Today I turn 69. I hope I’ve learned some things in those 69 years. I hope I’ve learned about the character of God, that He is both righteous and merciful. His law is good and right and He has every reason to exclude all of us from His presence because of our rebellious, sinful hearts. Yet He seeks to show mercy. He will be the Judge because righteousness must be upheld, but He longs to shower us with His grace…. Read more »
I would have to say that those who express doubts about the legitimacy of the “virus war” we now face are becoming fewer in number. Serious people know when something is serious. Serious people take appropriate action to mitigate the seriousness of a situation. Yet even the mature, serious people know when something is not entirely in their hands, and that they cannot control everything. Some may descend into fear over what awaits. Psalm 55 speaks of fear in words… Read more »
Along with probably all, or nearly all, of my professorial colleagues in the US and in many other countries, I am homebound now, completing my courses remotely. Is this something that is important to do in light of the current global pandemic? Shouldn’t we perhaps just drop all this “learning stuff” and devote our whole selves to the “virus war”? C. S. Lewis dealt with this same issue as WWII ramped up. Should the university continue teaching during the crisis?… Read more »
I remember, as a teenager, watching the movie A Man Called Peter, and being profoundly impacted by the faith displayed in the film, not only of Peter Marshall himself, but also of his wife, Catherine. You know how some things always stay with you? That movie did, and I’m grateful to God that He placed such influences in my life early on. The Christian History e-mail offering from yesterday focused on Catherine Marshall and how God fulfilled her desire to… Read more »
Reading in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago this morning, I came across this fascinating account. The author tells of a Communist Party conference during the time of the Great Purge of Party leaders (and hundreds of thousands of others as well) in 1937-1938. The presiding officer was a new man who had taken over for the previous secretary of the District Party who had recently been arrested. Solzhenitsyn relates, “At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was… Read more »
The Lord always has a continuing-education program for me. There are so many books I’ve never read (well, who can say otherwise?) that I need to delve into not only for head knowledge but for spiritual growth also. I seek to read resources that will do both. Here’s an update on what He is doing with me currently. I’ve now completed two-thirds of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. I’ve chosen the Dorothy Sayers translation because of my intense interest in her… Read more »
“Let us suppose,” ventured C. S. Lewis, “that nothing ever has existed or ever will exist except this meaningless play of atoms in space and time: that by a series of hundredth chances it has (regrettably) produced things like ourselves.” What “things” does he mean? “Conscious beings,” he continues, “who now know that their own consciousness is an accidental result of the whole meaningless process and is therefore itself meaningless, though to us (alas!) it feels significant.” That disturbing supposal… Read more »