Month: August 2004

Cerulean Sanctum…Now With 77% More Graphics!

Standard

No one was pleading for this, but now you can catch a glimpse of me through the magic of Blogger and my wife’s photographic skills. That’s me in the flesh in the “About Me” sidebar. No cringing, please.

Despite my parboiled CSS skills (please don’t View Source…I’m begging), you can also take in the new “Essential Reading” list. My promise to you: Read the ten books listed and your life will be changed.

And to all the loyal readers, I thank you for the wonderful things you have been saying. And for those of you with blogs, if I have not added you to the “Links,” I promise to do that soon enough.

Blessings to you all!

PS – If a decent CSS coder out there has a sleeker approach to the “Essential Reading” CSS detritus I deposited there, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know a more professional approach. I could use the learnin’.

The Inevitable Clash of Kingdoms

Standard

It’s an election year.

You didn’t need anyone to tell you that, did you? Any casual blog tripper would be hard pressed to escape the onslaught of political thought splashed boldly across our browsers featuring graphic images of George W. Bush as Der Führer or John Kerry as The Prince of Darkness.

I want to say up front that Cerulean Sanctum will never be about politics, and the mention of the candidates above will be the only mention of them you will find on this blog.

Shortly after this year’s election, I will be forty-two—not quite young, not yet old. I’ve voted in every primary and election since the day I was able to punch a ballot. I’ve pondered quite a few issues in my time. I consider myself fortunate to be an American. What our founders gave America is probably as good as it gets this side of Heaven. Certainly, God has blessed this country.

Recently, a document,“For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility”, has been written in order to call evangelicals back to the voting booth, in part due to a significant drop in self-identified evangelical voters voting in the 2000 election. This document very lucidly states its position and lets us all know that anyone who calls on the name of Christ should get out to vote.

However, among all the verses quoted in that document, you will not find these:

…If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
— 2nd Chronicles 7:14 ESV

***

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’

“But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'”
— Jeremiah 18:1-12 ESV {emphasis added}

I am no apologist for Jerry Falwell, by any means. But there simply was no excuse for Christians to denounce him for his comment that the events of 9/11 may have been a judgment against this country for our sins. How arrogant of us to raise up our hands and claim instead, “That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.” How wicked of us to assume that there is no lesson to be learned other than the one of simple vengeance.

What if “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” included no other advice but to ask each Christian to cry out to God to forgive us for our sins? What if each person standing in line to sign a “Defense of Marriage” petition instead stood in line to volunteer to pray two hours every day that God would have mercy on this nation? What if churches across this land opened their doors to twenty-four-hour prayer vigils that would be filled with believers weeping before the altar of God?

We have placed too much importance on politics and not enough on what can be wrought on our knees through a humble and contrite heart. God may be speaking greater things to believers if we are willing to put down our political placards and listen to Him. The weapons we wage war with will break down strongholds if we were to only use them as they have been designed by God.

Instead, we have become a nation of puffery with the motto “God helps those who help themselves” as our mantra. (A Barna poll recently showed that a majority of evangelicals believe that “verse” is in the Bible.) How easily deceived we are to think we can do it on our own through our pale, human devices. We would be wise to rethink our ways and just whom we rely on, lest we become like these people who said,

Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…,
—Genesis 11:4a ESV

only to find our shining city in ruins and our very speech confused.

Sanity in the Simple

Standard

If we lose sight of the simple things the Lord has blessed us with, we get sucked into a cyclone of complexity. Yet it is in the enjoyment of simple things in life that joy is found.

It could not have been a more beautiful day today. The weather here was in the high Seventies with a light breeze and very little humidity—hard to believe for Southwestern Ohio in August! Clear blue skies and ample sunshine poured down on the verdant fields and forests surrounding our little homestead. I felt like it was one of those June days when I was barely into my twenties and life was lived in the moment, though it also stretched out dazzlingly before me, a banquet ready to sample. You feel the power of your youth coursing in you and all is well with the world.

Life has a habit of fractalizing, becoming infinitely complex when we examine it with the microscope of time and experience. But this is not God’s way. His voice calls us to come away from the swirl of activity and be one with Him:

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.
–Song of Solomon 2:10-13 ESV

This is a call the world does not understand. I used to believe it was merely a spiritual call, but I now believe it is something more

A few years ago, my wife and I elected to pack up and move out to the country. We both feel that Christians have lost something in our bid to keep up with the world. But there is something sane in the simple rural life. There is health in the raising of one’s own food, of breaking the soil, working it, and seeing it bring forth life. When I am out on my tractor, a stillness comes over me as I tend the land the Lord has given us out of His goodness. I wonder if we Christians lost something dear when we forsook the land for the factory, skyscraper, and office park.

Just the other day, we attended a meeting designed to help farmers grow wine grapes. At one time the Ohio River Valley was what Napa Valley is today. As we walked through the local vineyards, the bounty of grapes we saw drove it home for me: There is a fruitfulness that can be had in fulfilling the very first command of God to Adam. As the song “All Good Gifts” says, We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, and it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand. It is not easy work, but there is a simple fulfillment in it that is lost for so many people.

Jesus said that his yoke was easy, His burden light. Too many Christians have taken on a hard burden in an effort to keep up with the Joneses. We were never meant to be yoked with the world and its mind-numbing complexity. Any ancient farmer could tell you not to mix your work animals in the yoke or else they will pull in a constant circle, getting nowhere.

Not everyone can drop what they are doing and do what we did, I understand that (and if this post has been rambling for many of you, well sometimes the deepest feelings come out that way.) But no matter what, I know with all my heart that God wants us to dwell in peace and rest in Him. What that takes may be different for every person, but I believe that sometimes the best way to still the soul is to be in a place that is more still by its very nature.

Ask the Lord to help you find that place. It will be both in you and outside you. If you look for it by His Spirit, you will know when you find it because peace is there, as is the sound of the Savior’s voice.

Does your life feel like a spinning wheel careening out of control? Simplicity calls you to come away. A more serene life dwells in us if we listen to that melodious voice that calls out, “Come away….”