Wise As Doves

When I was a college freshman here at UT, they had a Freshman Convocation where many of the bigwigs on campus spoke to an auditorium full of us college greenhorns about the history, prestige, culture, and so on of this fine institution.

Afterwards, we were able to mingle with them on stage, visit, network, and the like. I took full advantage of it and chatted with several. When I met the President of the university, I had some nebulous notion of evangelical boldness and asked him something about whether or where he went to church on Sunday mornings.

He was noticeably taken aback and uncomfortable with this rather direct approach from a pipsqueak. He hemmed and hawed a moment before admitting that he probably played more golf than he should on Sunday morning.

Spirit of Fear

I read an article today that discussed, from a politically conservative viewpoint, how pastors are afraid to address political issues from the pulpit. His point was that secular authorities seek to minimize the effect of the Church (i.e. the Gospel) on society. One way is to penalize churches who get too politically vocal for someone’s taste.

Another way is to minimize the respectability of Christian scholarship. Whether this is done subtly through comments during lectures to undergrads, or through the tenure and promotion process, or other more direct and/or vocal methods, folks opposed to the Gospel are typically more evangelical in their opposition than Christians are about the Good News.

Fool or Child?

Tonight while I had my feet up for a while, my mind recalled some event from years past where I feel I looked rather foolish. It doesn’t matter the specifics, there are many such events to choose from in my life.

As I was shaking my head over the event and praying, “God, I sure am a fool sometimes!” I had a sense of a decidedly amused response, “You’re not foolish, you’re just a child, and I love you for it.”

If that kind of affirmation doesn’t perk up your day, I’m not sure what would.

SDG

Foolishness

Sometimes (often) we humans are humourously pathetic. How often have you seen a child or a pet act good in front of you, but you can tell there is mischief in their mind that they plan to jump into as soon as your back is turned?

We adults are no different.

It came to mind tonight about how recently, I had in mind to do something I knew I shouldn’t, but wanted God’s help for something else, so put the first out of mind long enough to pray for the help and get that task done, then went back to entertaining the original thought, as if God could be tricked.

You just want to laugh at the foolishness of it—not so much the choices themselves, but the sheer transparency of it. Ridiculous. We adults may be more sophisticated than kids, but we play the same juvenile games. The worst of it is how we lie to ourselves that we aren’t doing it.

The dirty little secret is that we all do it. No one is innocent of playing these mind games. And all of us think we can get away with it at least sometimes. Fortunately, like a good and loving parent, God forgives both insults (and make no mistake, they are grave insults against His character)—the sin and the hubris.

Thanks be to Christ for the grace that daily redeems us from our own conceit.

SDG

"This Space Intentionally Left Blank"

Ever notice signs or other messages that seem nonsensical? Some, like the title of the post are printed on forms so you know that all pages/text are present and not missing. Some, like the sign (behind the main building of my university ) on the left, seem to indicate someone just wasn’t paying attention to their work.

Many things in life have the appearance of wisdom but are foolish and many things have the appearance of foolishness yet do have significance.