Problems are for Solving

I wrote this Sunday night when the blog was down:

I pulled out my iPod tonight to listen to some music. I don’t do that often—of the 1GB that’s usually 90% full on the Nano, 85% of it is lectures, interviews, podcasts—and usually between one and three albums. I don’t listen to music very often.

I’ve been putting albums on that I own but haven’t listened to much. Tonight was Kingdom Come by Charlie Peacock.
I heard a song that made me cry.

Cheer Up Church is a song that I am guessing is written about Spurgeon—but I’m not sure and couldn’t find out for certain on line. It’s very short.

His was a voice fueled by truth
He spoke to us of God’s grace
In a way that we could understand and take hold of

His was a life defined by grace
For a time and for a reason
And so we bow and give thanks to God
For the life of our brother

It’s just like God to make a hero from a sinner
It’s just like God to choose the loser, not the winner
It’s just like God to tell a story through the weak
To let the Gospel speak through the life of a man
Who’ll be the first to say

“Cheer up, Church
You’re worse off than you think
Cheer up, Church
You’re standing at the brink
Don’t despair
Do not fear
Grace is near”

I listened to it several times and then again with my wife. I cried every time.

I have been having some ups and downs lately. Struggling with my heart, my life, feeling overwhelmed and alone.

I haven’t had an easy time grappling with all of it.

I realized that I have to give up and understand I can’t do it in order to do anything. Because I can’t do anything.

I think that’s what God has been trying to teach me for a few weeks–that I’m trying too hard. And I have nothing to try with, and so that’s why I feel like there’s nothing left. And what He wants is for me to lean on Him and His strength. As Paul said, “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I am so filled with pride that I forget that all to often. May God give me the grace to remember it every moment.

On Monday I was reading in J.C. Ryle’s book Holiness (which I am not finishing as quickly as I’d like—but it is wonderful reading) and I came across the following:

. . . men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, and that they are not so bad as they really are . . . . I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul’s disease. . . . Sin comes to us like Judas, with a kiss . . .

This is in a section where Ryle is talking about the deceitfulness of our own sin. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. We deceive ourselves into thinking our sin isn’t sin and then we don’t need to repent.

Ryle’s book is a wonderful ‘gut check’ for me as I see my own lack of holiness and my need to constantly cry out to God like the Publican, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!�

Another from the archives, edited.  Written May, 2005

I read an email once that had as part of its signature, “this email printed on 100% recycled electrons.�

Funny, but not this morning.

Ever notice how fast electrons move?

At one point a friend posted something in his blog that caused some others to post some less than charitable responses.  He later repented of part of what he had written, and I took it upon myself to lay in on a particular blog with both barrels, noting their lack of charity and benefit of the doubt for the blogger in question.

Did I mention that electrons move fast?

Things we post on the internet (or hit send from our outboxes) move really fast. In the old days I would have a lot of time between writing something like I did this morning and it even making it to the post office. Not so anymore. I can sin so much more efficiently now that we’re in the internet age.

While in the shower that morning the Spirit hit me with what I had written and I was forced to apply it, and the sermon I preached this past Sunday evening, to my own heart and my own actions. The blog, thankfully, had a feature where as the author of a comment I could delete it, but not before it was able to be read by anyone who looked at that in those very long two hours in between. And not before it doubtlessly sent a copy of that comment on to the blog’s owner.

This serves as a reminder to me (and I hope to all of us) why Jesus warns us in the Scriptures to be slow to speak and quick to listen. It is those comments I make without weighing them that almost invariably get me into trouble and are a cause for repentance.

Praise God that he gives to me (and to all of His children) the grace to see our own sin, and to repent when it is seen. May He also give me the grace to slow down and not to so easily sin at the speed of an electron.