Something About The Joy

Two of my favorite bloggers often do posts where they simply share links to other interesting sites or useful information they've run across.   I thought I'd do that on this quiet Christmas Eve, before I tackle one last bout of Christmas baking to get the shortbread in the oven. So here are my top five "Picks" for Christmas: 1. About.com . A great resource for information on just about everything, and   Matt Rosenberg's geography newsletter is full of interesting little known facts about the world.   Today he gives us a history of Christmas, covering the Christian story accurately and explaining how it merged with, and eventually displaced, certain pagan practices in Europe.   Check it out at: http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/The-Geography-Of-Christmas.htm 2.   Breakpoint .   Chuck Colson is in heaven this Christmas, celebrating the glorious event firsthand, but, thanks to technology, we can still read what he w...

December 21, 2012.    A significant day for me.   If he were still alive, my father would be 100 years old today.   And tomorrow marks the 59th anniversary of his death. From the beginning I planned to dedicate Zinovy’s Journey to my father, if only as a way to preserve his name.   Walter Fred Saumert.   The only son of the only Saumert living in the western hemisphere.   My father had only daughters.   When we married, and our mother died, the name died as well, so I preserved it on the dedication page of my book.   The name is worth preserving. I have only a few memories of my father, but they are vivid.   They’ve grown more vivid over the years, the details being absorbed, and gloriously transformed, I’m sure, from the jumble of vague impressions left in my childish heart the day he died. I remember that day well.   I remember sitting with my sister and a babysitting neighbor in the car ...

Frightful possibilities loom on our horizon these days.   Politics is scary.   International terrorism is scary.   Morality is scary.   Economics is scary.   The pressure to be afraid is on, now as never before, because our technological advances allow evil to happen on an increasingly global scale, and, also because of technology, we cannot ignore what's going on around us anymore.    There is no place to hide. Wait.   There is One place.   One secure place.   One only.   And because of that, for the Christian, fear is a wrong reaction, now more than ever.   God has been so faithful for so many millennia.   He will not change.   In this world of ever-increasing threats and challenges, He is still in control.   He knows the end from the beginning, and He is not worried.   He has already established the outcome, and, as His creation was good in the beginning, so will his outcome be in the en...

I've been reading in Acts lately and discovering things I never noticed before. Such fun! ACTS-AGE CHRISTIANS The book of Acts has much to say to those of us in the 21st century who want to influence our culture for good and for God.   Some things haven't changed in 2000 years, and we can learn from Paul's experiences as he introduces the pagan world of his time to God's truth. Acts 17:1-4 gives an account of Paul's presentation of the Gospel in Thessalonica, where "a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women" became believers, and verses 5-9 describe the opposition to Paul's preaching. It's interesting to note the parallels between the two sections of the story. Both involve actions by people designed to change other people.   Both succeed in bringing about change.   But the contrasts between the two halves of the story are even more striking. The choice of verbs in both passages casts th...

New York Times: U.S. Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market By THOM SHANKER Published: August 26, 2012             WASHINGTON — Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran ’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress. Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.       Psalm 76: God is renowned in Judah; in Israel his name is great.   His tent is in Salem (peace) his dwelling place in Zion (with His people).    There he broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war.     There's a great day coming. . .

My heart is heavy.   Summer weather has finally come.   I should be enjoying the August sun and the season of rest before school starts.   Instead I'm struggling to hang onto joy.   What a waste of beautiful weather! But sun in the heart doesn't always follow sun in the sky.   That's life. Maybe I've been reading too much world news.    No.   The problem is closer than that.   I'm seeing the spiritual apathy and emptiness in my own little world.   And, too often, in my own little heart.   I'm comparing the fruitful way God used to work, in both my world and my heart, with the spiritual barrenness that seems to surround me.   I wonder, sometimes, if God is even able to reach any of us in our current culture of self-satisfaction and apathy.   A TIME FOR DOUBTS It's somewhat comforting to know I'm not the first to feel this angst.  This morning I opened my Bible to Psalm 77.   In verses ...

The rightness of God is what makes him worthy of praise and worship.   Yes, he is powerful, wise and inconceivably great.   Those are all awesome attributes.   But it's his rightness, his righteousness, that makes him worthy. We love rightness.   And we know, instinctively, what foundational rightness is.   We may be confused about the specifics.  The influence of our godless culture has marred our perception of righteousness in many of the details of ethics and morality.  But w e still understand the essential rightness of love, not hate; of peace, not war; of charity, not greed; of humility, not hubris.   We know what makes the good guy good, and the bad guy bad. Rightness is good, and God is the essence of rightness.   He is always, completely, amazingly, wonderfully right and good in every way. And worship of God solely for his rightness is pure, unadulterated joy.