of years' perspective having come through the war safely, but I wonder how many leave open such a possibility. I think we often take one sounding, determine with binary finality, I am courageous, or, I am not, and proceed accordingly – never to re-examine. What if, by God's grace, courage is sprouting in us today that will bear fruit later on? What if we allow for the fact that we might see Jesus better tomorrow and that the possibilities that seem too daunting today might adjust accordingly? Surely Joseph Plumb Martin is not alone in his ability to see himself, and his courage, as a work in progr...