Today’s Quote 2/9/07

  The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.
    … A. W. Tozer

I got this from http://www.noelheikkinen.com/

Things Occurring to Me

1. It really bothers me when radio ads use the sounds of a police siren or a cell phone ring in their ads. I am either stepping on the brakes or reaching for my cell phone by the time I figure out its on the radio. The people who make the ads know this but do this to me anyway. I won’t buy whatever they are selling.

2. I am loving a new song by Lucinda William, “Are You Alright?” Go to iTunes and listen to the sample. Haunting, and it stays with you a long time before you can stop singing it.

3. I have a young lady in one of my adult college classes who has never heard of Billy Graham. Things are changing. Who will be the next evangelical everyone admires and who everyone has heard of? Why not you?

4. I love book tv on cspan on the weekends. I am running out of time to read all the books I want to. Will heaven have books? If not, I don’t know what I will do.

5. A new trend? Older people are picking up bad habits like smoking because they won’t be living long enough to be killed by the bad habit. Is being bad at the end of your life the pay off for being good at the beginning of your life?

6. Some friends are forever. I thank God for that everyday. I could never deserve that kind of commitment.

7. I read recently in the New York Times Magazine of a couple of marine biologists who died this year. They apparently were the gurus of marine biology who laid much of the foundation for present day studies. But they are no longer cited very much because many science journal prohibit authors from citing papers more than five years old. Makes me think of the church. After 2000 years of church history, it’s like we don’t have much to learn from books over five years old. I think that’s our loss.

8. I need to get my car brakes fixed. It’s easier for me to pour brake fluid in from time to time than go ahead and get them fixed. When the crash comes, it won’t be like I wasn’t warned.

9. I think I should preach without notes. If I can’t remember what I am going to say, how can the parishoners be expected to remember what I did say?

10. The amount of time devoted on the TV to the death of Anna Nicole Smith is something I don’t get.

11. People snap. The woman astronaut recently arrested for attacking her love rival doesn’t surprise me. (The diaper thing makes me a bit uneasy). After a life filled with self-control to the max, people can break. It seems that this woman achieved to the max. Why wasn’t she happy? Self-discipline alone doesn’t bring the gladness for which we seek. I think Christians make too much of self-control, as if that is the only fruit of the Spirit. I think that for some the Christian life is nothing but self-control. Bummer.

12. Older people at the store like to give exact change. Why?

13. I don’t know why I get myself into this but I spent four nights out straight at work. When will I learn that I can’t get away with this?

14. If you talk long enough about your hospital stay with anybody, the conversation will eventually get around to Percocet. I think this drug is the acceptable version of getting high for Christians. (Can I get a witness?)

15. Even though Christmas letters are filled with all the nice stuff I still enjoy them. Good Christmas letters will allow you to read between the lines.

16. So far my Ben’s choice of grad school is UC-Santa Barbara (LA area). Could our family be more spread out? Boston, Chicago, LA. If I had one more kid, the next place would be Tokyo.

17. Among my pastor friends of my generation I think I like contemporary praise music the most. Of course, this makes me shallow!!! I have never gotten a rush out of singing any music that is hundreds of years old. (That’s right – I am not a classical music fan.) Why should I want to do that in church? However, I do like hymns when they are contemporarized in a way that keeps the original melody intact but stylized to catch the modern ear. But I don’t argue over music. You start the tune, and I will sing along.

18. New England is cold right now. But you don’t know what cold is in the US until you have lived in the plain states.

19. I am trying to read the Quran. Really, I am trying. In case you missed it, trying is the operative word.

20. Everyone has an up side and a down side. Get used to it. Celebrate the up – accept the down.

21. Some things are really conterintuitive. The people who installed the carpet at our church told us not to use floor mats at the door entrances. The carpet will last longer and stay in better shape if you just vacuum it and shampoo it. The mats trap dirt under them and grind it into the carpet. Like I said, who woulda thunk?

22. How come our dog has never had a sleepless night? Never!!!

23. In spite of how much I joke about it, I like looking like my dad. I loved him a lot, and I see him in the mirror everyday. That’s a small price to pay for losing my hair and having a pug nose.

24. Sharon still cooks for me. She doesn’t make me cruise around the kitchen looking for stuff in cans. But I wouldn’t hold it against her if she said after 34 years that she has had enough.

25. I could go on forever. Like I said, I am an overcommunicator.