Got home at 0200 this morning from time away with fellow soldiers. But was able to spend the day in territory I relish and appreciate. No wonder the Cherokees worshipped the ways they did.

I was in Iowa with fellow soldiers. After training I went to the local barber shop to get tightened up a bit. When I entered the barber shop, I knew I had found my kind of place. There were three chairs for the barbers. Each woman’s first name was posted behind her chair on the mirror. And the lunch hour for each woman was posted, too. For example: Amber: Lunch (1200-1300). I liked the place immediately. It was clean. And there was lots of local memoribilia–local newspapers and flyers; photos of the town’s events; stories related to farms and pork, etc. And it was a cash-only business. My fondness continued to grow.

As I sat on the bench and waited for my turn in the owner’s chair, I perused the interior walls full of pictures and the shevles of interesting trinkets. One of the things I noticed is that the owner kept us all engaged in conversation. She spoke to the customer in her chair and even brought me in on their conversation. He was a retired Iowa State Patrolman who’d been having his hair cut here for 30 years. And I was here for my first time as a soldier, but they were both super-friendly and welcoming.

I noticed what was an important connection. No one was on gadgets. No one had phones out or was scrolling. We were talking and looking one another in the eyes. Then I saw the lesson and how it was being lived out. Next haircut time I’m in Iowa, I’m coming back. Well done, Johnston Barber Shop. Well done.

When it’s a sunny day in the Midwest, and I’m flying in, it’s hard to beat–at least if you love farmland. There’s something about this region that gets me each time I fly in-the breadth of earth in cultivation, the churches that dot the landscape, the long driveways, the copses of trees marking property lines, the barns and silos, and on and on it goes.

The flight is full. A very kind retired couple is seated next to me to my left. I always try to get a window seat. I do not ever seem to tire of looking out. The woman is at my elbow. She sees me reading Dostoyevksy.

“How’s your book?” she asks.

“It’s great,” I say. “I have not read this one since college, and that was quite awhile ago. I had forgotten a lot of it.”

“I have never read that one, but I’ve heard it is good.”

“It is. It’s a tome,” I said. “It’s taken me several days to get through it. Almost a thousand pages, but worth it.”

She looks at me in uniform and asks, “Where are you headed?”

“To teach some soldiers,” I say. “In the Midwest this week.”

“Well, thank you for what you do.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She returns to reading on her Kindle and chatting with her husband on her left occasionally about golf.

They are both very tanned, and they look the part of a couple who spends a lot of time in the sun and on golf courses.

St. Louis, Missouri fades into the background and Iowa is in view below now. I read a few more pages of my Dostoyevsky novel. Raskolnikov is being interrogated by his mother and sister, and his conscience is murdering him for his earlier crimes.

I was reading and trying to wrap my head around all this identity politics insanity and the political vitriol erupting across our land. I was reminded of a note I have inside one of my Bibles: “Our world is not divided by race, color, gender, or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, color, gender, or religion.”  

I remember the story of Joshua when he was met by a man with his sword drawn. It’s important that this occurred just before the conquest of Jericho. Joshua asked him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” The meaning implied is that Joshua was likely being impulsive, impetuous, and overly zealous. He needed to be reminded of God and of God’s ways. Remember the man’s response? “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come” (Joshua 5:13-14, ESV).  

The idea should be obvious. Conquest is to be done God’s way via God’s means. And God’s means in the metanarrative of Scripture is the cross of Christ. Political power cannot change the human heart; only the gospel does that. And Joshua, as mighty as he was, as gifted as he was in warfare, needed to be reminded that the ultimate battle is the Lord’s because only He is sufficient for such things.

I’m not one to lionize folks prematurely, but Thomas Sowell’s wisdom has been so consistent for so many years now, recognizing his wisdom is not premature but rather long past due. It is recognizing a man of courage who has told the truth for years and suffered the hatred of the foolish crowds.

“One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is en vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again” (Thomas Sowell).

Intro: I read the news online in the morning. Photo after photo, article after article, paragraph after paragraph—all of it carried the message that the West is amidst moral freefall and divine judgment. Students from Columbia and Yale are videoed screaming, “Tear down our society!” Students who, call me crazy, should be learning history, or in the library doing research, reading a classic, (remember those?), and discovering a coherent worldview are instead puppets on strings–demonic marionettes parroting demonic screeds, manifesting not so much a coherent argument or worldview as sophomoric hubris and utter immaturity.

It does not bode well for this culture or any culture. Education has been largely replaced by indoctrination. The result is predictable: automatons of rage who cannot think for themselves because they’ve not been taught how to think but only to rage, rage, rage, and all the while playing the victim. It’s so silly on one hand and so utterly predictable on the other. But this is where we are–tuition dollars going to pay for indoctrination camps that produce intellectual and moral children.  

Wisdom from God: Does God speak to this? Do His Scriptures speak to this? Of course. “When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD” (Pr 19:3, ESV). What we’re witnessing—national borderlessness; no prosecution of violent crime; justice for sale to the highest bidders; anti-Semitism; violence in the streets; a deliberate dumbing-down of every arena; the alphabet identities, et al.–is demonic and there’s no political cure, only a spiritual one—the one of Scripture, where man recognizes and repents of his own sin, and flees to God in repentance and faith. That’s it. But will we do that? We shall see. In the meantime, Rome burns. 

A Prayer from Daniel: “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act” (Dan 9:19a, ESV). For we have departed and are reaping the fruits of our fallen ways. 

He’s near the top for me in terms of his musical skills. A co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, he penned many of their most well-known, enduring songs–“Blue Sky,” “Ramblin’ Man,” “Jessica,” and my personal favorite, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” and more.

Dickey was a pistol, that’s for sure, a volatile, seemingly possessed man, for much of his career. I’m blessed to have seen him and the ABB in concert. Truly a force of nature on his guitar, on his long, long, long guitar solos. The blues, jazz, and country and western styles all influenced him. You can hear Albert King, B.B. King, Miles Davis, and Hank Williams, Sr. in him, plus many more.

Dickey, I don’t know where you were spiritually, but in terms of one using the gifts that God gave him to their fullest potential, I salute you with everything in me.

Introduction: At the church where my family and I serve, I am currently teaching through the most oft-quoted and well-known sermon in the Christian faith, the Sermon on the Mount. This coming Sunday, I will focus our attention on Matthew 7:13-28. Those sentences contain three striking metaphors that serve just one purpose. That purpose? To confront all of us with our only options. Option 1: the broad way; the way of destruction. Option 2: the narrow gate/the way of redemption. The three metaphors Jesus uses to burn the images into our imagination: 

• Narrow vs. Broad (Mt 7:13-14)
• True vs. False Prophets (Mt 7:15-23)
• House Built on Rock vs. House Buit upon Sand (Mt 7:24-27)

One of the beauties of Scripture is its clear imagery and unvarnished truth. God does not author confusion. He makes things plain. 

Connection to Today: When I returned from a flight this week and finally got back near post, I was very tired, and went to be early. I woke early this morning, did PT, showered, and sat to read some. And when I was reading the news on my computer, I was again struck by what I read. Of course, there was the latest about Iran and Israel, and all the politics about yet another war in the Middle East. But I literally laughed out loud when I read the article about students now biting and licking one another because they’ve drunk the identity politics and wokester Kool-Aid madness. Now the urchins are identifying as beasts, and sane people are asked to go along with it. Yes, this is what our taxes are going for, this kind of stuff. So much for reading the classics, learning history, learning to discern, teaching civics, and learning how to balance a checkbook. Now, the kiddos are barking and purring and using litter boxes: School district responds to rumors of kids identifying as ‘furries’ after student protest | Fox News

Encouragement & Application: See, when you reject God and the narrow way, you get the madness of the broad way. As always, it’s Christ or chaos. When you reject the Author of life, you inherit the prince of darkness and folly. That’s the beauty of the binary. When you have a generation of children who cannot write a coherent sentence or do much but play the victim and scream talking points, you should not be surprised. They’re just living out the lies they’ve imbibed. Yet the Word of Christ still stands with the offer to return to our senses: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt 7:13-14). 

My friend Jim loves his birds, especially hummingbirds. So, I am indebted to him for sharing his pictures with me.

How any honest person can look at hummingbirds in action and say they are the results of unguided accidental random purposelessness is, I shall say it nicely, willfully misguided.

(I’m with you, Jim. This is creation manifesting the Creator’s greater glory.)