« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »
January 31, 2005
The question is, what is a Mahnamahna?
Posted by aaronlord at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2005
Pressing On...
So, I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I read something in Oswald Chambers over Christmas vacation about how God uses silent seasons in our lives to speak to us, or to draw us into waiting dependence. Sorry, that doesn't necessarily mean new blogs are going to be terribly profound...
Last night Flogging Molly played a show at the Senator, but I couldn't go because it was sold out. I saw Katie at Worship Generation tonight and she told me she had a ticket but didn't go, so I totally could've gone! Dangit!
This morning I played fiddle and mandolin for worship with Sam and Kevin. It was the first time I've played with them since I stepped down last summer. It's so good to be back!!! I got new D'Addario Helicore violin strings yesterday for the occasion. I know, I've been using Dominants for almost 20 years, but they didn't have any full size Dominants in stock, and these were 10 to 15 bucks cheaper (still $40). They have a stranded steel core instead of synthetic gut like Dominant, but they sound really good. Apparently these are the strings bluegrass players use, and they're suitable for electric violins as well. I think they produced a more even tone plugged in this morning than Dominants do. Good stuff!
Lifehouse recently released their new single. It's an old song of Jason's from the FKA days when Jon and I used to play with him, so I got a little bit Emo about it. But God used the situation to deal with me. I read Chapter 9 in Chuck Swindoll's The Grace Awakening last week, and it appropriately dealt with the kind of stuff I'm dealing with, with old church split issues, old broken relationships in Scotland, old broken band dreams, etc. It's called "Graciously Disagreeing and Pressing On". Chuck has some really good "Insight" (get it?) on Paul and Barnabas's split, and how it's sometimes God's will for such things to happen--that it's sometimes God's way of moving his people "on to another dimension of ministry" (p. 195).
I highly recommend this chapter, especially the section on Paul and Barnabas, but if you can, read the whole thing.
He draws the illustration of Paul and Barnabas into the points he made in an earlier chapter about the fact that an argument usually consists of an objective truth, and then two subjective viewpoints, and it's important for a person in an argument to make a differentiation between what the objective truth is and what the personal viewpoints are. Chuck says Paul and Barnabas both had equally valid viewpoints when it came to the issue of John Mark's dissertion. Both of them were in the right when they chose the path they chose, but it was a very bitter split because they couldn't compromise at the time. However, later in life, Paul still spoke affectionately of both Barnabas and John Mark in his letters.
Many people today emotionally are sitting in dark rooms, eaten up with bitterness because of an argument that they had with someone a long time ago. They feel they were humiliated or they feel they weren't listened to. How many are living out their lives with their spiritual shades drawn, thinking to themselves, I'll have nothing more to do with the church because of an argument they witnessed or maybe participated in? We need to be people who can disagree in grace and then press on, even if the disagreement leads to a separation. (191-2)
Here's an important point Chuck makes a couple pages later, and it really resonated with me:
There was a time in my life when I had answers to questions no one was asking. I had a position that was so rigid I would fight for every jot and tittle. I mean, I couldn't list enough things that I'd die for. The older I get, the shorter that list get's, frankly. (194)
That's an important breakthrough for young Christians who enjoy their theological arguments. Chuck also talks about how Christ's body is One, though there are many parts, and, Calvinists, covenant theologians, charismatics, pre- or post-millennial, pre- or post-trib-- "We disagree on certain points of doctrine, but we're on the same team. We're going to spend eternity together. We're going to meet the Lord in the air (whether they believe it or not!). So we might as well enjoy each other's company on earth" (p. 193).
Good stuff.
While I have your attention, I want to point out what Oswald Chambers had to say today. Here's an excerpt: "Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?" If you don't have a copy, you can read the full entry online.
Posted by aaronlord at 10:31 PM | Comments (1)
Modding a Dell
People say it's not possible to mod a Dell... This is proof otherwise.
Still, please remind me not to get a Dell next time!
I got some electrical tape from Radio Shack and jerry-rigged the front panel power switch and LEDs. The metal box hanging loose in the bottom of the case is the front USB panel. There are too many wires to splice, and the computer complains if it's not plugged in. I'll just use the rear USB ports until I can get a new motherboard.
Pretty, isn't it?
Posted by aaronlord at 10:15 PM | Comments (4)
January 17, 2005
Mortifying Sin
Not much to say today, except I wanted to provide a link to Matt Hall's blog for today. Good stuff! Pat's reading John Owen's book right now and he wants to let me read it when he's done...
Posted by aaronlord at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
The trouble with Scottish Presbyterians
Western Europe is the new missionfield. According to the Scottish Church Census, only 11.2% of Scots attended church on an average Sunday in 2002. And those who do are mostly old people. This is higher than England (7.5%), but compare this with the U.S. at 40% (Barna), and a 1997 report by the University of Michigan that puts South Africa at 56%, the Philippines at 68%, and Nigeria at a whopping 89%!
One report by Phil Zuckerman points out how drastically this change came about in only a couple generations: "In Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1851, 60 percent of the adult population attended church; in 1995 that was down to 11 percent."
The journalist also throws in some anecdotes from personal experience:
The last time I was in Europe, I was told by two different sets of friends that we would be "going out to the church" for the evening. In both cases (one in Oban, Scotland, and the other in Cologne, Germany) the churches turned out to be religious institutions in facade only; both were former churches that had been gutted and turned into popular pubs and night clubs. Indeed, throughout much of Western Europe--with the unique exception of Ireland--churches are being turned into bars, discos, warehouses, and laundromats. Not only is church attendance way down, but so is religious belief.
The culture has changed so much that people actually have to second-guess what you mean when you say you're "going to church!"
Many Scots are wasting their lives away in bondage to drugs and alcohol. In almost every city you go to, whether it's Aberdeen, Glasgow, or Inverclyde, the locals will tell you it's the heroin capital of Europe. They are not living the lives of freedom that their ancestors fought and died for!
So we've established that only a ridiculously small percentage of people go to church in Scotland. So how can Presbyterianism be the right way? I would say that the mysteries, complexities, and paradoxes of the balance and partnership (MARRIAGE!) between God's sovereign will and man's responsibility are so vast that you either have to leave it alone completely and walk by faith, or you need to keep wrestling with it until God brings you to a point where, though it might not make perfect sense, you finally reach the conclusion that there has to be a balance of the two.
Delving just a little into Calvinism is dangerous. You may get to the place where you say, like many Scottish Presbyterians do, that God is sovereign, so it doesn't matter what I do. I'll just go to church on Sunday (or not) and leave everyone else alone, because if they were elect of God, then he would cause them to come to faith with no help of my own.
The problems are (1) that's not what Calvin taught, and (2) election does not negate preaching (there is a ton of material by John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and others on this very subject).
Bruce Shelley said if Luther's key verse was "the just shall live by faith," then Calvin's was, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The emphasis here is not that God's will is going to be done no matter what I do (it will, but if you don't cooperate then he's going to find someone else to work through), but the emphasis is on how our desire for His will to be done should affect our prayer life, our daily actions and lifestyle, and our preaching!
Shelley writes, "The consequence of faith to Calvin--far more than to Luther--is strenuous effort to introduce the kingdom of God on earth....God calls the elect for his purpose!" (Church History in Plain Language, 261).
As a kingdom of priests, we all have direct access to the throne room of God, and we all are supposed to represent His interests on the earth. His will is done through us, which is why we need to cooperate with Him. We have to choose God's will. We are called for His purpose. And his will is that all might be saved. "Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" (Mt 18:14, NKJV). We were all little kids once. And 1 Tim. 2:4 says that God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (ESV).
Instead of arguing and debating about the supposed unreality of everyone getting saved, we have to realize (1) God's reality is higher and more real than the realm we see with our eyes, and (2) we have to be saturated by God's desires and look on others with his heart towards them. If God looks at people and desires their salvation, then his elect needs to look on people and desire their salvation.
The point of Calvin's teachings which is missed by some of the fatalistic, pseudo-Hindi, psuedo-Muslim neo-hyper-Calvinists, is to see God's kingdom come here on earth. We are called according to his purpose. Like Sarmatian knights, we have been given our orders, revealed in Scripture, and it's up to us to choose whether we will fulfill them.
"I now know that all the blood I have shed, all the lives I have taken, have led me to this moment." King Arthur (2004 film)
Posted by aaronlord at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2005
Killing Our Idolatrous Desires
In a previous entry I said,
I don't know if it's because the career I prepared for never began, or because the family I expected to have never happened. The dreams of touring the globe in a worship band or moving to Scotland never materialized. Interrupted dreams can have a hard effect on a soul.
God uses our losses not only to bring glory to His name, but also to bring about His good in our own lives, bring us closer to Him, and bring us to a place of deeper sanctification and reliance on Him.
In Pascal's Pensees (113), he says:
There once was in a man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. (Quoted by John Piper in Desiring God, 21. Emphasis mine.)
Anything else you try to put there is an idol. Anything else you try to find your security in is an idol; be it your credit record, your car, your career that you've spent so many years preparing for, your position as a pastor or worship leader. "Only by God Himself."
I've talked before about the analogy of Tiger Woods in St. Andrews. Maybe God can use the beauty and the spiritual history of all that has transpired along the banks of the Firth of Tay to teach us a deeper lesson. The thing that you are fighting for, the thing which you are striving so passionately in pursuit of, has to be Me, above all. If you are striving after a goal, even if it is a godly goal that God has put in your heart, you are striving after the wrong thing. It may not mean a change in action as much as a change in mindset. "Only by God Himself."
...in reality our pain and losses are always a test of how much we treasure the all-wise, all-governing God in comparison to what we have lost. We see this merciful testing of God throughout the Scriptures. For example, in Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses said, "And [God] humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." In other words, God ordains the hard times ("he...let you hunger") to see if we have made a god out of our good times. Do we love bread, or do we love God? Do we treasure God and trust His good purposes in pain, or do we love His gifts more and get angry when He takes them away? (John Piper, Life as a Vapor, 112)
Dangit! John Piper's kicking my butt!
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jer 29:11, ESV).
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28, ESV).
I was talking with friends yesterday about how people try and console each other with the words "God will work it out for your good," but they don't really understand what that means. People use it as a phrase of comfort—as if to say, "God will (literally) restore to you all the things that you lost," or, "He has someone better for you"—but what He really has in mind is the death of your idols. The lost possessions will be restored by the Eternal possession we have in Him. "And the LORD said to Aaron, 'You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel'" (Num 18:20, ESV). In almost identical parallelism, Jesus says
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Mt 6:19-20, ESV)
The "someone better" that the Lord has for us is Himself!
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
"Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure"--
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true words of God." (Rev 19:6-9, ESV)
The Biblical wedding analogy is not just a descriptive picture of what it's like to be with God. Marriage itself is not the ultimate reality—it's only a picture of the higher reality, which is our relationship with God. In fact, marriage only has value when it's seen as a metaphor rather than an end in itself. That's the ultimate design of it, not procreation. (I can't remember whether it was Don Miller in one of his books or when he spoke at Calvary Capo Beach, or if it was John Piper or somebody else, but someone said God could have designed any number of ways for us to reproduce, but the very reason he did it the way he did was to paint a picture of Christ and the church).
My point isn't to devalue marriage in any way, nor is it to glorify it as the ultimate picture of our faith, nor is it even to make myself look like I have or haven't resigned to the idea of remaining single forever. My point in this is to say that knowing God is the ultimate end. Even the things that we human beings consider most important were not designed as ends in themselves, but as pictures of the higher reality. "Only by God himself."
...if....we must reckon with the fact that God's wisdom is the ultimate reason we lost our earthly treasure, then we will be forced to do the very valuable act of testing our hearts to see if we loved something on earth more than the wisdom of God in taking it from us.
All of life is meant to reflect the infinite value of Christ (Philippians 1:20). We show His infinite worth by reasuring Him above all things and all persons. Believing in His all-ruling, all-wise sovereignty helps reveal our idolatries in times of pain and loss. Not believing that God has a wise purpose for every event helps conceal our idolatries. (Piper, Vapor, 115)
Posted by aaronlord at 11:30 AM | Comments (1)
January 01, 2005
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Happy New Year! Do you have a resolution? I do...
Ever since I graduated college almost seven years ago, I've been living as if I'm still waiting for my life to start. I don't know if it's because the career I prepared for never began, or because the family I expected to have never happened. The dreams of touring the globe in a worship band or moving to Scotland never materialized. Interrupted dreams can have a hard effect on a soul.
It's like what the Oracle says to Neo in the first Matrix movie:
ORACLE
But you already know what I'm going
to tell you.
NEO
I'm not the One.
ORACLE
Sorry, kid. You got the gift but
looks like you're waiting for
something.
NEO
What?
ORACLE
Your next life, maybe. Who knows.
That's how these things go.
My desire for this year is that I will be here, in the present, right now, playing in active role in the life that God's given me—living to bring glory to God in every moment, rather than floating along while I wait for "the Big Breakthrough".
Like Oswald Chambers continuously says, you can't wait for the crisis to happen in order to prove your character. In the same way, I can't put off practicing my violin until the date when I'll actually have a recital to do. I can't put off my collection of Celtic tunes until my next trip to Scotland. I can't put off singing and songwriting while I wait until I'm actually in a band again.
I need to be content with bachelorhood. Let me say that again, because it's important.
I NEED TO BE CONTENT WITH BACHELORHOOD!!!
My household, though it consists of just one person, must function as a complete whole. This means the things that I've been putting off my whole life, I can't put off anymore, but I must take care of them now. For example:
- eating right,
- cooking real meals,
- housekeeping,
- exercising...
If there is any chore or goal or character trait that I've been putting off in expectation of it falling into place when I get married, I need to take care of it right now. If anyone has any other ideas, post some comments. I'd like to hear them!
I don't want the next eight years to be as miserable as the last eight years have been. I cannot live the next eight years in waiting like I've lived the previous eight. I am so thankful for new beginnings, and I feel like the new year is a chance to start over.
So much of my personal outlook, when I'm walking around the hallways at church, going about my business, whatever, is haunted by the past. Failed dreams, personal moral failures, broken friendships, unwise financial decisions, church splits, etc.—things like these have a propensity to keep us chained down and prevent us from moving forward.
But the author of Hebrews exhorts us to "lay aside every weight" (Heb 12:1). Philippians 3:13-14 (ESV) says, "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." This is what Bono was talking about when he penned "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."
Oswald Chambers said:
". . . God requires an account of what is past" ( Ecclesiastes 3:15 ). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present. (My Utmost for His Highest, p. 366)
Let's press on!
Posted by aaronlord at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
