Fighting the Perspective Battle

Wow!

Since I posted last, I have seen God work more powerfully than I ever have before. In just a little over a month, He has provided for all of my needs this coming year! He truly is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.

Ironically, now that the real pressure is off and I'm somewhat secure for the next year, I am struggling to keep a proper perspective and view on life. It's like the old saying "there are no athiests in foxholes." When I was out of my comfort zone and relying on God day after day, it was relatively easy to maintain a relationship with Him through prayer and Scripture reading and meditation. I needed it! But now, even after witnessing such a display of God's power of provision, I often feel like I no longer need to be in a  close relationship with Him.

This is made worse by my frequent self-focus. For various reasons, I have had a lot of time recently where I didn't have the mental juice or the energy to apply myself to study or planning, and so I just vegged and did whatever I felt like doing. Entertainment is fine in moderation, but when consumed in larger amounts it fuels a harmful self-focus: what can I do to have fun and relax in the short term? This has been my problem in the past week or two, and even though it feels good at the time, it has left me feeling unfulfilled and empty. We were designed by God to live in community, facing outward not inward, and we were designed for long-term happiness in His kingdom, at the cost of some short-term pleasures. Only when we are living in community with God and others, and when we are thinking, planning, learning, and living in light of that future glory will we be satisfied.

For me in the next few weeks, this probably means pulling back to none or almost no media usage, spending more time reading the Bible and other books that I have been meaning to read, and spending more time with my friends and family instead of entertaining myself. It will be difficult, but the results will be worth it!

American Music's Idol

I was listening to an eclectic music mix in the car today, and I guess I was in a philosophical frame of mind, because I suddenly found myself thinking about the focus and worldview of different types of music. It's a fascinating thing to think about while driving!

The focus of most modern music is ourselves or other people. Think about a typical love song. The lyrics usually talk about how amazing the main character's love interest is, and then transition to talking about how sad they are because they can't be together, something has negatively affected their relationship, etc. Other lyrics speak of how the main character "needs" his or her love interest, how they'll "only be happy when we're together," and so on. This kind of attitude and worldview tends to cause listeners to focus on other people for fulfillment and happiness in life. This does not make love songs evil. I believe that these kind of emotions and desires have been given to us by God, and that there are legitimate situations for these kinds of things. However, the fact that there are so many love songs and ballads being written every day is evidence that our culture has made relationships and "love" into an idol. We have set these things up as the ultimate fulfillment, instead of God. I enjoy listening to some of these types of songs, but if I listen to too many "lonely" or "unfulfilled" love songs I start to get lonely and think that maybe I need some kind of romantic relationship to make me truly happy. It's amazing how much music can affect your mind and worldview, even temporarily.

Writing songs that focus on people is not bad in and of itself. It only becomes a problem when we put people and relationships above God.

The Fishbowl Means Freedom

Our pastor used one of my favorite illustrations last Sunday. He was talking about how boundaries and laws set us free, and used a goldfish to explain that seeming contradiction. Suppose you have a goldfish in a fishbowl, and one day you decide that you want to liberate the goldfish from its water and glass prison and free it to experience the real world all around it. You scoop it out of the fishbowl and put it on the kitchen table. You may have "freed" the fish in your mind, but you actually just killed it! This is because the goldfish can only survive and thrive when it is within boundaries that allow it to function the way it was designed: pulling water in through its gills to gather oxygen for its body and using its fins to move around in the water. For the goldfish, total freedom from all restrictions means death.

The same is true of us. When we ignore God's restrictions and boundaries for our lives, we engage in destructive behaviors that often lead to physical death and even more often, spiritual death. Only when we operate within the confines of God's rule will we be able to function as He designed us. God's rules for Godly living set us free to be all that He made us to be.

Victory is Certain if We Don't Surrender!

I was reading an article by Douglas Wilson in Credenda/Agenda magazine today, and this passage really stood out to me:

The war [between good and evil] can only be won or lost, and the only possible activities are fighting or surrendering. Given that there is only victory or defeat, we take comfort in the fact that a promise (given at the same time the antithesis was declared) said that seed of the serpent would have its head crushed, and the seed of the woman would triumph.

"The only possible activities are fighting or surrendering." This is a very encouraging idea! The idea expressed here, and borne out in Scripture, is that we can only be defeated by Satan if we surrender to him. We can and will lose battles, but as long as we confess, repent, and keeping fighting, we will NEVER lose the war! Praise God, for His mercies are new every morning!

The Great Commission

The Great Commission, Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations, is one of the pillars of Christianity and Christian evangelism. When I think of the Great Commission, I think of initiative evangelism, knocking on doors and sharing the Gospel, handing out tracts in public places, and taking mission trips to foreign countries to share God's love. When I think about these types of activities, I feel uncomfortable because I haven't really engaged in many of those activities, and don't really want to most of the time. I often feel less spiritual because I do not have a constant urge to go out on the street and start winning souls.
This past week, God has been working to remind me that the above examples are not the only ways to fulfill the Great Commission. Those activities are important and I believe that we should all be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15), but not everyone has the gifts and abilities for successful full-time initiative evangelism and missionary work in the traditional sense. One of the things that I love about the Church is that everyone in the Church is given different spiritual and physical gifts. They are all to work together to make the Great Commission a reality. Together we will go and make disciples, with the help of the Holy Spirit!

Sound Speech

In keeping with the resolution in my previous post, I have spent a bit of time over the past few weeks studying my life and looking for ways to put God first. One area that has been interesting me for some time, and that I have been studying on and off, is speech.

We all know that speech is very important. After all, God could have simply thought the universe into existence, but He chose to speak it into existence. He also uses words and speech to speak to us personally through His Word. We are to use our speech to communicate the Gospel to other people. Speech is a gift from God, and as Christians, we should put God first in how, what, when, and why we speak.

In order to have Biblically good speech, we must address our hearts. Speech is the display of the heart: "How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34, ESV). If we want God to be first in our speech, we must make Him first in our hearts. Therefore, we must be careful what we put into our hearts and minds. Phillipians 4:8 gives us some characteristics of such things: "Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." The phrase "think about" (also translated as "consider") comes from the Greek meaning "to reason, deliberate, ponder, consider." This gives the sense of long periods of thought about a particular thing, and the concentration of the mind on it. These are the things that come to mind when we are alone with nothing else to think about. Unfortunately, in my life, the first thing that comes to mind in such circumstances is rarely God or the things of God. I need to work to put more of His thoughts into my heart and mind! Only then will my speech conform to His standards.

You might ask, "what does 'sound speech' (Titus 2:8) look like?" The Bible does not give us a checklist of things to include or avoid in our speech, but it does give us principles to follow and examples of good and bad speech. As I study through what the Scriptures say about this important subject, I will post verse studies and other thoughts that pertain to sound speech. Till then, God bless you all in your endeavors!

Please comment with your thoughts on this post and/or subject. I would like to hear them!

~Mac

My Number One

When God really wants to teach us something or remind us of something, He often uses many different experiences in our lives to emphasize it. This has definitely been the case for me during the past few weeks.

The pastor at our church has been preaching a short series through the Lord's Prayer, petition by petition. In his sermon on the first petition, "hallowed be thy name," he introduced a key point for the series: we try to fill God's place with other things that we hallow and praise, but whatever we praise will control us. Only when we put God first will He control our lives and make us complete. The second petition, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven," has a similar focus. The primary point of his sermon on this petition was active and passive obedience and submission to God's will. Whatever we submit to will control us, and so we need to submit to God to have a thriving Christian life.

In my personal reading time I have been going through books ranging from Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn to Emotional Purity by Heather Arnel Paulsen, and I have been struck by how all of these authors emphasize contentment with God's will and a close relationship with Him as the foundation or even the solution to so many problems that we experience in this life. When God is our number one, our all in all, our first priority, we no longer feel compelled to seek satisfaction, identity, and fulfillment in wealth, power, or relationships. God may graciously give us those things in His good timing, but even when we receive them, we will treat them as gifts rather than the Giver if our hearts are God's first. Our pastor preaches a similar message in many of his sermons.

I sometimes read Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest as a devotional. It teaches that we must be filled with God and with the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

Hmmmm.

Maybe God wants me to concentrate more on my relationship with Him and make Him my number one priority in my life? Maybe He wants me to focus on being filled with the Spirit to be His agent on this earth?

It has been challenging to see His standard for Christian living and to see how far I am from that standard. Over the next few weeks I am going to attempt to analyze my life from His perspective and see what needs to be changed or removed. I definitely can't do this on my own, so I would appreciate prayers for the Holy Spirit's help.

~Mac

Tension and Growth

During the past few months I have been reading Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. It has been rather challenging to explore what the Bible has to say about money and how far we fall short of God's standards at times. I will probably be posting more of my insights related to the actual topic of the book, but today something popped out at me that was not specific to the issue of money. Talking about insurance on page 349, Alcorn writes:

There are many factors to consider when making an insurance decision. Sometimes I think we should have a little more insurance; other times I think we should have less. This tension is healthy. As we continue to grow in Christ, we continue to evaluate. But we are determined to follow His lead as best we can discern it. [emphasis mine]

Two things really struck me about this paragraph. First, the idea of healthy tension in the Christian life. Over the past several years, one thing that God has been teaching me is that there are two extremes to almost every issue in Christian living, and in almost every case, we are to take the middle ground between them, not falling into their extreme. This is hard for me, because I like things to be black and white and straightforward. This idea that the resulting tension we experience is healthy is very freeing! God wants us to constantly be thinking about why we are doing what we are doing, whether we can improve it, and always searching for and listening to God's will.

Secondly, continuing evaluation as we grow in Christ. As I have grown older, I have realized more and more that I cannot simply take a week, a month, or a year, decide my stance on all the issues, and then coast for the rest of my life. God is always revealing new ideas and new principles to us through His word and wise teachers of the Word. The Christian life is a constant journey of sanctification, re-evaluation, and learning. In all areas of our life, we need to be willing to constantly evaluate our behaviors, motives and beliefs and change them if God has revealed more wisdom to us that contradicts our current beliefs.


Even though these insights mean a harder, more involved Christian life, they encourage me. Coasting along secure in one's beliefs and free from tension is not a good way to grow and learn. I have new motivation to search the Scriptures, discuss the issues, and to follow His lead as best I can discern it at my current season of life!

 Any thoughts? What has God been teaching you lately about sanctification and the Christian life?

~Mac

Welcome 2012!

Over the past year, I have made wonderful progress in my school, grown a lot in my spiritual walk, made new friends, visited new places, learned new things, and generally broadened my horizons. I have learned more and more to rely on God, to trust in Him, and to follow His lead as I live my life. I look forward to more of the same in the coming year. Many big changes are coming up, but with God's help, I will meet them with joy! I am looking forward to seeing what plans God has for me in the new year.

Happy New Year one and all!

May God bless your 2012! May He give you many blessings and reasons to rejoice, and may He protect and guide you through any trials that come your way. I am looking forward to sharing 2012 with you all: my readers, friends and family. :-)

~Mac

Making Himself Nothing . . .

I definitely fall prey to being too familiar with the Christmas story for it to have an impact on me every year. Every year, I have to work to get myself into the proper mindset for worship, and remember the immensity of what actually took place at the Incarnation. This year, I have had some help. I've watched The Nativity Story, the movie about Jesus' birth that came out several years ago. The scene where Mary gives birth to Jesus really struck me. Jesus, the Lord of the universe, was born by the ordinary human way, and that in the poorest possible conditions. God truly became flesh. What amazing humility! If God made Himself nothing for us, how much more should we be humble as we seek to serve Him and those He put in our lives!

 Merry Christmas to you all! Christ is born!

~Mac

On Presents

Why do we give presents to each other on Christmas day?

I am going to try not to turn this into a rant about the commercialization of Christmas. I just want to honestly explore that question.

On our birthdays, people usually give us presents. Why? Usually it's to show us they love us, care about us or appreciate us. So why do we give people presents on someone else's birthday? I can't really find a reason other than to share God's love, but why would we only do that on one day of the year? Why not make the act of sharing God's love through gifts something that we do throughout the year?

If we want to be consistent in our birthday gift giving, we should give Jesus gifts on His birthday. He doesn't need anything we can offer Him, but He asks us to offer Him worship and service. I think we should use this Christmas season to rededicate ourselves to God and to offer worship to Him.

When we have birthdays, the focus is on us. It is a celebration of our life up to this point. When Christmas rolls around, the focus is often on gifts and gift-giving. How many stressed out holiday shoppers are out there, scrambling to buy everything they need to give before the holiday comes? The focus should not be on the gifts; it should be on the ultimate Gift and the Giver.

I am absolutely not judging anyone who gives gifts on Christmas. If you can give and receive gifts without losing focus on the real reason for the season, more power to you! I am also definitely not advocating not celebrating Christmas. I believe that it is a very important and meaningful holiday that deepens our relationship with Christ. I am simply trying to provide some food for thought and hopefully help the body of Christ to become more like Him.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Christmas gift-giving?

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #5 + Going Off Gluten Week 2

I figured these two topics are related. This will also help me avoid the egregious sin of posting twice in a day.

I made a family favorite muffin recipe this past week - raisin bran muffins! I prepared the dough on Saturday and we baked a fresh batch for Monday breakfast and this morning's breakfast. They're so much better fresh :-)

The ingredients. A box of raisin bran, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda!

And the finished product!

Unfortunately I couldn't have any this go-around. After finishing one week of gluten-free dieting, I have noticed some slight changes that could be seen as improvements. Whatever those changes may signify, I'm going to do at least another week without gluten. Thanks to Mom, I now have some great gluten-free alternatives for breakfast, lunch and snacks: gluten-free nuts and fruit granola and gluten-free pretzels. And to get me through the Christmas treat season, we're going to make a batch of gluten-free brownies. :-)

~Mac

Going off Gluten

As some of you know, I've been experiencing stomach pain, food sensitivites, and other GI-related issues for a few years now. I've had all of the tests run, and they all came back negative. But I'm still having issues! All this is not to complain, just to fill in the background. :-) I am trying a week of removing gluten from my diet. My symptoms do seem to fit celiac disease, and one of Mom's friends just had a false negative for celiac, so I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens! I did feel a little bit better yesterday (day 1), but I'm not feeling good so far today. It's probably just because my body has to adjust to not having that diet element in my system. We shall see :-)

If anyone has tips or recipes or advice about the gluten-free diet, please let me know!

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #4

Last Saturday I decided to make pineapple coconut bread.

Chopped walnuts give the bread more texture and heartiness.

They took a while to completely bake, and they may be a bit too brown, but at least they rose this time! :-) We had them for breakfast yesterday. They were OK, but I couldn't really taste the pineapple or coconut :-/ Ah well! You win some and you lose some.

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #3: Foiled Again!

Today, since I made muffins last week, I decided to go with bread. I made some simple cinnamon raisin bread.

Cinnamon!

And raisins! Yum yum! :-)

Our trusty Bosch mixer churning up the ingredients!

When I put the dough into the pans, I thought there was something wrong. The bread just didn't rise and get fluffy. When they were done rising and baking, they were still the same height as when they were raw! Then I realized: I had been duped once again by the dreaded gluten-free wheat! :facepalm: We had accidentally bought some a while ago and I ground a bunch of it and put it into my bread, thinking it was hard white wheat (that was the label on the bucket it was in :-P). Ah well, at least there's still the same amount of food in each loaf! We will still enjoy our "power bread" (so-called because of the massive energy in each small slice :-) )

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #2

Sorry I'm tardy with (what should have been last week's) post. I won't make any excuses. Anyway, here it is! I made muffins Saturday :-)

 All I remember about the recipe is that you put eggs and liquid stuff in one bowl . . .

. . . and flour and dry stuff in another bowl. (I've slept since I read the recipe, it's long gone :-) If anyone wants recipes from these things, comment and let me know.)

Then you mix 'em!

I made this an apple raisin nut cinnamon variation on the original whole wheat muffin recipe. :-)

I mixed the apple chunks, raisins, and nuts in, then put the batter in muffin pans and baked them for about 10 minutes . . . 

And BINGO! They turned out very well IMO; each one is like a little apple pie! These are definitely going to be made again :-)

~Mac

Blogger Issues . . .

I seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with Blogger, specifically in leaving comments. Apologies to all you people that I've tried to leave comments for on your blogs and this blog! Some of you have been getting my comment notifications but the comments never get to the blog itself :-P I'm trying to figure out what the issue is. If you know what the problem is or are having the same problem, let me know!

EDIT: switching to Firefox for commenting seems to work. I guess it's my Chrome settings, but I don't have time to tinker with them. I guess I'll be using Firefox then!

~Mac

Cook in the Kitchen #1

Well, I tried to start a weekly series so I would be updating my blog at least once a week, but that (Happenings Grab Bag) failed rather miserably :-P Partly because my happenings come in bunches I guess. I still want to be blogging at least once a week, but I couldn't think of anything that I did weekly that would be blog-worthy. That is, until this morning, when I realized that I bake breakfast once a week, and I usually try something new every week. So I thought I'd give my culinary endeavors a chance at being my weekly series. Presenting Cook in the Kitchen! :-)

This week, I tried something I had never done before - making granola. It's actually pretty easy to make, even in large batches (which is a big advantage in my book!).

WI tripled the recipe so I had three sticks of butter and 1 1/2 cups of honey. Yum! :-)

Melting the butter and honey together.

Sticky goodness! I brought it to a boil to caramelize it a bit so that the granola would clump better and added some vanilla for extra flavor.

I poured that mixture over about 12 cups of oats and a few cups of pecan chips while my lovely assistant (Mom :-) ) stirred it in.

I spread the mixture out on several trays to bake. . . 

. . . and after about 8 minutes at 400 degrees, they were done! Some of the tops were a little browner than they probably should have been, but overall it was a successful experiment. It clumped better than I thought it would, so that's good.

Looking forward to breakfast on Monday!

~ Mac

Homecoming!

No, it wasn't my homecoming. I went to visit my brother at college during their homecoming weekend. The main purpose of the visit was to go see Jon Foreman in concert! We got seats in the middle of the venue about four rows back :-)

Brooke Waggoner opened and she was pretty cool. I hadn't heard much of her stuff before, but it's kind of similar in style and lyrics to A Fine Frenzy/Alison Sudol. So mostly light, kind of artsy music. :-) She is also a very good piano player!

And here's Jon Foreman! Along with Keith Tutt (one of the best names EVER!) on cello, and Anne Marie Calhoun on violin/fiddle ("depending on your political views" according to Jon)

This shot was at the end where he played "Your Love is Strong" (inspired by the Lord's Prayer) as an encore and we all stood and sang out! :-)

Here's a video someone took of "Only Hope" during the concert:

~Mac

My Bed Upgrades

I've been having quite a bit of trouble getting a good night's sleep for a few months now and I've been waking up with a sore back and joints, so I got some shnazzy add-ons for my mattress to see if they'll help. I got a Memory Foam mattress topper and a Denali Down Under lamb's wool spread!

Here's my trusty mattress. It's still pretty firm but I'm not sure it's going to cut it by itself anymore.

Here's the Memory Foam topper. It's two inches of open cell foam.

As you can see, it has a nice give to it. But it doesn't stay compressed after you move; it springs right back. I'm hoping it'll give me some more back support and help relieve pressure points.

Here's the lamb's wool sheet thing. It's supposed to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, which will help me with my temperature control problems.

Mmmm, soft and thick. :-)

Ready to sleep! I've used it for about two nights now and I haven't seen much of a difference yet. I think it's helping my back though. We shall see how I'm doing at the end of the week. Now I'm off to use my souped-up bed! Toodles.

~Mac