Coming Up For Air

Tim Keller's complaint in prayer was a good one. In Songs of Jesus , he pled in the devotional, "Lord, how easily I get shaken. Criticism, a sense of failure, changes and losses – all these things rattle me. Help me to live in the “kingdom that cannot be shaken“ (Hebrews 12:28). I'm not there yet. I don't have that indomitable perspective, and I want it more than ever. The state of my heart as reflected on my face is going to have a compounding impact worth so much more than the latest criticism, or failure, or changes, or losses now that my wife and I will be joining Team Parenthood. The child we have been privileged to raise won't be able to filter through the day's events to mine out the evidence of God's overarching goodness toward me. She hasn't my bulging file of the evidence of the faithfulness of God. She will experience life moment by moment, and very often my countenance will be an indicator to her of whether life as God allows it will provi...

Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Psalm 90:14, New King James Version I was recently reviewing somebody's list of the best episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation . One of their choices was an encounter in which Captain Picard was dropped onto a strange planet with a representative of another species whose language he didn't understand. The other figure kept repeating a single mantra to Picard's frustration. Eventually, Picard figured out that the other being was orienting himself and trying to reach out in communication with his culture's basic storyline or metanarrative. Psalm 90:14 has been my version of this lately. It's the standard I first fly on social media, communicating outwardly and inwardly that it is my desire to be satisfied in Christ and for that satisfaction to change me. Where disaffection is already evident, and it usually is by the time I hit the floor each morning, this has been my sermon to my...

From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, 2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith. 5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. 8  But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the unholy and the profane, for murderers of fathers and murderer...

From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, 2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith. 5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. 8  But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the unholy and the profane, for murderers of fathers and...

From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, 2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith. 5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. 8  But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the unholy and the profane, for murderers of fathers and...

From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, 2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith. 5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. 8  But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the unholy and the profane, for murderers of fathers and...

From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, 2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith. 5 now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. 8  But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the unholy and the profane, for murderers of fathers and...