Family

This is a family picture of mom, sister, and myself taken about 3 months after my stroke. It's funny that now much of what I say relates to life after this stroke thing, but it is only now (10 months after the fact) that I'm beginning to understand the impact of what has happened. One fact, that until recently I had come to grips with, is the difficulty of posting to this blog because of the effort it took to write and communicate what I truly wanted to express. That might seem odd to some, but it is a real fact, that often I would substitute even thoughts, because I lacked either the means to spell or logically place thoughts in an order that I wanted, but thank God He is not finished with healing my, body, mind, and most important my spiritual life.

I've recently gone through studying the epistle to the Ephesians, and with that study I've read many sermons by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jone, from his huge work "An Exposition of Ephesians" in six volumes. From this reading I have become aware of what is involved in being part of a family, both of the natural family we are born in, and then also the family that we have after entering the family of God.

19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, Ephesians 2:19 (ESV)

There are many points to make about what being a family is all about, but for today I want to focus of the fact that it's all about the blood lines.

"So the second point I would make, my second principle, would be this, to stress the vital importance of knowing which we are. Now here again Paul’s illustration helps us. How does it become clear and obvious whether we are strangers and foreigners (sojourners), or whether we really belong? Eventually it always becomes clear. It does not matter how intimate a relationship may be, however friendly you may be with someone who is living with you in the family. We have a saying that puts it all in a nutshell—After all, blood is thicker than water. Certain points arise in life when actually the one thing that matters is the blood relationship. And it is at that point that the poor stranger begins to feel that he is only a stranger after all. He may have felt for years that the distinctions were irrelevant and may have said: I am one of them, I am a member of the family and have always been treated as a member of the family. But suddenly, in a crisis, he discovers that he is not. ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ You cannot explain these things; you may even say that there is a great deal that is wrong about such a situation. That may well be, but that is how it works out in practice. Something fundamental, elemental, suddenly comes to the surface; and you will find a whole family that may have been at sixes and sevens suddenly becoming one. And the poor stranger is conscious that he is an outsider." [Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1972). God's Way of Reconciliation (studies in Ephesians, chapter 2) (295). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.]

Through the experiences I've gone through, I have gained a deeper understanding about the relationship of my family given to me from birth, and about my second birth's relationship with God's family. The first option of being born puts us within the blood line that is our natural family, the second is the blood that was shed by God's Son. In the time after this event, both have been invaluable to me, and made me aware of each, and the joy that each has to give.

More later, it was just great to do this and not spend hours!!! like the last post which took about 3 hours.

Jars of Clay - Silence

This song by Jars of Clay had a resounding effect on my view of thinking and understanding God's presence in my life as I went through the ordeal of life and death in the massive stroke that hit me on July 5, 2008. I now have more questions than answers, and they are not about doubter but are about who this wonderful God is how placed some many faithful friends besides me. I want to especially gave my friend Mike DeLong a great thank you, who was by my side the whole time, being an object lesson on what a Christian friend is about to the doctors how comment about that later.

I could write volumes on who the Lords brought to mine side, especially Pastor Jason and his wife Amy who responded to my called for helps, and the faithful body of believers at FAC in Gemerntown, and all who prayed for me... the Lord hears prayers, as He took all fear form me through the whole ordeal and gave me His peace.

I now have more questions about the wonderful Lord I serve... Yes, I have a question.

Little Matthews Story

Little Matthew Brian is the son of Matthew and Diana Scott, born August 23,2007. Their story is posted on the Children's Hospital "Caring Bridge" page found here http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/matthewscottandrade . It has been my privilege to visit little Matthew and his parents several times, and in several places, unfortunately only once at his grandparents house.

This picture was taken about 1 month after Matthew was born in the ICU of St. Mary's Hospital. He had to have that little mask on because he needed light treatment, and a tube in his nose to help him breath. Every so often you could see him go into these little breathing episodes that looked like he was trying to catch his breath, similar to those little whimpers after babies cry, but of course very much different, just that it's hard to describe.This below is on a better day last fall where little Matthew joined everyone for his Grandma Scott's birthday dinner. Notice it was close to Halloween, and he had his Tigger Costume on. It looks like he was straining his eyes to view the menu.

This is Matthew and Diana, his parents, at the dinner table.

There have been many events, both good and bad in this young little one's life, but I know that even He is in God's purposes. Below is the latest picture that I had taken, and is at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. I couldn't use my flash so the picture might be a tad blurry, but I didn't want to frighten him, because at the time he had a couple of ribs that were broken due to his disease

It is often difficult to know how, or what to pray for in little Matthew's life, there is so much need of the one who created him, yet much of his needs have come to be fulfilled through doctors and nurses, and so we pray for them as they minister to Matthew. So then, we are merely faithful to pray, even in those times when we are not sure of the words, or are overwhelmed at the situation life has brought.

Matthew, I pray for you constantly, and when my words fail to know how, I seek this Scripture and pray it for you, knowing that our God keeps you and provides you with everything.

Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3Give us each day our daily bread, 4and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation." Luke 11:2-4 (ESV)

Mother's Day 2008

Mother’s Day 2008 was cold and wet, though later in the afternoon it stopped raining, but it definitely got colder and much windier. After having a wonderful meal of Chinese food at http://www.yenchingchinese.com/ , which is a family tradition for many different holidays, it was back to mom’s farm. Though it was only 3 of us today, it was a well spent day together, making memories for the years to come, and revisiting those form years ago.

Before anything was started once we got back to mom’s place, Heidi and I had to put together a new bird feeder pole that mom had picked up at Fleetfarm, but couldn't quite figure out how to put it together. After looking at the one page instruction manual, I could understand why… it was a bit humorous for me, though I didn’t say anything, but the biggest obstacle that she couldn't get past was on how to get these holder things over the post. She had the screw that was to tighten that, screwed in to far so that it didn’t fit over the shaft… to funny, but Heidi and I kept it to ourselves. It always feels good being mom’s hero, better than those moments where I myself try to put something together, and find out afterwards, that it’s backwards. Yeah, men and the instructions we don’t need, but really should follow to make life easier.

If you look at the picture, the new feeder post we put up is on the left side of the branch in the middle. No sooner had we gotten in, started to play a game at the table there, when we saw two of the most beautiful blue little birds. Mom said that they were Buntings, I don't think that I've ever seen those before, but they were definitely in the finch family, about the same size and all.


Heidi helped mom reconcile her checking book... every time we come over, something gets done that she's not sure to do on her own. I told her that I would have to get her a computer to do all that on-line, and I got the most serious look, which with out words said "that's not going to happen!"

Things always change, but then that's life, each year I seem to look older and more like my dad, but mom says I look like her brother. She wanted to take a picture of me and Heidi, so after showing her how, and what needs to be pressed, and to NOT put her finger over the lens... ya, you guessed it, the first picture had that half moon which is her finger :-). And she clicked too soon so that the flash didn't initiate, but hey, at least she wasn't afraid of the new technology, though she mentioned that she wouldn't feel comfortable with a digital camera, the older ones are much easier to use. Not if you ask me, these new one's do it all for you, instead of having to have the setting all figured out, one just aims and clicks to take the picture. So she tried again, and did a much nicer job, only thing is that my head got cut off... oh well, she got the better side of me.

Heidi did a good job getting a picture of mom and I, and while technology has increased the speed at which we live, it does do a great job of capturing moments in time, and putting them up for all the world to see, and hopefully for family members who are all over the continent and world, Europe and Canada in particular. Giving mom another try at getting Heidi and I together without chopping heads finally worked, but then my limit of pictures is at about 700, so we could have tried several times, but it only took one extra take. Technology, it's unbelievable to think how fast it seems grow of such short time periods.

This is my favorite picture of mom, now that she's alone, but always with some company of some sorts, if only dogs. Mom, it was good to come home today into your house so warm with memories, a place that is always dear to my heart and a joy whenever I visit.

Proverbs says:
25Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice. Proverbs 23:25 (ESV)

Mom, may you find joy in your son, and in the manner in which he serves His Saviour, for it was by your prayers that brought this all about.

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Somewhere under this blanket of white is my lawn, of course it snowed again today, it snows every third day or so this winter. The good news is that Lake Michigan is up 3 inches on its water-level, but we would need several years of snow like this to bring the water-level to where it should be. I say, leave the water-level alone, we don't want anymore snow! I've raked my roof 3 times this year, so that my gutters won't damn up, but that's of little concern, for you see the first snow storm came 3 days after the old Elm tree decided to dump the last of it's leaves, and where do you think they landed... right, in the gutters.

Getting my mail I noticed that I might want to brush some of my shrubs too, once this fine fluffy stuff starts to melt, it will put too much weight on the branches. Some of the older trees have already lost some of their limbs, as the weight of the blizzard last week was too much for them. The bright side of things is that it finally warmed up a tad, going from -4 degrees yesterday to almost 26 degrees today.

That's life in Wisconsin, love it or leave it... I love IT!! :-)

Should I have only an Electronic Libray, or do I need a hard copy of certain items also?

I think that I’m beginning to get over being a cheapskate, though the battle is tough, but as long as I can give my tithe and gifts to the Lord, and still buy cool stuff like a whole electronic collection of over 24 volumes of John Piper books, I figure it must have been in His plans. That’s perfect logic if you ask me, but anyways, I had mentioned the question previously on why you want to have both a hard copy of a book and an electronic copy. Well having the electronic copy is really easy to demonstrate if you have a wonderful Bible Software program like my Libronix Digital Library System. Notice below I have open in that program both the book, and a search on that book looking for the word “faith”.

So instead of trying to find faith by hoping that it’s marked in the back of the book in the index, I simply click on a search and in 2 seconds it returns me 213 places that the word faith is found in this Piper book.

As I clicked on the first occurrence “The Call to Fight for This”, which had 8 occurrences on page 36, the program went to that place in the book on the left and highlighted the results.

Now if I want to really expand my search on “faith” in what Piper writes, I can define all of his works as a collection, and then search on that collection, really cool!

And bingo, in about 8 seconds, it brought back 4,183 hits on faith in the whole John Piper collection of books.

The key word here is “time” and using time efficiently… I couldn’t even guess at the amount of time that it would take had I to look up faith manually in each book. This is just a tiny example of the power of this software, and the ease of putting together a study, much less an aide in preparing a sermon.

I’ve had this software program for over 15 or more years now (which is a guess, it might be more like 20), actually bought my first copy at one of those software stores that use to be around everywhere, but have now flown the coop. Well it ran much different on first my 386, and then 486 computer models, then to my current Dell that screams with speed, and with storage capacity. Not only has the computer changed, but my Logos is now my Libronix, and as I am growing in the Lord, this program keeps changing too, to keep up with my study needs, and to make those needs easier and more varied in depth.

The reason that I purchased the hard copy of Carson’s “The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God” was because I’m reading it with about 6 other men, and take it to the 1 hour sessions we have to discuss what we have read. While I could simply print out a portion, such as a chapter or two, it is also good at times to have a hard copy to be your companion in your easy chair, as you meditate on your reading and what God is communicating to you through that reading.

If you have an opinion on the matter, let me know, comments are always welcome! I liked doing this so much that I'll probably show more posibilities with the digital library, and hope to get the graphics improved too.

The Love of God Distorted

A question that we often fail to ask is this; what is my perception on the Love of God, and next, what is the perception of this Love of God with those I meet daily? According to D.A. Carson, the love of God is more difficult than we might think, thus the title of the book I’m currently rereading (had it in an electronic format, but recently purchased the book, why I did that could be a subject all of its own) “The Difficult Doctrine of The Love of God”.

In the first chapter titled “on Distorting the Love of God”, he states that “when informed Christians talk about the love of God, they mean something very different from what is meant in the surrounding culture. Worse, neither side may perceive that that is the case.” He says that when you tell people that God loves them, that they probably wouldn’t be surprised, “of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he? Besides, why shouldn’t he love me? I’m kind of cute, or at least as nice as the next person. I’m okay, you’re okay, and God loves you and me.”

Not only is the Love of God distorted in our secular society, but it is often also distorted when it comes preached to us from the pulpits of Evangelical America, and Carson notes this as he points to a work by Marsha Witten, “All Is Forgiven: The Secular Message in American Protestantism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Carson quotes from that work, which is primarily focused on sermons about the prodigal son in Luke 15 and says, ‘Nevertheless her book abounds in lengthy quotations from these sermons, and they are immensely troubling. There is a powerful tendency “to present God through characterizations of his inner states, with an emphasis on his emotions, which closely resemble those of human beings.…God is more likely to ‘feel’ than to ‘act,’ to ‘think’ than to ‘say.’ ”  Or again:
…the sermons dramatize feelings of anxiety for listeners over many other (this-worldly) aspects of their removal from God, whether they are discussing in the vocabulary of sin or in other formulations
…Many of the sermons depict a God whose behavior is regular, patterned, and predictable; he is portrayed in terms of the consistency of his behavior, of the conformity of his actions to the single rule of “love.

We in ourselves might say that God loves people, but God said “8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8 (ESV) In this first chapter “On Distorting the Love of God” Carson gives his readers 5 ways that “the Bible Speaks of the Love of God.”
- The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father. John 3:35; John 5:20; John 14:31
- God’s providential love over all that he has made.
- God’s salvific stance toward his fallen world. John 3:16; 1 John 2:2; John 15:19
- God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect. Deut. 7:7–8; cf. 4:37
- Finally, God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditioned, that is, on obedience. John 15:9; John 15:10

The one thing that I appreciated most, and which I have dwelled upon for quite some time is when Carson said “we need all of what Scripture says on this subject, or the doctrinal and pastoral ramifications will prove disastrous.” And, “We must not view these ways of talking about the love of God as independent, compartmentalized, loves of God.” Often we are tempted to take one aspect of the Love of God and build our whole doctrine upon it, but to truly understand the Love of God, we must look for it in all of Scripture, and then incorporate what we have found to build upon the relationship we desire with Him, and with those that come into our lives. Carson sums up this first chapter with, “Christian faithfulness entails our responsibility to grow in our grasp of what it means to confess that God is love,” which means that it will also grow in our own actions so as to imitate what we can as His servants in this world that lacks His true love. God’s true love in part rests in what we read in John 3:16 16“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (ESV)