I wonder what the apostle John would say about a sunday school series entitled "When Godly People Do Ungodly Things" ..... ?

1 John 1:5-10
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

1 John 2:3-6
By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.
By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

1 John 3:2-10
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

    ¹I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
²He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
³Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
⁴He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,
He has broken my bones.
⁵He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
⁶In dark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
⁷He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.
⁸Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
⁹He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
¹⁰He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
¹¹He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
¹²He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.
¹³He made the arrows of His quiver
To enter into my inward parts.
¹⁴I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their mocking song all the day.
¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
¹⁶He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
¹⁷My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
¹⁸So I say, "My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the LORD."
¹⁹Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
²⁰Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
²¹This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
²²The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
²³They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
    ²⁴"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I have hope in Him."
²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
²⁶It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD.
²⁷It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
²⁸Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
²⁹Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.
³⁰Let him give his cheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
³¹For the Lord will not reject forever,
³²For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
³³For He does not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.
³⁴To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the land,
³⁵To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,
³⁶To defraud a man in his lawsuit--
Of these things the Lord does not approve.
³⁷Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
³⁸Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?
³⁹Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?
⁴⁰Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD.
⁴¹We lift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;
⁴²We have transgressed and rebelled,
You have not pardoned.
⁴³You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain and have not spared.
⁴⁴You have covered Yourself with a cloud
So that no prayer can pass through.
⁴⁵You have made us mere offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
⁴⁶All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
⁴⁷Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
⁴⁸My eyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
⁴⁹My eyes pour down unceasingly,
Without stopping,
⁵⁰Until the LORD looks down
And sees from heaven.
⁵¹My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
⁵²My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird;
⁵³They have silenced me in the pit
And have placed a stone on me.
⁵⁴Waters flowed over my head;
I said, "I am cut off!"
⁵⁵I called on Your name, O LORD,
Out of the lowest pit.
⁵⁶You have heard my voice,
"Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help."
⁵⁷You drew near when I called on You;
You said, "Do not fear!"
⁵⁸O Lord, You have pleaded my soul's cause;
You have redeemed my life.
⁵⁹O LORD, You have seen my oppression;
Judge my case.
⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.
⁶¹You have heard their reproach, O LORD,
All their schemes against me.
⁶²The lips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.
⁶³Look on their sitting and their rising;
I am their mocking song.
⁶⁴You will recompense them, O LORD,
According to the work of their hands.
⁶⁵You will give them hardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.
⁶⁶You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of the LORD!

(Lamentations 3)

Regarding Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, www.CreationSafaris.com has some great analysis!   It's worth reading every day.

Also, regarding the following quote:

Why is knowing God and embracing His sovereignty so important when we're single? We have to keep in mind that we've received this gift of singleness from the pierced hand of the One who bore all of our sins - from unbelief as singles to selfishness as marrieds. We can be like Peter who initially rebuked Jesus for His humiliating, yet glorious, plan of redemption - or we can be like Mary, who came to accept His plan and purposes, and demonstrated it in the costly outpouring of perfume in anticipation of his burial. Confident of the Lord's good plan for our lives, we can emulate Mary and spend our treasures (youth, dreams, desires) to further His purposes on this earth.
More importantly, when we are almost faint under the strain and worry of wondering if singleness is to be forever, we need to be reminded that there is an end to singleness: One day we will be at the wedding feast of the Lamb and we will be His bride. Even if we receive the gift of marriage on this side of heaven, that's not our ultimate goal. It is a shadow and a type of what is planned for eternity and, like all things on this earth, it will have its conclusion in death. Our Father knows the time when earthly gifts will be distributed and when they will be no more; He knows, as well, when the heavenly wedding feast will commence. We can blissfully rest in the knowledge that the future is better than anything we think we've missed now: Jesus is preparing us for the eternal rewards and eternal joys of a future He's told us is too inexpressible for us to understand. For His purposes, and within His covenant to always do us good (Jeremiah 33:40), He has declared for us that being single now and into the foreseeable future is His very best. He desires that we overflow with hope as we trust in him (Romans 15:13) and his sovereignty in this season -- redefining hope from hoping in a particular gift from God to trusting the God of hope unreservedly.  (http://www.cbmw.org/Resources/Articles/The-God-Who-Knows-the-End-of-Your-Singleness)

...the excellent point is made that singles have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of their loneliness and heartache, just as marrieds have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of the stresses of family relationships and needs... just as chronically-ill people have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of their physical pain, just as.... every pain and every life-circumstance carries with it the special and unique opportunity to showcase God's glory and value...   YOU have a unique ability that no one else in the world has ever had or will ever had, in trusting wholeheartedly in God in the midst of your own unique life-situation...   in saying with David (Ps 39:7) "And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You."  ...and with Jeremiah (Lam 3:27) "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I have hope in Him."

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)

Many of you are probably familiar with the passage in 1 Kings 19 where Elijah, the great man of God, begged God for death (as did others throughout the Bible... Job 3, Jonah 4, etc).   Here's the link if you want to read the story again: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?interface=print&version=49&showxrefs=no&showfootnotes=no&search=1+kings+19

It's interesting to see how God responded.  He did not say no.  Nor did He immediately grant the request.  At first glance, it looks as if God ignored Elijah's request, or effectively said 'no', because He gives him some new tasks to do.

But if you look more closely, one of those tasks is to annoint Elisha as prophet in Elijah's place.

This seems to me essentially like a 'yes' response... a 'just a few more things I want you to do here, then I will grant your request and take you home'.   A 'make sure you have a successor, a man whom you have trained to take your place and who will carry on the ministry after you leave, and then I will grant your request for death and rest.'

This is encouraging.

The squished-from-both-sides husband: boss at work saying "Why aren't you performing well?  Why aren't you putting in more time at work?  Your job is at risk unless you are willing to put in some overtime like everyone else", while wife at home saying "You aren't spending time with me!  You must not really love me!  Why don't you love me?"  Meanwhile the husband putting in the time at work in order to provide for his family because he loves them and wants to be a good provider, while getting excoriated for that very action by the one he loves... and in response to his wife's question "Do you really love me?  Do you really want to spend time with me?" he thinks "Actually, you're making it very difficult for me to enjoy spending time with you, when all I can expect is lecturing and nagging and constant 'do you love me' questioning.  Do I enjoy spending time with you right now? Honestly not.  But I can't tell you that, because you'll freak out.  Do I love you in the sense of wanting what is best for you and being fully committed to you whether you treat me nicely or not?  Yes.  I will remain faithful to you despite your nagging and pouting and the gentle friendship and temptation of many other beautiful women.  But do I enjoy coming home to your sermonizing?  No, honestly I do not."

Although I am not married, I am going through lots of 'training', perhaps, in the above scenarios and feelings, through current friends' situations.  May God use the training for good in my life and others' lives in the future.

"Be still my soul: thy Jesus can repay

"From His own fullness all He takes away."

Is this true?

I am extremely 'broken' these days (in the sense of 'not working properly; needing to be fixed').  If you think to pray for me, PLEASE do... I really appreciate your prayers... that God would heal, fix, restore, grow, mature me... and use me in the meantime for good.

If you ask me how I'm doing, I will probably say 'good', for several reasons.  First, in view of the eternal life that God has given me in Christ, I truly am 'doing well' in the ultimate sense, no matter how difficult my temporal life is at the moment.  Also, some of the issues I'm going through are difficult to explain to people even when they have time and interest, which quite understandably most acquaintances have only in small measure.  But I just wanted to mention this so that if I say I'm 'good', you understand.... and to ask for your prayers, those of you friends who read this.

With much gratitude, and with hope in Christ (whether He decides to fix me or not, whether I 'perform well' or not as His ambassador here, He has loved me with an everlasting love and guaranteed me eternal life with Him forever... that's pretty awesome...),

Tim

If "a woman's heart should be so focused/absorbed/lost in God that a man should have to seek Him to find her" as they say, then, in my opinion, a man's heart should be so focused/absorbed/lost in God that he would not even notice the woman at all until God knocks him out cold and personally gives her to him.

I read an interesting story in the book "Faith that Endures" (about the persecuted church) - actually two related stories.  One about a pastor who spent some 10 or 20 years in prison.  After coming out, he said that he had preached about many Bible verses beforehand, but while in prison he had nothing better to do than to just meditate on them, and apply them to his life... he was very appreciative of the whole experience, because it helped him get to know God much more deeply.  The second story about a man who wished to get the Bible out to persecuted christians in a certain country.  So he took small stones, and wrote one Bible verse on each one, and began distributing them to peasants, one stone per person.  The person would take the stone and meditate on that verse all week, and apply it.   One persecuted pastor made the statement: "it is dangerous to learn more and more truth without applying the truth one already knows."

I think that is quite true...

The ten books currently in my main reading pile besides the Bible are: "Love and Respect", "For Men Only", "Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church", "Don't Waste Your Life", "The Young Man in the Mirror", "The Reason for God", "Philosophy and the Christian Faith", "The Reliability of the Gospels", "George Mueller", and the Book of Mormon.  Just because they're in my pile doesn't mean I read them frequently (ha! far from it actually), but some of the ideas on this blog are obviously stimulated by the things I read when I get a chance.  The Bible is by far the most important book though... I recommend it more than all the others... the Bible is food, the others are condiments, or even silverware.

I have realized just tonight why I value my journal and my blog so much, and why I desire my closest friends to read them and to get to know my friends from previous places - it is because of two facts: I have changed a lot during the years of my life, and I have lived in several very different environments in my life - a version of 'rootlessness'.  My journals and blogs (and photos and letters and other forms of history) form a sort of thread that ties together 'the real me' and help me (and potentially others) understand who I am in view of the entire collection of experiences and friends... I tend to believe (rightly or wrongly) that unless I or someone else grasp 'who I was', it is essentially impossible to understand 'who I am' right now, and 'who I am becoming'... and likewise I think the more one gets to know my true friends, the more one can understand me.  If someone would view my journals and blogs and friends as 'secondary/accessories' and decides they're not worth the time to digest or get to know, I would feel that the person is not truly interested in getting to know me. That ought not change how I view/treat them, of course, in general...

Tonight reading "Love and Respect" - powerful and highly recommended... it's based on Ephesians 5:33, with thesis that husbands need respect and wives need love.  I think I strongly agree, based on what I've seen.  I don't know if I'll ever get to apply it.   But what about singles?  Does it not seem that single Christian men cannot / ought-not to direct the natural flow of their love / romantic feelings toward their single Christian sisters? (unless God is leading them to pursue marriage, of course) ...because that would easily tend to stir up feelings in the girls that would be difficult to repress... feelings that would risk 'leading them on' even accidentally, without meaning to.  As the african proverb says, "If you are not interested in giving money to the beggar widow, do not ask her too many questions."  What then to do with these?  How ought single men to 'practice' loving their wives, as it were?  Certainly not to direct this toward married women, that would be very foolish.  It seems to me that these feelings and impulses must simply be buried, dumped, wasted.  Not to say that God overlooks it, of course... all of our tears are saved in His bottle, and likewise with all of our romantic love.  It's like a garden hose which has no 'off' valve, but has no garden to water.  All it can do is pour onto the asphalt and down into the drain.  But that's better than prematurely soaking the paper packets of seeds which are meant for other gardens.  The energy of single people can of course be turned toward positive 'projects', as it is well known that churches benefit from the extra time and resources and energy of single men and women... and missionary endeavors to far lands, etc.  To a limited degree the longing of single Christian men to lead and provide and the longing of single Christian women to care for and nurture others can be 'redirected' into small groups, others' families, etc. Yet somehow it doesn't seem that simple.  If Christian single men need respect/significance and Christian single women need love/security, who can they legitimately get it from?  From God, I suppose.  Whom do they practice on?  Ultimately no one, I suppose.  Yet 'friendships' are obviously important.

There's the example of Jesus... single all his thirty-odd years on earth, yet somehow building a DEEP friendship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and others... especially Mary (John 11, etc)... while staying perfectly pure and sinless.  How could he intentionally build/allow such a deep friendship, while somehow making it clear to her that he had no romantic intentions toward her?  I wish I could watch His life in person.  E.g. Paul with the many women friends he mentions, Dorcas (great name for an American girl), etc.  May God give us all wisdom.  As the Quran says, "May God lead us to the straight path."

One more thing - I heard this awesome analogy from Piper's lecture on John Newton the other day - Newton used it in one of his sermons.

Imagine if there was a man who had just been told (and verified with official documents) that he had inherited a HUGE fortune [think billions or trillions].  All of his financial needs and wants would basically be solved for the rest of his life.  All he had to do was travel to a particular distant city to receive his inheritance.  He traveled and traveled, and finally, just when he was getting within five miles of the city, a wheel on his carriage broke [or his car broke an axle or something].

Imagine how utterly ridiculous it would be if we saw that man cursing and muttering darkly to himself as he walked the rest of the way, upset at the fact that he had to walk to the city and get all hot and sweaty and tired.  Or how utterly moronic we would think he was if he decided not to complete his trip because of the inconvenience!

Thus it is [says Newton] with our own situation (for those who are believers/disciples of Christ) - on our way to HEAVEN to live with GOD, FOREVER, joint heirs with Christ, bride of Christ, children of God, etc - when we encounter difficulties and sorrows and trials here...

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us... Romans 8:18

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials... 1 Peter 1:6

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison... 2 Corinthians 4:17