Coming Up For Air

From Genesis 32 – 24 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the [g]breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He [h]touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” Charles Spurgeon insists in Morning and Evening , "The only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is this, "The Lord is there." Shall I dare accuse Spurgeon, my Reformed version of a patron saint who once said God's promises need to be applied to the broadest possible extent, of applying this principle too narrowly? I think the wrestler Jacob in Genesis 32 might tag in with me in the wrestling match. Jacob was not, in general, the contemplative sort. He maneuvered for the advantage, often to his detriment. He had seen blessings come and blessings go, eluding that grasp whi...

From James 1 – 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. 19 [c]So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20 for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. "Had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are," focuses Spurgeon in Morning and Evening, "divine love would have put you there. You are," he insists, "placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you had the choosing of your lot, you would soon cry, "Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows." Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all thin...

From Colossians 1 – 3 We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth [a]fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; 7 as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit. Preeminence of Christ 9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of...

From Isaiah 7 – 2 And it was told to the house of David, saying, "Syria's forces are deployed in Ephraim." So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved in the wind. 3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz…" "Society might reflect," pauses Charles Krauthammer in The Point of It All , "on its own ample appetite for apocalypse." The opening of Isaiah 7 is just such a juncture. The prophet connects the unbelief in the heart of Ahaz to the unbelief which is contagious and compounded among his people. This, as Krauthammer phrases it, is the appetite for apocalypse. We are prone to believe and to convince one another that the worst may well come. We think ourselves more prepared for it by such ruminations. But just as the sin of unbelief often enters the cultural bloodstream through one man, so God can stand for faith through one man. He testifies through the ages once and for all t...

From 1 Corinthians 2 – 1 and I, brethren, what I came to you, did not, with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. 2 for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. In the Ken Burns Baseball documentary, longtime  Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodger Vin Scully has a confession. Some have marveled at the calm restraint he exhibited with the simple call, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.”Scully said this was an illusion. “I couldn’t have said another word without breaking down.“ Paul points to much the same root of message discipline, recognizing one's own weakness. In fact, a friend tells me the word Paul uses when he says that...

Psalm 52 –  Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The goodness of God endures continually. 2 Your tongue devises destruction, Like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. 3 You love evil more than good, Lying rather than speaking righteousness. Selah 4 You love all devouring words, You deceitful tongue. 5 God shall likewise destroy you forever; He shall take you away, and pluck you out of your dwelling place, And uproot you from the land of the living. Selah 6 The righteous also shall see and fear, And shall laugh at him, saying, 7 “Here is the man who did not make God his strength, But trusted in the abundance of his riches, And strengthened himself in his [b]wickedness.” 8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. 9 I will praise You forever, Because You have done it; And in the presence of Your saints I will wait on Your name, for it [c]is good. Reflects Rick James in Out Of The Depths , "I love to...

From Matthew 6 – 22 The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! As a cheapskate in a wheelchair, I do almost all of my travel vicariously through the writing of the New Yorker. The trip with James Lasdun to see the northern lights through his eyes in the April 29, 2019 issue was particularly illuminating. Lasdun compared the different impression the phenomenon makes in person to what pictures lead travelers to expect. Photographers can wait out clouds and still capture splendid shots. Travelers on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to the Arctic may not come with this expectation. The camera, it turns out, can capture much more light than the human eye. This means that photographic images of the northern lights, even if they aren't retouched, tend to be more vivid than anything th...