Seeds Family Worship - Cast Your Cares
May 13, 2009
Seeds Family Worship site (HT: Reformation Theology)
To plan or not to plan, that is the question!
March 23, 2009
By Gwynne Johnson
Sometime ago a friend and I headed to a meeting and stepped into an elevator, still chatting. We stood there engrossed in conversation waiting to be delivered to our destination. Finally, when the elevator wasn’t moving, we glanced at one another thinking that perhaps it was malfunctioning. Sadly the malfunction rested with us. We burst out laughing as we realized that neither of us had pushed the requisite button. Talk about missing the obvious.
As you can discern I am basically a “now” person. There’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting or walking with a friend and catching up on life enjoying a stimulating conversation and mostly ignoring anything else going on. Yet, surprisingly, God sometimes calls people like me to lead in His kingdom work. That presents some unique challenges. While it can be difficult for thoughtful and forward thinking folks to imagine, thinking ahead just doesn’t come naturally to me. Yet it is needed in leadership to maintain clarity and focus. Remember how Nehemiah carefully considered the conditions in Jerusalem before stepping into the leadership role to which God was calling him …
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A ‘pandemic of fear’: Gun sales, demand for gold, antidepressant use on the rise
March 13, 2009
Peggy Noonan, WSJ (HT: Rod Dreher)
I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4
Ursinus Reads USA Today
March 10, 2009
By Kevin DeYoung
I just got back from a mini-mini-vacation with my family. Since I had the weekend off, we loaded up the car early Sunday morning and drove to College Church in Wheaton (four hours away) in time for their 11:00 AM service (and a torrential hail storm). We visited friends in the afternoon and spent the night at a hotel in luxurious Carol Stream (in the same hotel where J.I. Packer once lodged I’m told-oooh!).
Around about four in the morning (which was really like 3:00 AM before the time change, but since we were on Central time I guess it felt like 4:00 AM to us, so never mind), our three year old fell out of bed, which prompted our one year old to wake up and cry like she was being dropped off at the nursery.
So my wife took a turn. Then around about 5:00 AM I took a turn. While I was hunkering down in the bathroom trying not to disturb the rest of the fam, with my precious little girl munching on Cracklin Oat Bran before the crack of dawn, I started meandering through my complimentary copy of USA Today (yes, it comes to your door that early). The news for Monday morning was grim. Lead story: Americans are becoming less religious. Bottom of page 1: pastor shot during church service. Elsewhere: Obama to reverse ban on federal funding for stem cell research. LAter: stocks may take more than 25 years to recover their losses, once they bottom out that is. For some reason the full page spread on Dancing With The Stars just pushed me over the edge. How can so much be going wrong in the world? …
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Vain Imaginations
February 3, 2009
By Sue Bohlin
Not long ago, I attended a retreat at which a college student, freshly discovering his call to an intercessory prayer ministry, spent hours every night praying by name for everyone on the retreat. The last morning when I ran into him, he said, “Sue! As I was praying for you, I received a word from the Lord for you.”
Uh-oh. I’d heard this before. And every time I had taken it to the Lord, asking if there were anything to it, the answer was no.
My defenses up, I smiled and said, “I’m listening.” He got a very thoughtful look on his face and said, “I have to get it exactly right. . . OK, the words were, ‘Guard against vain imaginations.’”
I thanked him for this and promised to immediately take it to the Lord. I had barely breathed, “Lord, is there anything to this?” when the lightbulb came on in my spirit and I knew EXACTLY what this was about …
‘People who are judgmental about [Christians using anti-depressants] live in a bubble that desperately needs to be popped’
January 29, 2009
Rhett Smith interview with author/blogger Anne Jackson, Part two
Amazon: Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic
Remembering the Y2K panic
January 6, 2009
‘Don’t panic …’
October 16, 2008
‘… but do mind your own business,’ says John Mark Reynolds:
“False historical analogies abound to feed our panic, but these are not the 1930’s. Stalin and Hitler do not stand across the Atlantic, unemployment is not at one-quarter to one-third of the population, and the real wealth of the last eighty years will not suddenly vanish.”
Dealing with anxiety
October 4, 2008
David Porter (A Boomer in the Pew) offers some very helpful advice:
“Note to self:
- Before creation, God chose me.
- At my physical birth I was born with a heart against my heavenly Father. In spite of this, his effectual call brought me to his regeneration and a new spiritual birth.
- Jesus Christ, became flesh, gave his life for my sins, and presented to me a justification before God. When God sees me, he sees Christ.
- To complete this bewilderment, God’s great desire, through his adoption of me, is that I become his son.”
Read his entire post.
