Disciple: What a concert!

So Sunday night, my good friend Wade Hester and I made our way down to Greenville, SC, to see one of our favorite bands in concert:  Disciple.  They are a very unusual band, with thoughtful, reverent lyrics and a sound something like early Metallica – very heavy and with vocals that sometimes are more scream than sing.  (That last aspect I’m not so crazy about, but it’s part of the package.)

The concert was awesome.  They said there were more than 300 people there, and the venue was totally packed, so you can tell this wasn’t a big setting.  The opening acts were fine, but really it makes such a difference when you actually know and love the songs that are being played.  Disciple came on and they were really awesome.   I wish they had played “Worth it All”, but that’s OK — the show was awesome and I can’t complain about any of the tunes they chose, which were fairly well balanced across their three most recent albums.

The most impressive part of the show, however, was not the music.  It’s hard to imagine effective evangelism being done from the stage, especially at this sort of concert where the whole place was basically a big mosh pit, but really, it was extremely powerful.  Lead singer Kevin Young spoke to the common dispair that all believers feel when we have fallen and feel unworthy to be known by God.  Later, he talked about the Prodigal Son.  The most impressive thing, though, was after the encore was over and the rest of the band had left the stage.  Young stayed at the mic and delivered a far more passionate, far more compelling Gospel presentation than I have ever heard.  Ray Comfort would have been proud with how he layed out the case that all of us are undeniably trapped by sin; our conscience testifies to this, and we know that we stand guity before a holy God.  Then he proceeded to effectively and repeatly point to the cross, calling unbelievers to faith and calling believers out of hypocrisy.  When he asked for a show of hands of how many people acknowledged that they were without Christ and needed him, I would estimate that 30 hands went up — perhaps 10% of the crowd.

It was stunning, and perhaps the saddest part is that most of the people there knew they were coming to a Christian concert and probably considered themselves Christian on some level.  They probabably had never heard a full presentation of the Gospel – to realize that salvation is no just a matter of showing up at church and punching the clock, but rather is a matter of life and death, a matter of dying to self and rising in Christ as a new creation.  I applaud Kevin Young and Disciple for the courage to lead a 15 minute Bible study as part of the concert.  It would be easy to just leave the stage, knowing they had played music that exalted God and be done with it, but they didn’t leave it there.  Obviously, they feel a burden to use the “stage” they have for an even higher purpose, and it was awesome to see.   Well done, guys.

Book Review: Faith and Culture Devotional

I agreed to read and blog about A Faith and Culture Devotional: Daily Readings on Art, Science, and Life, by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington, so Zondervan was kind enough to send me an advanced copy of it.   I had hoped it would be the thinking person’s devotional, one that would spark new thoughts or perspectives, and from which I could really learn.  I think it did that, although to a lesser degree than I wanted it to.

The devotional is broken up into fifteen weeks, and then each week has seven devotions on the topics of Bible and theology, history, philosophy, science, literature, arts, and contemporary culture.  The purpose of the devotional is to reveal God in all subjects, all areas, every part of life.   The contributors are scientists like Michael Behe and writers like Chuck Colson and Philip Yancey, and cover topics from creation to God in Picasso’s art to Shakespeare to U2.  The scientific accuracy of the Bethlehem star is addressed, as well as the reasons why the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were canonized and the Gnostic gospels of Thomas and others are heresy. It disproves evolution through the study of mutations caused by malaria, as well as Bono and U2’s Christian roots.  Its range is very broad and the contributors are well-suited to write their chosen topics.

I feel that this devotional is a good supplement to (but should not replace) your Bible study, as any scripture in this book is incidental rather than the focus of any devotions.  The Bible is defended, appluaded, supported, and authenticated, but God’s fingerprints in the world rather than the Word itself is the focus of A Faith and Culture Devotional.  That being said, I definitely recommend it as a way to see and worship and learn about God in every aspect of life.

“Uncovering” Faith

So I was offering our oldest daughter some grapes (a fruit she is not fond of) and as usual, she balked.  I pointed out that she used to refuse to eat bananas too, but now she loves them.  She had an unusual response:

“Daddy, that’s because bananas are uncovering!”

Uncovering?  That’s a new one by me.

“Imagine that I got a present at Christmas, but I didn’t really like it, so Mommy put it in a box, and put a blanket on top of the box.  Now pretend that it’s been a long time since Christmas so I’ve forgotten all about the present.  Then one day, Mommy starts to pull the blanket off the top of the box.  I didn’t like those toys when I got them, but now I see them and get excited, because they are uncovering!”

I knew that was something I was going to have to blog.  Since then, she has frequently returned to this, as she has reflected on the foods that are uncovering, and the foods that most certainly are not uncovering.  She’s a pretty incredible kid for trying exotic things, but do not offer a grape, blueberry, raisin, or anything spicy.

Daddy, do we have to kill them?

A Navy helicopter, taking off right next to Dad's marina

Recently we did a family vacation to Virginia Beach. Those who have been there will be sure to remember that one of the really dominant features is the Oceana Naval Air Station, with F/A-18s constantly flying overhead on landing patterns only a mile or so inland from the strip. My girls already love planes, and they had a lot of questions about these small planes that were so fast and so noisy. We’ve already talked about soldiers and war and whatnot, so Faith understood when I explained how it fit into that context. After watching yet another pair of wingmen on their approach, Faith looked at me and asked:

Daddy, is telling our soldiers to go kill their soldiers really the right way to fix things?

Well, well, well. My little girl is growing up. What a sad question for her to have to consider, but in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area, it’s impossible to avoid the machinery of war.  It’s doubly hard when your dad lives on the largest Navy base in the world. I’m very impressed that my little six year old put things together like that.  It’s not an easy question to answer though, is it?

It’s times like this when you realize how really broken this world really is.  I’m impressed watching fighter jets thundering across the sky in formation.  I’m utterly stunned walking down the pier next to the USS Eisenhower, standing 100 feet away from perhaps the largest war machine in the world.   It’s all very incredible to see our military.  And yet it’s also very sobering to consider why this is all necessary. 

My little girls know nothing of 9/11.  They don’t know anything about world wars, communists, suicide bombers, death camps, nuclear weapons, prisoners of war, or anything like that.  All they know is that there are all of these huge, noisy machines operating around us constantly at our beach vacation, and that the reason they are making so much noise is so they can practice, so when the time comes to kill our enemies, they will do it right.

A six year old asks, “Is this really the best way?  Daddy, do we have to kill them?”

I’ve been doing a Bible study lately on the Doctrine of Man.  It’s really a very thorough study of what the Bible has to say about the current state of mankind, and I’ll tell you what — as far as I can tell, the Bible is spot on.  There is nothing in this world that is not tainted by sin, and the fact that we need to spend so much money and devote so many men (and women) and so much material to our military is a great indictment of just how far we have fallen.  When we pay people to have a career dedicated to war, to be ready at any moment to stand up and fight for this country – that they do this as their profession – is a testimony to where we are as people.

Don’t get me wrong – I am incredibly grateful to those who serve in the military.  I know why we need a military, and I am glad they are there to protect the freedoms we love, like being able to sit in our living rooms on quiet peaceful nights typing out blog posts.  But, oh, how I dream of the day when …

He will settle disputes among the nations
and provide arbitration for many peoples.
They will turn their swords into plows
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will not take up the sword against other nations,
and they will never again train for war.  Isaiah 2:4

Right now it seems there is the dream that we are leading the world into the Pax Americana -  that nobody really wants to mess with us, so the world will largely stay at peace.  But don’t think it will last.  The Kingdom of God is not the United States of America.  Isaiah’s prophesy will find fulfillment when God establishes the New Earth and no sooner.

Come, Lord Jesus.

My Baby is One

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a month since the last post I put out here, but that’s not nearly as hard to take as knowing that on August 17th, my baby isn’t a baby anymore.  Our little Annabeth is suddenly one year old.  She is walking.  She’s saying “Mama” and “Dah-eeeeh”.

As far as I know, this is the last 1st birthday we’ll be celebrating in the Thompson household.  That’s kind of a strange truth to consider too — we’ve been doing the baby thing in one way or another for the last six years and change.  It’s odd to think that I probably won’t see KIm sitting on the sofa nursing a baby again.  That the nights of holding tiny infants that cannot hold their heads up are gone.

It’s hard to honestly say I will miss a lot of that.  Parenting a baby is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Kim has a handful of movies that deal with pregnancy and babies, but have to say that what I see in movies is more like grandparenthood: you see the baby, and she’s so cute, and she just sleeps and coos and smiles.   You look at her for a few hours, and then you give her back and the parents go home … the credits roll.  In the movies, you never have to change diapers that are full of tar.  You never have to put on a gas mask when you open the diaper pail.  It’s clean.  It’s cute.  It’s not real life.

So now, my little Annabeth is 1.  Actually, she’s been one for the better part of a month.  I guess that’s part of the cliche, “they grow up so fast.“  And it has been a quick year.  Since August 17, 2007 when she was born at CMS-University.   Her first smile in September.  First tooth in November – and seven more by February!  First baby cereal in March.  Her funny learning to scoot on her bottom instead of crawling in May.  Her first step in July.

Lots of people ask us if we’re done.  We’re at a church where plenty of families have four kids, but at this point I really think we’re done, unless adoption comes up again in a few years.   But if we stay where we are, I can’t count myself anything but blessed far beyond what I deserve.  I have a terrific wife and three beautiful daughters and I am delighted to be able to call them my family.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart,

Daddy

Movie Review: X-Files – I Want to Believe

Well, from reading the reviews, this is a movie that you will either find fascinating because you’re an X-Files fan or find tedious because you’re not. I am a fan of the series, though I was never a regular watcher, so I found the movie to be very interesting and recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching Mulder and Scully do their thing.

My main interest in blogging about this was not to talk about the quality of the cinematography, acting, script, or plot twists, per se, but rather to look at the serious issues that the movie brings out.  This X-Files dealt with a lot of Christian issues – which surprised me quite a bit, and brought up some important issues that all of us must face.

Repentance

The core issue of this movie is around Father Joe, a psychic who has visions about a series of violent crimes the FBI is investigating.  This is made more difficult because he is a convicted pedophile.  Scully – the Christian (Catholic) in this movie – is utterly repulsed by Father Joe and considers him utterly without any credibility.  Why would God use somebody like this to speak through?

Now, Father Joe – an old man – is obviously broken over his past sins.  At one point Scully confronts Father Joe with this exchange:

SCULLY: What is it that you were praying for in there, sir?
FATHER JOE: For the salvation of my immortal soul.
SCULLY: And you think God hears your prayers?
FATHER JOE: You think he hears yours?
SCULLY: I didn’t bugger thirty-seven altar boys.

Perhaps one of the hardest things to do in the Christian life is learning the meaning of forgiveness.  Scully thinks that Father Joe has no right to pray for forgiveness – that God would never listen to a person who has done such heinous sins.  This is a very human reaction, but luckily for us, God is not human.  When we are ready to say that somebody’s crimes have gone beyond the reach of grace, I think we must genuinely fear for our own salvation.   Father Joe’s sins are real and he makes no excuses for them.  He is broken over his sin and seems genuinely broken by them.

This is the point where God can use a man.  God’s grace was able to work forgiveness in murderers like Moses and Paul.  In liars like Abraham and Isaac.  In adulterers like David and Judah.  In cowards like Elijah and Peter.  But these were men who knew who they were.  They had no illusions of being able to stand before God on their own merit, because they knew they had none.

I think Father Joe’s query here – “You think he hears yours?” – is profoundly insightful.  Scully is far outside the Gospel to which the claims membership.  Her refusal to offer forgiveness falls directly in opposition to our Lord’s instruction that we will be forgiven as we have shown forgiveness.  It falls in opposition to the pray that a Catholic would have prayed at every Mass:  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Are Father Joe’s sins that Scully refuses to forgive really so much worse than the enormous pile of sins Scully herself has accumulated against a perfectly righteous God?

I Want to Believe

The poster that Mulder had in his office through the X-Files with a UFO and the slogan “I Want to Believe” makes an appearance in this film, and Mulder repeats it himself in dialog with Father Joe.  Everybody else in the movie thinks he is a kook, or perhaps an accomplice in the crimes, and yet over and over he offers good reason to believe that he is authentic.

This reminds me a lot of a situation that a friend of mine is going through with his son-in-law, who has heard the Gospel clearly, but like to many atheists is not willing to consider it as possibly true.  He has already decided that he does not want to believe.   This is really an unworkable position.  It is just as much of a faith statement as a statement of faith in the one true God.  I believe there is nothing and I will not believe otherwise.

Mulder wants to believe.  He wants to follow where the evidence leads without presuppositional denial of any possibility.  Translated back into Christianity, this is another kind of heart God can use.  A heart that is willing to humble itself and admit that it does not have all of the answers.  A heart that is willing to say “in my mind, this does not make sense, but in my heart I think there must be something to it.”   God has not required us to make a blind leap in the dark:  there are many and good reasons to believe Christianity is a real and true.  But first it requires an openess to even consider that as possible.

Doctor, Heal Thyself

Scully is working primarily as a doctor in this movie, working at a Catholic hospital. She spends a lot of the movie wearing a gold crucifix prominently.  A major subplot is her efforts to care for a boy who has an uncurable brain disease.   The hospital staff, led by Father Ybarra, has decided that the boy should be transferred to hospice care, but Scully is detemined to fight on and do risky medical treatments.

At one point the parents of the child come up and announce that they don’t want to do any more of this painful procedure – that they would rather take their child to hospice and leave him “in God’s hands.”  Scully is incredulous and infuriated at this and demands to know if Father Ybarra has directed them to this point.  Scully had earlier challenged Ybarra saying that she would appeal her case to a higher authority and he responds by saying he has already discussed it “with the ultimate Authority, and I suggest you do the same.”

Again, we have our supposed Christian who is being put opposite faith statements made by people around her.  She does not want to trust in God for healing and it is not something she would consider praying about.  Aside from the cross around her neck, we really have no reason to see Scully as anything more than an atheist, which makes for another very odd dynamic in the movie.   The irreligious Mulder is making faith statements, and Catholic Scully is fighting faith at every turn.

Conclusion

There are so many issues this movie takes up — forgiveness, organ donor black markets, same sex marriage, visions from God, medical experimentation, and a bunch of just genuinely creepy stuff.  This was definitely a thriller, and not a movie for the kids to see.  It is a movie that will give you a whole lot to think about, though, and I thought it was well done.  I recommend it, with the caveat that I think you will really want to see it with somebody so you can talk through all of these issues.  If you like X-Files at all, you won’t be disappointed.

My Thoughts on Sodomy

Ha!  No, no, no — it’s not that kind of post.  In my morning devotions recently I’ve been studying Matthew and came to this text:

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town.   I assure you: It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Matthew 10:14-15

While I was considering this text, Ezekiel’s comments on Sodom came to mind, and I found myself much more impacted by the Lord’s commentary on Sodom on that morning than on his statements about the woeful state of those who refuse to listen to the Gospel.   Here we go:

“As I live”-the declaration of the Lord God-”your sister Sodom and her daughters have not behaved as you and your daughters have. Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did detestable things before Me, so I removed them when I saw this. Ezekiel 16:48-50

Now, I read these verses and cannot help but think of my own situation and how I would matchup by God’s standards here.  We traditionally think of God’s problem with Sodom as being homosexuality, and I think that is part of it.  I’ve heard liberals interpret this verse to say that Sodom’s big problem was a lack of hospitality and I do not see that.  But let’s take God’s indictment here, charge by charge.

Proud

Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride… OK.  Now, this is a huge subject.  In my own limited reading, theologians from C.S. Lewis to John Piper have laid out pride as the basic root of all sin, in one way or another.  At the end of the day, pride is basically a distortion of the universe:  it is realigning all of creation to revolve around me.  When Jesus laid out the two great commandments as love God with all you have, and love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27), he was laying out a worldview that ends pride.   There simply is no room for pride if your foci are on loving God and loving neighbor.   A life that is devoted to care for self, to caring for one’s own, is a life dominated by pride.

When I consider my own life, where do I find pride?  It can be pretty subtle.  I find pride when I choose to do something for myself rather than for my neighbor; when I find a reason to complain about how somebody is doing things rather than helping them do it better; when I put my own opinions above the opinions of others; when I want to come home and just be a vegetable instead of being interested in the lives of my children.  I reviewed George Mueller’s Biography a few weeks back, and one of his principles was, as much as it was in his power, to never let people see him tired.  How often do I whine about being exhausted from work, perhaps seeing the pity or admiration of others?

Well-fed

…she and her daughters had pride, plenty of food… OK.  Now I think this is something that the typical American can understand pretty plainly.  There is such an industry for fitness and weight loss in this nation, and as I heard a man once say, “You don’t get this big just looking at food.”  There are riots happening in the world over the price of rice.  We (mankind) are just not making enough food right now.  Does this lead us in America to slow down?  Do we go to a restaurant and say “you know, one entre is really enough to feed my family – can we just do that?”  I know that doesn’t happen with my family.   There is certainly no question that the vast majority of us in America are well-fed, and I count myself in that number.

Secure

…had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security…. This is another one that I think should land on Americans pretty forcefully.  Do we really have much to fear here?  Sure we have the occassional nut who goes on a killing rampage, and every few years a major terrorism event.  But we have to be honest here – the reason these displays of undiluted evil land so hard on us is because they are so rare here.  There is not an army on earth with a desire to challenge us militarily.  I tuck my daughters into their beds at night and don’t have to worry if something will happen to them (or me) in the night.

Selfish

…pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy. This one I find particularly stark.  Having seen my own reflection in the first three charges – knowing the blessing that God has poured out on me, that word “but” is just devastating.  A large part of this, I think, is the way our cities have grown, where in the suburbs here I can keep the poor and needy pretty safely out of view.  There is a very delapidated looking trailer park in the three miles between my house and church, but really, I don’t have to look over there and see them.  My neighborhood has a lot of rental houses with very ugly cars in the driveway, but luckily those folks are never outside for me to talk to. It’s just not that hard to claim out of sight, out of mind. Will God buy that excuse?

Self-Exalting and Detestable

They were haughty and did detestable things before Me… OK, so the first thing we need here is a working definition of haughty, because to my mind they are very similar.  Here are the Bible dictionary’s definitions for “haughty” and “pride” used in these verses.  Haughty seems to be the idea of self-exaltation.  It’s the pride that wants to crown yourself king.  The other uses of it in the OT are words like “exalted” and “high”.  The people of Sodom were very full of themselves.  They had an arrogance and a total disregard for others that even extended to demanding to rape angels that came to visit Lot.

God also says they “did detestable things”.  As much as the liberal wants to say this text is saying Sodom is off the hook for homosexuality, I don’t think that flies.  The KJV word for detestable things here is “abomination”.   It is the exact same word God uses when he says:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Leviticus 18:22 (KJV)

Now, it’s true that this could mean other things, but when one considers the actual story of Sodom it certainly seems that this is what is in view here.

That said, we must be very careful here about what we excuse ourselves from.  The commercials on your average college football broadcast contain plenty of stuff that would seem to be a blatant violation of God’s commands to a pure thought-life.

Judgment

…so I removed them when I saw this. And there it is.  Judgment fell.  Now, let’s take all of this in context.  The people were proud, well-fed, and secure.  They had no reasons to be selfish, and yet they were utterly selfish, and did not pay any attention to the poor around them.  They were haughty.  They were depraved.

Let’s also not forget Abraham’s negotiation with God, the world’s first used car sales-pitch.  At the end of the day, Sodom faced judgment as we all must.  If there had been any righteous in Sodom, it would have been spared.  But this really is not so different from the Flood, where God judged the world and saved the small pocket of the righteous.

God certainly paints plainly for us his concern for the poor.  I won’t belabor that point, except to say that in conservative Christendom, that is very much under-emphasized.  God cares for the poor and needy, and that was a major charge that He had against Sodom.  Would we rather be identified for our likeness to Sodom, or our likeness to Peter, Paul, John, and Jesus?

Rest in peace, Sandy

Yesterday, we saw our friend Sandy Baudier laid to rest. It’s a little spooky that when I was writing last week, I was almost exactly right:

It’s very strange to be writing about something like this, knowing that the person you are writing about – a real living person who has laughed and cried and loved and suffered in this real world for a long time – could be breathing her last at this very minute.

I was writing that at just about the same time she was in fact dying.  This is a much harder thing for Kim and her parents, who have known Sandy for decades.  My main interaction with her was at Christmas when Kim’s family would make a full Christmas dinner and take it across the street to the Baudier house, where they had also made a full Christmas dinner.  There would be an insane amount of food and always delightful conversation.  The thing that I will remember most about Sandy was how Christmas Eve dinner always had a birthday cake for Jesus.  I thought that was a remarkably simple and yet poignant reminder of what the night was about.  It was a great way to bring theology into real life, in a far more visceral way than putting a “Jesus is the reason for the season” sign in your front yard.

The funeral was a very small graveside affair – perhaps 15 people in attendance, as Vic Baudier desired.  Kim’s aunt Margaret Ashby (an ELCA pastor) led the service.  I was struck again by what a hard job pastors have.  This time the challenge was trying to give a meaningful funeral address to somebody you don’t know.  Perhaps she had met Sandy in passing when visiting Kim’s parents, but at a time when you are trying to summarize the significance of a life, how hard it is even if you really know the person!

One of the scripture texts that was read in the funeral was from Colossians, which we just finished studying in a sermon series at our church.

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2:5-8

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Colossians 2:16-17

I know that’s a pretty long read for a blog.  The thing that I found so interesting in this is that this is not a text that I would think of turning to for particular comfort in a time of trial, and yet I thought the three sections actually were very appropriate.

Col 1:9-14 reminds us that Jesus has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light … an awesome truth.  We have great assurance in the Lord, and it starts by considering our worth only in respect to Christ.  That qualification will never be taken away.  The text reminds those of us who are still living to live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way. This is the hope of Sandy, of course.  To be in the presence of Jesus now, what greater desire could she have than to wish that those she loves would join her!

Colossians 2:5-8 talks about Paul being absent from his hearers in the body, which hits you really hard when you hear it seated 15 feet from a coffin, and the request to continue to live in him is all the more powerful, along with the warnings to not stray far from the truth.

Colossians 2:16-17 seems a little out of place, doesn’t it?  Don’t let anyone deceive you into believing that you can be saved by legalism, because the things we are pursuing in legalism are just shadows of the reality that is freely available to us in Christ.  Why is this relevant at a funeral?  Because right now, she is seeing the reality instead of the shadows!

Like I said, Colossians isn’t a book that I would usually think about turning to in a time of grief, but perhaps I should.  The promises of God are indeed sweet, and anywhere we can find them we get a powerful glimpse into just how heavenly Heaven is, and will be.

Book Review: The Autobiography of George Müller

This month’s review is The Autobiography of George Müller, a man who demonstrated a radical dependency on God.  The book shifts several times from Müller writing narrative and commentary and long tracts of excepts from his journal.  To tell the truth, I found this book a little intimidating. My faith felt about 1 inch tall compared to the George Müller Eiffel Tower. He really demonstrated this in three ways: his attitude toward prayer, his attitude toward preaching, and his attitude toward finances.

Prayer

The greatest single attribute of George Müller was his dependence on prayer.  He spoke repeatedly of how he had not had enough prayer time lately and it was wearing on his spirit.  After getting a change to get back to prayer, he felt refreshed, strengthened.  In my experience, this is very true.  I am much more likely to be angry, frustrated, or ungracious when I’ve missed my prayer time recently.  There is simply no substitute for time with God, and Müller demonstrated that over and over.  It’s an encouragement to see that a man who was mightily used by God struggled in the same ways I do.

An amazing part of Müller’s testimony is that he kept track of every answer to prayer.  He frequently points out that he was not surprised when God answered his prayer.  He fully expected as much.  This is a point where he and I part company; I never feel like I have the kind of success rate in prayer that Müller did.

One thing that I found very interesting was how Müller seemed to be led by special revelation – direct, personal promptings by God.  Now, he was very deliberate to check these against Scripture and to pray for confirmations of them, but he definitely talked all the time about being led by God.  He was not entirely clear how this works.  I don’t think he was saying that he hears an audible voice, but rather that he finds something on his heart.  I can relate to times when I’ve been praying and I’ve had great insights into Scriptures, or other verses will come to mind that relate to what I’m praying about.  I certainly accept that the Holy Spirit works in this way, and I presume that is what Müller is getting at.

Preaching

As a pastor, Müller led his flock entirely by example.  He encouraged his congregation to a radical dependency on prayer and to wait on God.  He decided that he would give up commentaries and the like and rely only on the Bible text for understanding.  I still like commentaries, but I prefer to read them the day after I have meditated on the text, as a way of getting back into the context.

Perhaps the most interesting illustration of Müller’s approach to preaching was an anecdote he related in which he was getting up to preach and decided it felt like he was preaching in his own power rather than God’s, so he stopped his sermon and asked the church to pray.  After a while he tried again and still did not feel God’s power, so he just stopped preaching and they spent the rest of the service in just worship.  I don’t know that I’ve ever known a pastor that I think would seriously do that.  Do you?

Finances

Probably the thing that most people know about George Müller is his approach to finances.  He lived totally without an income and ran his ministry – a Bible school, Bible distribution ministry, and a string of orphanages – totally without a regular budget.  He would pray for his needs and then wait for God to come through.  This is a part of the book that I liked a lot better after the fact than during it.  While I was reading it, it was a little tedious as he kept saying “this is the greatest hour of poverty we have ever known.”  And yet by seeing that total absence of funds and his refusal to ask anybody but God for help year after year after year, it is stunning.  It might be one thing to imagine doing this for a brief time, like between jobs, but what a huge step of faith to live this way for decades, and to know that the fate of so many orphans in your care really depends on God coming through.  (Of course it does anyway, right?)

He doesn’t expect everybody to adopt that mentality, but he does challenge us to look at what we have and be in earnest prayer about what we should do with the finances we have.  Repeatedly, people came to him with money and he would try to talk them out of giving it to him, but they were utterly convinced by God that they needed to give Müller the money.  Is that something that happens in a vacuum?  No, these are people who were honestly asking the Lord about their finances and were sensitive to what he had to say about it.   What a challenge to us, to realize those around us who are living in dependence on God and our responsibility to be prayerful with the finances we have.

Conclusion

This was a powerful little book, and it really gives a new perspective on the life of faith.  This brought some words of Paul to mind:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:3

God has given each of us a certain amount of faith.  It may well be that Müller was given faith from the largest scoop the Lord has ever used.  We are not to compare ourselves to men, even a man who was so faithful as Müller.  We compare ourselves to Christ alone.  That said, it is a huge encouragement to see how dramatically God can use a man for his purposes, and I am grateful that Müller took the time to put this down in book form for us to see.

Though I Walk Through the Valley

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,for you are with me; your rod and your staff,they comfort me. -Psalm 23:4

A little while ago I got an email from an old friend who was talking about how much death there was around her.  I pondered that for a moment, since I have really had very little death to deal with for a long time.  A new friend at church lost his father a couple of months ago, but for the most part, but I don’t really know him that well, and I certainly knew nothing of his father.  In our marriage, the only deaths Kim and I have had to deal with were her Grandfather in 2001, plus our two miscarriages (2001, 2007).  Other than that, it’s really been pretty easy to avoid the whole death topic as anything more than abstract.

That isn’t possible these days.  Sandy Baudier, a friend and neighbor of Kim’s parents for decades is dying.  She isn’t expected to last the night.  it’s very strange to be writing about something like this, knowing that the person you are writing about – a real living person who has laughed and cried and loved and suffered in this real world for a long time – could be breathing her last at this very minute.

At the same time, I consider our friend Bill Adair.  Bill is suffering with ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease) and it has finally atrophied the muscles in his neck: he can no longer swallow.  Today the doctors inserted a feeding tube.  What an incredibly tough call for Jan, but honestly I cannot imagine any other decision.  How could you even stand to sit down and eat knowing that, at your decision, your spouse is starving to death in the next room?  The thought of the whole situation is almost more than I can bear.  There are a lot of awful diseases out there like Alzheimers and cancer, but I wonder if any disease is more cruel than ALS.  At some point in the fairly near future, God is going to take this disease away from Bill.  I don’t know if that will be through a miraculous healing or by clothing him with immortality in the presence of God.  Bill still talks about wanting to take his grandchildren fishing when God heals him.  I don’t know if there will be fishing in Heaven, but I certainly pray that God will bring his grandchildren safely home as well – that on the New Earth, Bill will be able to enjoy all of the things with his grandkids that he thinks he is missing now.

I think Paul had a really important observation about all of this when he reminded the Thessalonians that we do not grieve like the world, who have no hope.

Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God wil bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. -I Thessalonians 4:14

I think of Sandy and Bill and I cannot help but think of this verse.  It will be very sad to be in a world where they are not.  Yet that is not the end of hope!  There is a great reunion yet to happen.  I think of how good it is to see old friends:  people I used to laugh and cry with, but have not seen in such a long time, and yet only a few minutes later its as if we were never apart.  What a joyful day that will be.  What hope we can have for those who die in Christ, knowing that they are enjoying that hour, both with their brothers and sisters of faith, and in seeing the face of the Lord they love.  And while we grieve at the funeral for our loss, we also have the hope that our friend will be there – waiting for us – along with all of the other faithful departed.

For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  Therefore, encourage one another with these words. – I Thessalonians 4:16-18

Death is not supposed to feel normal.  In our heart of hearts, we know that it is wrong, that it is foreign to us.  This is not the way things were supposed to be.  And we can see that this is true when we read Genesis 1-3.  Death was not here at the beginning, and it will not be here in the end.  We mourn Sandy Baudier now, and probably Bill Adair soon, but at the same time, we rejoice – even though we can see only in part now.  And the thought of the rejoicing that we will know in the presence of God and in the company of the saints is too much for a mind to consider.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow meall the days of my life,and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23:6