I have memories of childhood and board books. I remember stiff, thick board books about horses and animals, and I especially remember Snoopy and Peanuts and, earlier still, Winnie-the-Pooh books, and my little red stool my mom kept in my room for as long as I can remember. I remember my Snoopy stuffed animal and the color of my first pillow cases that smelled so clean after Mom washed them and they dried in the sun on the line behind the house.
Today I reread Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and I was suddenly back to early childhood with my imagination on fire.
Then we drove today out of our beautful area and a young buck crossed the road nonchalantly, this year’s fresh antlers still in velvet.
Then we went and took in Independence Day, grilled hotdogs, ate sweet watermelons, canteloupe, strawberry cake, and relished the spectacle of fireworks with the saints from church.
I am tired, and I have Sunday school material to work on in the morning still when it’ll still be dark, but my cup is full. Thank you, Lord, for days like today.
When we returned from a few hours at the pool, I walked into the kithcen and saw some of the fawns from this year and their attentive mamas. Pretty girls, one and all.
Illustration: I was reading the news this morning. This article broke my heart. It demonstrated—once again—how far some will go in order to murder babies:
Just as I penned in previous articles, we’re amidst some dark and troubling days because Leftists continue to literally scorch the earth. Spray paint buildings where Christians shelter and help and minister to moms; shatter windows with rocks; scatter graffiti threats of increased violence on other people’s property. It’s so revealing of the human heart.
Connection to Scripture: This morning I was reading one my favorite passages of Scripture. It is found in 1 Kings 18. Elijah is God’s prophet, God’s truth-teller. And Ahab is Israel’s wicked king, Satan’s tool.
The nation had sunk into idolatry. Child sacrifice was rampant; temple cult prostitution was rampant; false religion was rampant. It was, in short, just like our day. And yet, God had his prophet, his truth-teller.
But what is utterly revealing is how the evil calls the good evil. Ahab, a truly vile man, calls God’s man evil. Ahab calls Elijah the troublemaker.
When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” (1 Kings 18:17-19, ESV)
Question: Did you notice how Ahab accuses Elijah, the truth-teller, God’s prophet, of being the troublemaker? The wicked one accuses the good one of actually being the problem.
But Elijah didn’t back down. He knew who owned the cattle on a thousand hills. He knew who delivered a nation across a sea while Egypt’s armies drowned. He knew who made heaven and earth. He knew who raises nations up and brings them low.
The rest of 1 Kings 18 demonstrates what God did to reveal his nature, his holiness, his judgment, and his mercy for all who repent and flee to him in the gospel.
Takeaway: No matter how often I read 1 Kings 18, it’s like it was written about today. Mt. Carmel might as well be in Portland, Oregon. Or in Chicago. Or in San Francisco. Or in NYC. You see those who hate God literally burn down their nation and demand the ‘right’ to murder wombs. Yet in the next instant, they’ll scream for rights to mutilate their genitals and ingest pharmaceuticals and end up resembling something out of B-grade horror films. It’s ghastly. It is just like Israel under Ahab and Jezebel. It is, in short, demonic. It’s not accidental that demonic imagery pervades their violence.
Elijah’s question: And yet, God had his truth-teller. And Elijah asked a profound question: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21, ESV).
A great revealing is taking place right before your eyes.
Awake yet?
May we remember Elijah’s rhetorical question. And learn.
When I pulled up and onto the driveway, I saw her move in the sunlight. The summer hide color. Chestnut-appearing one moment, then nutmeg, then tan—all depending upon light and shade.
She saw me, too. Watch her ears and tail. Love my critters.
This last one was from last evening during a walk to wind down after a hot day of 100-degree days for the last fortnight. But the colors during the gloamings never grow old to me.
A picture: This is from this evening where I was walking at dusk. The sun set over the oaks I love and I hope it never rises again in a land where Roe ever reappears, except in its bloody shame. The blood of 65,000,000 murdered babies cries from the ground.
A prayer: Lord, have mercy upon us, a nation that spits in the face of the Holy One and mocks holiness. Thank you for your mercy upon this land under divine judgment in the overturning of Roe. You are merciful, even to the wicked when we repent and return. May you grant sufficient grace whereby we learn from judgment, repent of our national and individual sin, and be granted the ability to flee to Christ who came for broken and contrite sinners, and thereby receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
A prediction: Those who hate the truth that all boys and girls are created in the image of God (imago Dei), and the biblical worldview which sets forth this truth, will steal, profane, desecrate, and destroy property in the coming days; they will murder, just like their father, the devil (John 8:44). And they will call it ‘justifiable’ and ‘good’ and ‘right’. Meanwhile, they will be denying the very theology and coherent framework that birthed the very concepts of justice, good, and right. This is what it looks like when fools profess themsevles to be wise.
In a few moments I will again be leading soldiers in the study of Christianity 101, the gospel, the person and work of Christ, and what it means to follow Christ.
Today we are studying John 15. This chapter is filled with metaphors. When the chapter begins, Jesus is speaking of God as triune. He says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2 ESV).
The first metaphor Jesus uses here is that of himself as the true vine. The second is of the Father as the vinedresser. Then in verse 5, Jesus says that Christians are the branches, a third metaphor. Then in v. 26, Jesus says the Helper (the Holy Spirit) will be sent by the Father and Son, and he will bear witness about Jesus.
It’s all there: Christians are branches, grafted into Christ (the true vine). The Father prunes us so that we would be more fruitful. Pruning can be painful but its aim is good and righteous: Christian fruitfulness.
What are Christians to do? It’s right there in verse 8: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” That means labor, Christian. Work. Work hard in and for the Lord. Enough with foolish bromides like, “Let go and let God.” That Keswickian sentimentality is unbiblical. It is not as if God needed your permission, as if you and I were in charge of salvation. It is not as though we could ever save others. We cannot. People saying “Let go and let God” may be deceiving themselves into a pietism that is actually spiritual indolence.
We are to work hard in proclaiming the truth but God is the only One who converts sinners from spiritual death to spiritual life. Labor hard, yes, but trust the Lord to do what only he can do–regenerate spiritual corpses.
And we need to remember that we are guaranteed suffering. There’s no evading it if we are Christian. Listen to Christ tell us plainly: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19 ESV).
It’s so clear: the metaphors of God as triune, the labor that Christians will do, the suffering we are guaranteed, and the Helper who indwells the believer and testifies/bears witness to Christ, and the call to faithfulness/fidelity.
It amazes me each time I go through it all with my guys. It is so clear, so accurate as to human nature, so true to experience. People are the same in each place. The same cold hearts until God gives them new hearts, the same self-referential questions until God gives them new eyes, the same complaints about evil until they see the evil inside their own hearts. God is so patient with us.
May we be faithful to labor, to bear witness to the truth, to embrace our suffering, and know that we’ve a Helper who sustains us throughout. Press on, Christian. Have courage. God is faithful.
I don’t know about where you are but where I am, it is hot and humid. The older I get the more I appreciate weather in the 50s. But it’s double that temperature in Dixie currently.
When I was on the track this morning and the sun came up, the heat and humidity were like a wool blanket, about the last thing I desired. Even the pines seemed to dread the haze of these days.
But the fawns are out and about now, their wobbly legs learning their design. And the A/C in my car is pumping. And summer in the South is here … with a vengeance.
Today has been sunny and warm here. I went for a few miles on the trails. Worked up a good sweat, passed an armadillo that had seen better days, chatted with some cyclists, crossed the Chattahoochee, slow in its muddy course in the sand and clay, and ended back where I began a few hours earlier, under the oaks. Miss my family but thankful for the small things.
First, some uplifting shots of bluebirds, their babies, and reminders that creation, fallen though it is due to man’s sin, still reflects the goodness of God.
Second, I want to address some of what I am witnessing. I see it in others and I see it in myself. It’s the blues. Not the musical style (my favorite musical style, too) but a world-weariness, what in German is called weltschmerz, a melancholia that is due to the state of the world and its effects upon the human spirit. In short, it’s the blues.
Perhaps an illustration would be helpful. I have a friend that I don’t get to see very often due to my military duties away, but she and I text back and forth regularly. Recently we discussed what we all are experiencing: soaring prices. When I walked into the commissary (grocery store) on post this week, the shelves looked like shelves I have seen in the Middle East or in southwest Asia or in parts of Africa I’ve been in. They were often bare. I had to go to two stores before I could even find a jar of peanut butter. And because I usually eat a couple of boiled eggs at breakfast, I thought I’d pick up some more organic eggs. The price of eggs floored me. I almost dropped them on the floor when I saw the price tag. Then there was more to come. I needed gas in my car. Overnight, the price of a gallon of 87-octane gas had risen 11 cents. We are approaching $5 a gallon here. And GA has among the lowest in the nation currently. In states run by liberals, gas is beween $6 to $8 a gallon. Folks, let me state the obvious: this is painful and there will be reactions from Americans.
My friend and I texted back and forth and what developed was a clear text thread of lamentation. We were and are both saddened by what is being done to our nation. I am a soldier, and thus cannot comment on political matters. My friend, however, is a civilian, and she wrote what we both feel. It’s a sadness over the state of things. It seems a national suicide is occurring. I have heard more than a few people prognosticate that we are on the verge of a serious recession, and possibly a depression.
But because of my nature, my training, and my disposition, what I am seeing is what Scripture calls “the fruit of their way.” What does that mean? Simple: we reap what we sow. Some folks call it the law of the harvest. Scripture puts it this way in Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” Solomon expressed wisdom regarding the same principle in a poetic form when he wrote, “Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices” (Proverbs 1:30-31).
In plain language, we are getting what we asked for. But like my wife and I discuss all the time, most folks refuse to see evil and folly until they show up on their doorstep. People might say there’s no price to be paid for not prosecuting crime, or enabling indolence, or rewarding vice, and delight in virtue signaling to the mobs. But when the thugs show up on your doorstep, suddenly you become less abstract in your thinking and your heartrate increases. Why? Because you can pretend that bad ideas don’t have bad consequences, but reality has a way of clarifying your thinking. As another buddy of mine says, “The bad man’s gonna show up. And when he does, you’re gonna want the good guy there. So, plan accordingly.”
But in this period where I believe many people are on the existential gut level, they’re battling the blues. They feel like the world has gone upside down, like folly is in charge, like reason has been abdicated, like a spirit of intellectual stupor has descended upon the land like a fog. And when clear-thinking people try to say something, they get canceled and shouted down by the mobs. Folks, that is dangerous. But I fear that we are well beyond even that now.
I am sensing a time of spiritual coldness. I know that may sound ethereal to people who do not speak or think in theological categories. If you’re an atheist, for example, I’m simply saying that people are growing more callous towards one another. Not everyone, of course. I’m aware of my logic. But generally speaking, I’m sensing a growing impetuousness, a growing coldness, a dangerous severity in the air. And so many soldiers and civilians I’m with are enduring it: the blues. A wearing down of the person’s spirit. And so often, a heavy sadness accompanies it. Again, it is what God calls the fruit of our way. God calls, people suppress that call, and the results follow.
Lastly, some thoughts on the near future.
First, some dark days are here and will continue. We do not seem to learn many lessons from history–whether those lessons are about Marxism, biology, or justice. If you think Marixism is going to lead you into a progressive utopia, you are a special kind of stupid. You need to read an actual book of true history and move out of your mom’s basement.
Second, judgment is real. For my atheistic readers, you will deny that God is teaching lessons because you don’t think God exists, so these are just random collisions of molecules and a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, as the Bard wrote. Okay. But for most of us, we admit that God exists because our consciences bear witness to him, creation bears witness to him, Scripture bears witness to him, and Jesus rose bodily from the dead. You can deny those things if you wish, but they abide nonetheless.
Third, a great revealing is taking place. We are seeing who folks really trust–themselves, big government, or the Lord.
Fourth, the courageous and the cowards are being revealed.
Most folks, it is clear, follow. They don’t want truth. They want comfort, to be taken care of, to not have to work hard or do much. But pressure is about to be applied, I believe, and we will continue to see a great sifting and sorting and revealing take place.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. It is cliche but true: some folks know a few things because they’ve seen a few things.
I think folks are on the cusp of learning some lessons our culture has suppressed for a long time. Reality is a rather stubborn thing, however, and we’re about to reap the whirlwind. Again, I say, it’s what Solomon called the fruit of their way.
MIND & MATTERS 