While weed wacking in the yard yesterday, in a somewhat somber mood, I called for my wife to come over and said "If something were to happen to me, I should give directions on a few things that you're not familiar with..." and I proceeded to tell her how to use the electric weed wacker. She seemed interested and responded....."Come inside a little later and in case something would ever happen to me I'll show you how to load the dishwasher."
She likes little knick-knacks and often orders from those catalogs we all get in the mail. I was looking for my keys earlier today and she pointed to them hanging on the wall. I thanked her, grabbed the keys and began to walk away. She folded here arms with that look. "What?" She pointed. I looked to see a black wrought iron mouse on the wall whose tail I grabbed the keys from. "Oh that's nice!"
It's not easy living with Special Dog. We might be on a drive in the country where she is admiring the hills and the foliage while I'm reviewing in my mind the difference between a Menshevik and a Bolshevik......"Oh, look at that cute farmhouse over there!" "Uh-huh." Pause....."There's an elephant dancing on the roof."......."Uh-huh."
My mind is often focused on what is transpiring in America today and in the Christian church. Working in the electric power generating industry, I often find myself in awe at what I see that engineers can accomplish. I give them all the credit in the world for the hard work, studying and perseverance they employed to get where they are. The same can be said for medicine and many other sciences and crafts but there's a fly in the ointment of genius, for one cannot simply apply calculus to government or a PHD to saving faith, but that's what often happens. The groundwork is often not done in these areas, nor the continuous studying, and the determination to even contemplate them likely ends when the game.....any game.....begins. The intellect is there, it's just not being used beyond its service to our material or prideful desires.
In God's eyes the janitor is as honorable as the surgeon, the dirt farmer as the college professor, and the 99 IQ as the member of Mensa, for He and He alone gave us our station in life and our abilities. To admire others with great abilities in the sciences is a reflection of God's grace to us as it is for the great lawyer to admire the physical toil of the hard working mechanic.
If our minds revolve around and take unspeakable joy in not only the designer of this universe and everything in it but in His very words to us in our Bibles, in His unimaginable love and undeserved longsuffering towards us, and in His omniscience in knowing our thoughts even before we have them.....and if we therefore see that we truly are fallen creatures, fully deserving of condemnation but offered forgiveness in Jesus Christ..... then love for one another will be there, it cannot help but be there, and respect for one another will bring more joy than pride in our own accomplishments; but we sit ignorantly and blissfully detached from so great a salvation and such a fullness of joy, and thus we exist in this culture of our own making. For me personally...I find that my mind is most often focused on what is transpiring in America and in the Christian church, and on my own transgressions against a Holy God.... but it is also, at the same time, focused on the cross where 'mercy and truth are met together,' and on the One.... 'from whom all blessings flow.'
She likes little knick-knacks and often orders from those catalogs we all get in the mail. I was looking for my keys earlier today and she pointed to them hanging on the wall. I thanked her, grabbed the keys and began to walk away. She folded here arms with that look. "What?" She pointed. I looked to see a black wrought iron mouse on the wall whose tail I grabbed the keys from. "Oh that's nice!"
It's not easy living with Special Dog. We might be on a drive in the country where she is admiring the hills and the foliage while I'm reviewing in my mind the difference between a Menshevik and a Bolshevik......"Oh, look at that cute farmhouse over there!" "Uh-huh." Pause....."There's an elephant dancing on the roof."......."Uh-huh."
My mind is often focused on what is transpiring in America today and in the Christian church. Working in the electric power generating industry, I often find myself in awe at what I see that engineers can accomplish. I give them all the credit in the world for the hard work, studying and perseverance they employed to get where they are. The same can be said for medicine and many other sciences and crafts but there's a fly in the ointment of genius, for one cannot simply apply calculus to government or a PHD to saving faith, but that's what often happens. The groundwork is often not done in these areas, nor the continuous studying, and the determination to even contemplate them likely ends when the game.....any game.....begins. The intellect is there, it's just not being used beyond its service to our material or prideful desires.
In God's eyes the janitor is as honorable as the surgeon, the dirt farmer as the college professor, and the 99 IQ as the member of Mensa, for He and He alone gave us our station in life and our abilities. To admire others with great abilities in the sciences is a reflection of God's grace to us as it is for the great lawyer to admire the physical toil of the hard working mechanic.
If our minds revolve around and take unspeakable joy in not only the designer of this universe and everything in it but in His very words to us in our Bibles, in His unimaginable love and undeserved longsuffering towards us, and in His omniscience in knowing our thoughts even before we have them.....and if we therefore see that we truly are fallen creatures, fully deserving of condemnation but offered forgiveness in Jesus Christ..... then love for one another will be there, it cannot help but be there, and respect for one another will bring more joy than pride in our own accomplishments; but we sit ignorantly and blissfully detached from so great a salvation and such a fullness of joy, and thus we exist in this culture of our own making. For me personally...I find that my mind is most often focused on what is transpiring in America and in the Christian church, and on my own transgressions against a Holy God.... but it is also, at the same time, focused on the cross where 'mercy and truth are met together,' and on the One.... 'from whom all blessings flow.'
