Father's day

Dad...I wish I had written more of these. One of your love languages was words of affirmation. I wish I had loved you better that way. Ha...as I'm writing this your gmail chat icon turned orange meaning your account was recently active. Probably mom going through business e-mails. I laughed because for a moment I thought you were downstairs checking your email right before you went to bed (as was your custom). I thought maybe this whole death business was a bad dream. There is still some part of me that refuses to believe you're not here.

The truth of Christ's victory over death has become so much more real since you've left. I'm sure it's not as real to me as it is to you, but still...it's something very beautiful to me.

I miss your laugh a lot. It was...just great. Somebody sent mom an old picture of you when you were around eighteen. You're wearing just about the biggest, warmest smile one could possibly imagine. I didn't know you when you were eighteen, but I did know you in your later years and I can testify that that smile never faded from your face.

It's hard to be a good man without you. You inspired me to do really hard things, and you encouraged me when things got really hard. I miss your wisdom and advice. I sometimes rolled my eyes when I could feel a long lecture of yours coming on. There are now two things that I'd LOVE to hear from you about. I'd still like to role my eyes, even though I'd really enjoy it. It'd just be nice you know...to be how we used to be. I'm trying to remember some of the things you said to me in our car rides together, but I never wrote them down so...there's not much hope that I'll be able to recall much.

So I'm 21. When you were 21 you were engaged. Golly...I couldn't imagine being engaged right now. I was going to ask you to be my best man when I got married. I don't think I ever told you that. I was thinking about my wedding today (not something that I often do, but every once in awhile it pops in) and I was thinking how we could incorporate Romans 15:5-7 and 13. Those are the verses you and mom shared with all your friends and children who were getting married. It dawned on me that you wouldn't be there to read it.

A friend of mine posted on her status a quote from C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle. It's Reepicheep's line "Welcome, in the Lion's name. Come further up and further in!" I remember how overjoyed I was when I first read those words. I was so elated to "see" Reepicheep again after he had been gone for so long. I shed tears and shouted for joy over a fictional mouse. Oh dad...I want to see you at the gates of heaven. I now sob with such painful longing for that, but then how much more joyful will I be to hear my you, my father, say "Welcome in the Lion of Judah's name! Come further up and further in!"

I know there is good work to be done. Don't give me heaven too early, there's still too much hell to fight...but oh...how I long so very much to see you again.

Your son,
-James

Trees, noses, grass, worms and sunrises are wonderful.

Video: The Pastor As Scholar: A Personal Journey

John Piper tells his story from childhood to pastorate. I was actually just two rows behind him at this event before he took the stage. For many different reasons the majority of his talk either flew over my head, or I didn't care to hear. I immediately forgot about it. Two years later I find myself moved to tears by his story. Specifically when he talks about slow reading, speaking in public, or coming alive to the world around us. John Piper is a trophy of grace, and his life gives me hope that I could know the same grace that he talks about. Below are some of the quotes that greatly move me. I've tried to attach a time stamp so you can hear him say it. I would highly recommend you take an hour to listen to it. It's not a sermon, simply one broken man's story about becoming whole.

-James


(13:18) You had geometry creating a passion for right reasoning and you had biology creating a passion for right observation. If you try to do right reasoning from wrong observation it doesn't matter how good your reasoning is, it's going to go haywire. These are huge things. This is the basis for all right dealing with reality.

There were a couple awakenings in high school. A passion to write, and a bent towards poetry.

I cannot sustain a sequence of thought for more than thirty seconds without writing.
(17:00) As Calvin said, "I learn as I write and I write as I learn."

(18:00) The inability to speak in front of a group, cut me off in many ways. Cut me off from all class offices. "Come on John, run for class president" "Not in a thousand years, you have to give a speech." Never ran for any class office, never gave a speech, I got C's in civics because I couldn't do an oral book report. "John if you don't do this oral book report you going to get a C in this class." "That's a done deal. I will get a C. You don't understand, this is not like I'm scared. This is not a possibility."

(19:10) I could talk to my dog. Best friend I had.

(19:30) I can read no faster than I talk.
(20:50) Forms began to take shape. Ways of seeing the world. Ways of experiencing were just exploding with significance in college and God and the bible were not the main focus. So I came out of college needing a BIG object to feel about and write about and think about...and I got it....big time.

(27:00) Even though I'm slow, I read carefully. I FEEL what I read.

(30:00) I shall open my eyes and ears once every day. I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery what Lewis calls their Divine, magical, ecstatic, terrifying existence.

I was a fighting armenian
(53:30) At Wheaton I was formed and in seminary I got substance with which the form could deal. The thinking form, the feeling form, the writing form now had a massive God to deal with. Just gloriously satisfying. I mean, trees and noses, and grass and worms and sunrises are WONDERFUL, but it was all preparation. So I don't begrudge you if you pass through a romantic phase where you're just blown away by sunrises and have little time for God. God is getting you ready for something. He's opening your eyes because all that is going somewhere. The heavens are telling the what? That's why they are there.

(59:00) God said I will be proclaimed, not simply analyzed

We complicate simple things and ignore complicated things.

Remember your fairy tales

Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.”

–C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

You worldview will slip through, even in silliness like Behind Broadway:

Consider these lyrics :

"It well may be, that this chance will never come again, so at showtime, throw yourself completely in your part" -Behind Broadway
"When curtains rise, we know that they will fall, but until then, like a star we have to burn" -Behind Broadway

Juxtaposed to:

"Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live." -Jonathan Edwards

Or consider the lyric "And then whatever way reviews may bend - this path has now been given - and I'll walk it til the end". Originally the lyric said something to the effect of "I have now chosen this path" and I asked TJ if we could change it largely because of the following quote and verses. (also it seemed appropriate because Claire didn't really choose anything that happened to her)

"Brother, be courageous and let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to Him." -John Piper

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” -James, brother of Jesus

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. -Proverbs

Though I haven't asked TJ if he meant to put these little nuggets of truth in the play or if they just happened, they are certainly there. It's one of the reasons I like to write with Teej. He has a way of inserting truth in a beautiful way, that doesn't jar you, and helps you fall in love with biblical principals whether you mean to or not.


Thanks for working with me T.J.

-James

I wrote this back in august 2010. Still a struggle, but God has been gracious.


John Piper asks the question:
Do you feel more loved by God because he makes much of you, or because at great cost to himself, he frees you to enjoy making much of him forever? I’m talking feelings here, not theological precision in your head. Which?

I feel like my soul has just been stabbed...no...I feel more loved by God when he makes much of me. God, I love me more than You. I love attempting to satisfying my earthly desires more than being enraptured by You. All my study, all systematic theology, all my works, and I can't produce love that ends with you being the point of my love.

*sigh*

-James

You worldview will slip through, even in silliness like Behind Broadway:

Consider these lyrics :

"It well may be, that this chance will never come again, so at showtime, throw yourself completely in your part" -Behind Broadway
"When curtains rise, we know that they will fall, but until then, like a star we have to burn" -Behind Broadway

Juxtaposed to:

"Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live." -Jonathan Edwards

Or consider the lyric "And then whatever way reviews may bend - this path has now been given - and I'll walk it til the end". Originally the lyric said something to the effect of "I have now chosen this path" and I asked TJ if we could change it largely because of the following quote and verses. (also it seemed appropriate because Claire didn't really choose anything that happened to her)

"Brother, be courageous and let us play the man for our God, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to Him." -John Piper

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” -James, brother of Jesus

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. -Proverbs

Though I haven't asked TJ if he meant to put these little nuggets of truth in the play or if they just happened, they are certainly there. It's one of the reasons I like to write with Teej. He has a way of inserting truth in a beautiful way, that doesn't jar you, and helps you fall in love with biblical principals whether you mean to or not.


Thanks for working with me T.J.

-James