Category: reflections

Proverbs 17

Lots of nuggets of wisdom today in Proverbs 17.

This one stings right to the heart:

5 Whoever mocks poor people insults their Creator; gloating over misfortune is a punishable crime.

I know there have been times I’ve laughed or made fun of people different than me. It’s easy to do. It’s easy to try and make yourself look better at the expense of others.

I talked with a friend recently about our Junior High days. He said that he was at the bottom of the social ladder and always felt tormented, was beat up and ridiculed because he was different. I admitted that deep down I was just like him but I fought and clawed to keep up my appearance and to find someone who was “worse than me” to keep the attention away from me. I would point out the flaws of others just so my own flaws wouldn’t be picked on and pointed out in the “all important” social hierarchy of things.

Yet as this verse says, when we make fun of the creation – aren’t we really making fun of the creator?

If you were to make a painting or a sculpture and I saw it and started laughing and saying, “Oh that’s ridiculous. I can’t believe you that.” You’d take that pretty personally. After all it’s not just a painting, it’s a painting you made. You spent your time creating it. It only makes since then that if we mock the poor (financially, physically, mentally or others) we’re simply insulting the Creator Himself. Ouch. Makes me really want to examine my thoughts and comments throughout the day a little closer and fill my mind and heart with Godly things instead.

Weekend activities

a. Laurie took me shopping Friday night for a “huge sale” at Dillards
b. Bought 3 new shirts – didn’t think I could pull them all off – 2 of them are Larges – I don’t know when the last time I wore a large shirt was
c. We enjoyed dinner at El Fenix
d. Followed by miniature golf at Celebration Station
e. Tried a Geocache that was apparently disabled before we went looking for it – so we spent 15-20 minutes looking for nothing
f. Delivered a wedding gift to friends – only 3 or 4 months late 😉
g. Went and looked at a home Saturday morning – wasn’t too impressed
h. Laurie and I played disk golf on Saturday with James, Juston, Ben and Andrew
i. I won
j. Went to Grapefest Satuday night with Tim and Kara
k. Was disappointed that you have to pay for everything even after paying an $8 entry fee
l. Went to church this morning – great message on self-control by Brian
m. Went to Richard and Amber’s house for a birthday BBQ/Lunch for Amber
n. Went and looked at a home suggested by a realtor
o. Decided to check the prices on a new home
p. Signed a contract on the new home
q. Now I’m watching Anchorman while Laurie talks to her mom on the phone
r. Pretty uneventful weekend 😉

More on: Searching for God Knows What

More from Don Miller:

“Let’s say I was an alien and I had to go back to my home planet and explain to some head-of-the-aliens guy what people on this planet were like… the thing that defines human personalities is that they are constantly comparing themselves to one another.”…

“I kept thinking about this that night and I got out of bed and wrote my thoughts down on a piece of paper, you know, as if I were an alien. I put it down in a fancy alien voice:

Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human’s social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies. It is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working. The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. This seems strange as well as well because it is obvious. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem.”

‘Bone of my bones – flesh of my flesh’

Interesting thoughts/questions I wondered about while reading Genesis 1-3 this morning…

Gen 1:26-28 says God created man and woman, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” — on the 6th day of creation. Yet it isn’t until Gen. 2 that scriptures actually tells us about the creation of Eve. I wonder how/why that is? Does that signify the seven days took a lot longer than a literal seven days? Maybe 100 years for each day or 1000 years for each day?

If you read Gen. 2:15-24 it would appear that things happened in this order…

Adam was created. God told him not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.

God realized Adam was alone. (v. 18)

God told him to get to work. Adam set out to name all the animals (probably not a short-term task). “So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” (v. 20)

I bet as Don Miller suggests, in his book, “Searching for God Knows What” it could have easily taken 30-40 maybe even 100 years to name all the animals on the earth. I wonder if he named all the fish in the sea too? Did they all swim up next to the shoreline so he could name them?

Adam stays busy working “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” (v. 20)

Seems like God realized Adam’s needs long before he did. I wonder when it hit Adam that he was lonely and needed human companionship.

I wonder if God was sitting there just waiting for that moment to arrive. Then He leans over and says to the angels gathered around watching things on earth in great joy – “Ha. See I told you Gabriel and Michael — I knew he’d realize his basic need in life is for companionship and relationship. He just had to get out and see the world a bit.”

Miller says that he bets Eve felt really loved.

Adam had longed for a companion. He didn’t even know what that would mean but when he saw Eve he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

I bet Eve felt treasured because Adam had never lusted after another woman. Never abused another woman.

Never mistreated another woman and he was craving her presence even before she was created.

She was exactly what he was looking for.

Reminds me of our search for Christ. Before meeting Christ, we don’t know we’re even looking for Him. But we search and search and carry on with our work until suddenly we realize there’s something missing. We’re missing out on something bigger than us. Then once we find Him — we realize He’s exactly what our soul needed.

Anyways — just some thoughts — additions/comments/clarifications?

Got to brag on my life

Laurie put together a video for encounter’s two year anniversary this morning.
Unfortunately she was working in the nursery and didn’t get to see it played on the “encounter jumbotron.”
But she did a great job picking out photos that really highlighted the message we were looking for.
The band played the song, “And Now my Lifesong Sings” and we displayed the words over the bottom 1/4 of the video with MediaShout, similar to what we do with most other songs.

Here’s the video with Casting Crown’s recording of the song:

The study of Scripture

Don Miller writes in his book, “Searching for God Knows What” about the Benedictine monks, who stayed up late and studied the bible by candlelight.
He wonders what it would be like to sit up late and study the Bible without being tainted by lists and charts and formulas that cause you to look for ideas infer notions that may or may not be in the text, all the while ignoring the poetry, the blood and pain of the narrative and the depth of emotion with which God communicates His truth.
“I think there would be something quite beautiful about reading the Bible this way, to be honest – late at night, feeling through the words, sorting through the grit and beauty.”
He quotes author Kathleen Norris from her book, “The Cloister Walk,” and what she has to say about the monks:

Although their access to scholarly tools was primitive compared to what is available in our day, their method of biblical interpretation was in some ways more sophisticated and certainly more psychologically astute, in that they were better able to fathom the complex, integrative and transfomative qualities of revelation. Their approach was far less narcissistic than our own tends to be, in that their goal while reading scripture was to see Christ in every verse, and not a mirror image of themselves.”

May that be my prayer in the reading and studying of scripture. May I seek to see Christ in scripture and not myself. and may Christ make me more like Him through the process.