March Madness, Indeed!

My friend Miss Swartz (huh, that's a character from Vanity Fair, too) and I have been planning on a March Madness party since the beginning of February, so I took a planned hiatus from the hiatus tonight while a bunch of us gathered at her casa to hang out and eat chips and lament the sad state of offensive rebounding in the NCAA and yell at that idiot Texas player who went for five 3-pointers (easy, kids, I'm talkin' basketball, not theology) in overtime even though he hadn't hit a single one in the whole stinking game.

And did you see that commercial they kept playing over and over? It looks like a beer commercial to begin with because it's a scantily dressed woman gyrating in a club, but then it turns out to be for Old Spice!?!? What!? It wasn't just that commercial, it was EVERY commercial. Going without TV for a few weeks makes every sexually-driven ad all that much more scandalous to me! I know I already live in a Bible Bubble, going to seminary and hanging outHere's what shocked me. Did y'all see that stupid Old Spice deodorant commercial they kept with my friends from church and stuff, but living in virtual media starvation even amps up the isolation. And I don't mean that in a bad way -- I mean, why do we (I, I mean) feel like we (I) need to be desensitized to this whole sex-sells, consumer-driven, godless culture? I know I never batted an eye about trashy commercials or skimpy outfits before I started doing this... I guess one more reason to thank God for Lent, right?

It reminds me of something a homeschooling proponent said: "People always ask me about socialization. And I say, look at our society! Do you really want your kids to be socialized into THAT?"

On a lighter (though not on the caloric side) note, I went for the first time into the (new) Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen today, a place with a cumbersome name and a heavenly purpose: to provide absolute, childlike joy and bliss to customers of all ages, in the form of toothsome sweets of every possible variety. As Lindie said tonight, "I tried to die." A 20-foot-long case full of creative homemade ice cream flavors and no less than 25 kinds of pie, plus county-fair-blue-ribbon-prize-deserving cake, and positively enormous cookies. Good heavens. I was grinning so much that I thought my teeth were going to fall out of my head, and that was BEFORE I sunk said teeth into a slice of coconut cream pie. Divine. The prices are reasonable, too. I fear that I may have to resign myself to a career in a sideshow now that I've found the place -- come one, come all, see the fat lady who'll eat any kind of pie you put in front of her! I do love pie. And they have sweet potato, and banana cream, and pecan, and 4 kinds of apple, and, and, and... oh, heaven.

Do you think there'll be pie in the resurrection?

Why I'm Such a Cry-Baby

Many of my friends, and anyone in my family, can attest to the fact that I am a cry-baby. I prefer to say that my heart is easily touched, because it sounds better, but the truth is, it's not hard to make me cry. In fact, all you really have to do to make me cry is talk about "the Nations," and I'm a goner. So the reading I've been doing for school has been pretty rough on me the last week or so. First, I've been reading a book for Missiology called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. It sounds pretty dry, and some of the readings are, but others are so full of passion and tenderness for the lost people of the world that I can't help being moved. Second, I just finished a Faithful Witness: the Life and Mission of William Carey. Carey is the father of Baptist Missions, and the story of his struggle and success in India should be known to every believer. Third, I'm in the middle of reading Let the Nations Be Glad! by John Piper, which every believer really must read. The section on suffering... it was crushing. Let me give you an example of one true story that broke my heart.

An African man named Joseph heard the Gospel on a dusty road one day, and was so filled with joy and excitement that he couldn't wait to share his newfound Savior with his own village. When he did, he was shocked to discover that they did not share his excitement; in fact, the men of the village held him down while the women beat him with barbed wire, then dragged him out into the bush to die. Somehow he survived, and days later came back to the village and pleaded with his kinsmen to come to the crucified and risen Christ. Again they beat him, and left him for dead. By a miracle of God, he survived this beating too, and after lying unconscious for several days, came again to the village to share this message of Christ's forgiveness. The women beat him a third time, but, as he was losing consciousness, he saw the women beginning to weep. The next time he awoke, the same women were around his own bed, tending his terrible wounds and nursing him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.

This is just one story in a series from the chapter on suffering. How small my own faith is! How little is my own trust in the sovereignty of God! How unwillingly I give up even the smallest convenience for the sake of the Gospel! How fearfully I approach evangelism, even when I know that my life and health are safe no matter how bold I might be!

I spent a lot of time crying as I read through that chapter, as I cried out to God for a faith so bold that pain would be a joy when compared to silence. And if that means I'm a cry-baby, I guess I'll take the title!

Isaiah 58: 6-12

Since I've been thinking about Lent, which has historically been a time of fasting, I thought it was interesting that God worked it out so this passage would be part of my Scripture reading time this morning.

Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him? ... Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Stepping out of the loop

My television gets two channels. I thought I was doing pretty well to cancel my expensive subscription to Dish Network and put giant rabbit ears (or as 7-year-old Ben calls them, "antenners") on top of my tv. But I still have DVDs numbering in the dozens, some of which, I'm a bit embarrassed to say, I've seen 20 times. This is a stewardship issue.

I get anxious when my apartment is quiet. Partly it's a coping mechanism, because having a fan running or music playing blocks out, at least in part, the madness that is my downstairs neighbor's stereo. But partly I've trained myself to have ADHD. I struggle to sit still long enough to finish 5 or 6 chapters of my daily Bible reading. I listen to music and watch tv and cook supper and clean my apartment all at the same time, bouncing from one half-finished project to the next. This is a discipline issue.

I check my email obsessively, and have a list of blogs I visit daily. I read news, opinion, and gossip on MSN, Slate, MSNBC, and a host of other sites. I surf for all sorts of information, ranging from airline ticket prices to financial advice to the current situation in India. I play Spider Solitaire every day. This is both a stewardship and a discipline issue.

I'm behind on my school work. I haven't kept up with the reading assignments for a single class, though I've begun them all. Luckily enough for me, the class in which I have to turn in reading reports required a book that sold out in the bookstore, so I got a temporary reprieve from my professor. This is also both a stewardship and a discipline issue.

I overspend every month. My parents have been very kind to me, recognizing that there's only so much a person can do with ten dollars left over after I pay my rent, but I struggle to say no to little purchases: five dollars here, three dollars there, a movie rental, a new candle, gourmet something or other. I plan my finances poorly. Now that I've gotten a new job (Praise God!), I should actually have enough money to make ends meet every month, but only just. My new budget does not include little splurges that I justify, since they're only a few dollars. This is also a stewardship and a discipline issue.

So why have I confessed all this on my blog, publishing my sins in the areas of stewardship and discipline for all to see?

Well, it's because I want you all to know that, in keeping with the tradition of Christians for centuries, I'm taking Lent, which begins on March 1st this year, as an opportunity to step out of the loop. I'm replacing entertainment and aimlessness with edification and focus. So, to accomplish that, tv is out. So are movies. So are internet and computer, with the exception of things related to school and family, and an accountability update on this blog. They'll be replaced with books, first Scripture, then textbooks, and then literature. Good stewardship and discipline will be the goal, with God's help.

I have to admit that the idea of giving up tv and movies sends a little wave of terror through me, but it's that very chill of fear that makes this venture all the more necessary.

So here we go, kids. Beginning Wednesday I'll post an update regularly.

Join me, or pray for me, or both.

Forty days of being out of the loop. What do you think might happen?

Gerard Manley Hopkins

God's Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Persecution

Over my computer is a poster, a map of the world with certain countries highlighted to indicate "Hostile Areas" and "Restricted Nations." It's only a map, a piece of paper with some photos and outlines and letters on it, but it represents hundreds of thousands of believers whose daily lives involve facing torture, imprisonment, and death because they bear the name of Christ.

Algeria
Afghanistan
Azerbaijan

Belarus
Bhutan
Brunei
Bangladesh

Chechnya
Chiapas, Mexico
Cyprus
Colombia
Cuba
China
Comoroa

Egypt
Ethiopia
Eritrea

Gaza

Iraq
India
Iran
Indonesia

Kuwait

Laos
Lebanon
Libya

Mindanao, Philippines
Malaysia
Myanmar
Mauritania
Morocco
Maldives

North Korea
Nepal
Nigeria

Oman

Pakistan

Qatar

Sudan
Sri Lanka
Somalia
Saudi Arabia
Syria

Tunisia
Tibet
Turkmenistan
Turkey
Tajikistan

United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan

Vietnam

Yemen

The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed...

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." -- Tertullian

I will write more on this topic later, but for now, pray. I was shaken and sickened as I read through the latest issue of "Voice of the Martyrs" magazine, which came today. Well, I'm sure you know how I feel if you've ever taken the time to find out the situations of believers around the world . . . beaten, tortured, raped, jailed, kidnapped, killed.

Pray. Pray for me as I wait for God's next instruction. Pray for yourself that you might be driven to as strong a sense of urgency about spreading the priceless treasure of the Gospel as our persecuted brothers and sisters. Pray for God's church in the West, that it might be shaken out of its sleep and selfish complacency. And most of all, pray that the blood of the martyrs will not have been spilled in vain, that the Gospel will go out with even more power than ever before as the Enemy tries to rein it in with terror and anguish.

". . . and you are holding on to My name and did not deny your faith in Me. . ."

Ramblings on Marriage

Two things happened in the last couple of weeks that motivated this post. First, I was awakened at 9:35 last Sunday morning by my cell phone playing the little salsa tune that means Nikki is calling me (personalized rings -- where would my life be without them?). She recently got married, so of course just before we got off the phone, she (being in the throes of newlywed bliss) made an adorable comment about her "hot pastor husband." Aww... It's so great to listen to her talk about him.

The second thing wasn't nearly as delightful. I went to the grocery store the same morning (my church meets at night, people!) to pick up a few things, and as I was standing in the aisle comparing B-complex vitamin prices, I overheard something that made me want to cry and pull my hair out at the same time. In fact, if I pulled my hair out, I'm sure I would cry. Moving on.

A middle aged couple couple was standing in the pharmacy section of Kroger. I probably wouldn't even have noticed them had the woman not begun lecturing her husband loudly and angrily, even going so far as to shake her finger at him! Her eyes were narrowed, her voice pinched and full of disgust, and her body language screamed her distaste for this man. To his credit, he answered her quietly, offering his help. But I could hear the sorrow and fear in his voice. I can only imagine his thoughts -- then again, maybe I don't really want to! Was he thinking back on the woman he fell in love with, wondering where she had gone? Was he calculating how many days it would be before she spoke kindly to him again?

Now, lest you think I'm too quick to judge, let me say that it was probably nothing. For all I know, she just got fired from her job, and suffers from insomnia, and is taking a new medication that makes her irritable. For all I know, this was the first time they've ever fought like that, and she went home and tearfully apologized to her husband, promising never to treat him so abominably again.

But all I could think was, what a contrast! Talking to Nikki, whose genuine respect and admiration for her husband is so apparent, was a testament to the grace of God. I have been so fortunate to be able to listen to her talk about him and hear how deeply she wants to serve, support, and honor him. In every pre-marital disagreement (and they were few and minor), Nikki always expressed her desire to submit to JD and to follow his godly leadership. I can only imagine her horror at the idea of scolding and chastising her husband like a child -- much less in public! Such a thought goes against every godly impulse of a covenant wife, and flies in the face of God's plan for marriage.

And yet so many single Christians are setting themselves up for a relationship just like the grocery store couple's! Single Christian men refuse to become true men of godly boldness and pure character that will let them fulfill their God-given responsibility to someday be the head of a home. Rather than cultivating maturity and leadership, they settle for being "modern men," surrounding themselves with girl friends and believing that being modern means giving her the lead -- nice, supportive, benign boys who will wonder someday why they never made a difference for the Kingdom. Or they live for self, misleading young women with their flirtatiousness, and seeking to satisfy their own pleasures -- boys whose god is their appetite for skin, which must be satisfied.

And single Christian women -- this is a demographic I'm pretty familiar with -- reject the freedom in the path God has made for us and believe the lie of the world that says we have to take the lead, do all the work, make up for the "stupidity" of men! We become the pursuers, lapping up magazine articles that tell us how to perfect the techniques of seduction and manipulation to ensnare men. We buy into the world's pattern for marriage: smart, cute woman marries big dumb animal of a man (who is probably also lazy, clueless, sex-obsessed, and generally a total caveman), henpecks and browbeats him into silent submission, and he whines slightly, making monosyllabic excuses for his idiotic behavior, as he hands over his credit card to the goddess of the house. (See "King of Queens," "According to Jim," "Everybody Loves Raymond," etc., for examples of this pattern.) The only difference in the minds of many Christian girls is that they'll also go to church on Sundays, by golly, even if she has to drag his sorry behind out of bed every week!

I don't want to be the woman who scolds her husband in the aisle of Kroger. I don't want to marry a man who refuses to take the lead. I want to become the kind of woman who someday will admire her husband's godly character, respect his God-given position of leadership, and work hard to support and honor him in everything. And I want to encourage my single brothers in Christ to become the kind of men that God wants them to be, so that someday they can lead their wives and families with boldness and fervor.

So there you have it. I've jumped on the bandwagon and put in my two cents about that blissful state into which Paul encouraged single folks not to venture. And that's all I have to say.

Praying for Revival

Right now what is on my heart is revival.

I'm exhausted with the politics, and controversy, and maneuvering, and compromise, and fear of change, and factionalism, and apathy, and misdirected zeal that all seem at one time or another to characterize the American church. For pretty good examples of some of these things, check out Wade Burleson's blog or Marty Duren's website for the rundown on the tragically divisive and ungodly controversy swirling in the IMB.

It all makes me wonder.

What if -- what if every Christian leader -- hey, I'd settle for every leader in the SBC -- would stop lobbying for public opinion, stop seeking political gain, stop trying to toe the line of typical Christian (or Southern Baptist) ideology, and started focusing on Scripture and training believers and preaching the Gospel? What would happen if the Holy Spirit moved in a new and unexpected way and pastors all over the nation began to get serious about confronting people with the cross of Christ and all that His bloody death entails for those He bought? What if churches got smaller and more plentiful, and we re-examined every way we "do church," rejecting everything that gets in the way of the Gospel, without the fear that usually accompanies doing things differently?

How would our communities of faith look different if we quit thinking that every minister of the Gospel has to be a married, teetotaling, suit-wearing, clean-shaven, good-ol'-boy, cessationist, five-point, thirty-plus, Christian-lingo-using, glad-handing denominational yes-man? If we stopped leaving Gospel tracts instead of tips and started telling our neighbors about Christ? If we retired our "God hates fags" signs and our "Baby killers" banners and made the truth of Scripture be our only weapon and our first defense against sin? If we stopped letting truth and freedom be shut down in fear in our denominations, churches, and seminaries? If we got so focused on the fame of Christ that we forgot what it was like to let our petty, sinful squabbles escalate into huge rifts and walk-outs?

I think I'm going to go spend some time praying. I'm going to ask God for revival in the SBC, among Baptist churches, and in the American church. Please, I would ask you to do the same.

Loved Until Threadbare

Just for fun, here are a few pictures of my favorite stuffed animal from my childhood, including a couple of attempted self portraits (she's not a very good photographer), and a couple that I was trying to take of myself that she just kept jumping into. She got a major time out for that one. She is 21 years old (legal! Whoop, whoop!) and her name is Snuggles D. Bear. She's a little threadbare from going everywhere with me clear through junior high. That stylin' sweater she is sporting is from Noah's Ark in Estes Park, Colorado, which is actually an Ark, and is full of teddy bears and accessories. Some family friends bought it for Snuggles when we stayed with them one weekend while mom and dad were at a conference. She's been a part of my life forever! As such, of course, she has some pretty cool experiences under her little teddy bear belt.

For instance, at the Denver Zoo, there is a cool underwater viewing area for the polar bear habitat, so you go down underneath the walkways and can watch the polar bears swim around and play. Once when I was a kid, my family took a trip to the zoo, and of course I brought Snuggles along. I thought she would enjoy the polar bears, since she's related to them, and so we went to take a look. I stood up on the cement frame of the window and put Snuggles's nose up against the glass. Well, wouldn't you know it, a HUGE male polar bear saw her and got curious, and came over to look. He pressed his nose right on the other side of the glass from hers, and wouldn't break contact. I moved her to the right, and he followed, treading water with his enormous, furry paws. I moved her around in circles, traced designs with her nose, ran from side to side, and he kept right up, with his nose on the glass the entire time. By this point a crowd had begun to gather. My parents decided it was time to move along, so they nudged me toward the ramp. I reluctantly pulled Snuggles away from the glass, and the polar bear... well, he was Not Pleased. At first, he didn't move, but when I put Snuggles behind my back and began to walk away, he reared back, swimming 5 or 6 feet from the glass, and then flew towards me, slamming full-force into the pane with his black claws, mouth open wide in an underwater roar. Needless to say, I ran the rest of the way out.