Meet My Friend

I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine.
She's actually quite close to my family and me.
She lives a little drive away, but comes over often because she is my brother's bestest friend.

She loves to cook and be goofy.
She loves to swim and play her piano.
She loves to take pictures and wear feathers in her hair.

But most of all she loves Jesus.
She loves Jesus with her whole heart.

Her name is Emily Joy.
And her name is quite appropriate.

Here is her blog.
Read it.
I can't explain everything that's going on in her life, because it's a ton.
Just imagine horrible pain throughout your body and hundreds of medical tests resulting in a prescription in a radical change of lifestyle and habits.
The LORD has called her worthy to go through this and I am honored to know such a woman so willing to obey His command.

Emily's Blog: Because You Shine

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Dear Emmi,

I thank God whom I serve as I remember you in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother and your mother and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame...the gift of God, which is in you, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. You count it all joy, my sister, when you fall into various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let that steadfastness have its full effect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Blessed is the daughter of Christ who remains steadfast under trial, for when she has stood the test, she will receive that crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him.

Blue Like Jazz Round 2

So I sat down for a second time to read the book “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. As I have stated before in my other ‘recollections’ of his writings, I’m not wholly on-board with his theology, but he does give good viewpoints and nuggets worth pondering.
This second time I read a few chapters. They were longer than the others, but had a good story line throughout.
They talked about his experience going to one of the most ‘god-less’ schools in America and how refreshing it was. He talked about meeting people, talking to them, and engaging them in intellectual conversation. He told a few stories, then climaxed with the redemption of a good friend who had turned her back on God. It was a beautiful piece of the book and probably one of the sections I would agree with most.
Miller especially hit on the problem of Christians today who sit in their perfect Christian bubble and don’t live their life among real, thinking people. Christians have stopped thinking and smart people view them as ignorant because they have no apologetic.
It was hard to find specific quotes from the section that stood out to me because you must read it as a whole and that is too much for me to type tonight (and possibly illegal ). But at the end of my section, I found this portion to hit me. Might not hit you in the same way as I, but it certainly has caused me to think about what I love and what I do.

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“And that’s the tricky thing about life, really, that the things we want most will kill us. Tony the Beat Poet read me this ancient scripture recently that talked about loving either darkness or loving light, and how hard it is to love light and how easy it is to love darkness. I think that is true. Ultimately, we do what we love to do. I like to think that I do things for the right reasons, but I don’t, I do things because I do or don’t love doing them. Because of sin, because I am self-addicted, living in the wreckage of the fall, my body, my heart, and my affections are prone to love things that kill me. Tony says Jesus gives us the ability to love the things we should love, the things of Heaven. Tony says that when people who follow Jesus love the right things, they help create God’s kingdom on earth, and that is something beautiful.

“I found myself trying to love the right things without God’s help, and it was impossible. I tried to go one week without thinking a negative thought about another human being, and I couldn’t do it. Before I tried that experiment, I thought I was a nice person, but after trying it, I realized I thought bad things about people all day long, and that, like Tony says, my natural desire was to love darkness.

“My answer to this dilemma was self-discipline. I figured I could just make myself do good things, think good thoughts about other people, but that was no easier than walking up to a complete stranger and falling in love with them. I could go through the motions for a while, but sooner or later my heart would testify to its true love: darkness. Then I would get up and try again. The cycle was dehumanizing.”

(page 77)

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(Sounded to me like Benjamin Franklin’s endeavors.)

Blue Like Jazz Round 1

Some quotes that intrigued me in my first sitting of a “Blue Like Jazz” reading.
The book was written by Donald Miller.
I just finished his “sequel” to this book called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” and you can read my review of it here.
I’m not completely on board with his theology per se, but I connect with his writing style and the fact that he looks at the world through a right-brained perspective as I personally do.

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“Some people skip through life; some people are dragged through it…

I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”

(page 13)

“If you don’t love somebody, it bets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve. I didn’t love God because I didn’t know God.”

(page 14)

“It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn’t make us good people; it only makes us subdued. Just think about the Congress and Senate and even the president. The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else. It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.”

(page 18)

“I think the devil has tricked us into thinking so much of biblical theology is story fit for kids. How did we come to think the story of Noah’s ark is appropriate for children? Can you imagine a children’s book about Noah’s ark complete with paintings of people gasping in gallons of water, mothers grasping their children while their bodies go flying down white-rapid rivers, the children’s tiny heads being bashed against rocks or hung up in fallen trees? I don’t think a children’s book like that would sell many copies.

I couldn’t give myself to Christianity because it was a religion for the intellectually naive. In order to believe Christianity, you either had to reduce enormous theological absurdities into children’s stories or ignore them. The entire thing seemed very difficult for my intellect to embrace.”

(pages 30 & 31)