Individualism

Today is Friday, November 3, 2017. Day 21,785.

Two more days until Daylight Saving Time ends.

Bob Feller, who was born on this date in 1918 (died 2010), said, “I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.”
BrainyQuote

The word of the day, from Dictionary.com, is ebullient, an adjective, meaning, “overflowing with fervor, enthusiasm, or excitement; high-spirited.” Also, “bubbling up like a boiling liquid.”

Today is Cliche Day. I challenge you to use as many cliches as you can today. Go out there and give it 110%! But don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and don’t count your chickens before the cows come home.

Day two of C’s recovery was good, but mixed. There was a lot of pain, but part of that was because she tried to go too long between pain medication doses. I think she may have learned her lesson about that. A nurse came over and talked with her, and it was determined that she did not need that service on a regular basis. Later, a physical therapist came over, worked with her a little bit, said she was doing great, and that the regular PT visits would begin next Monday. It sounds like C wasn’t even supposed to get released until yesterday, but she was doing so good, they let her out early. We wonder if they say that to everyone.

Not much else to talk about, since baseball is over. I’m heading back to work, this morning, in what has been one of my strangest weeks. It’s always weird, having days off in the middle of the week, but I’m pretty sure that this is the first time in my life that I have ever worked every other day in a full week.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL AND PRAYERS
All Scriptures are from the ESV unless otherwise noted

(From The Divine Hours)

But I call to God, and the LORD will save me.
God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah.
Psalm 55:16, 19
Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest.
Psalm 50:3
For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great. 
Psalm 25:11
Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!
Psalm 109:26
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:17-18
Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!
Psalm 109:26
He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction. 
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 
And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!
Psalm 107:20-22
Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!
Psalm 109:26
O God, come to my assistance!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
The Cry of the Church

(From Practice Resurrection)

(Pages 112-113)

Before Paul can get into the meat of “church,” he has to “guide us through the thorny branches of individualism.”

What is individualism? It is “the growth-stunting, maturity-inhibiting habit of understanding growth as an isolated self-project.” It is “self-ism with a swagger.” This person is one who believes that he can serve God without dealing with God. Or that he can love his neighbors without knowing their names. “This is the person who, having gained competence in knowing God or people or world, uses that knowledge to take charge of God or people or world.”

We take note that God does not take away our individuality when we enter the church. “Church, rather, is where we cultivate a submission to the care and authority of God.”

Here, in America, though, we live in a society that, “compounded with a degraded form of evangelicalism, is the individualism capital of the world.” As long as this individualism has “free rein in our lives, we will not be capable of embracing church.” It can even be fatal, if left unchecked.

Paul has shown us (in the previous chapter of the book, earlier in Ephesians 2) how grace and works are integrated. They cannot be separated, lest they be a “breeding ground for individualism.” In short, we cannot specialize in grace “without being bothered with people,” and we cannot specialize in people “without bothering with God.” And there are plenty of people trying to do both.

But in Jesus, we are shown that there is “no perceptible dissonance between grace and good works.” Jesus’s being and his doing were fused together, as one. And it is in Him that we are “growing up. If we focus on Jesus instead of ourselves, I don’t think it is so difficult to understand.” And that is what we must get used to. We need to be less full of ourselves and more full of Christ.

Father, you are rescuing me from individualism. I praise you for this. It has not been an easy thing for me to let go of. It’s not hard for you, of course, but you have been patient with me, drawing me further and further in to your heart, which has allowed me to gradually release this individualistic way of thinking. I still have far to go, but you are faithful, and will finish what you started.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

Grace and peace, friends.

Sign Away Your Rights

Today is Thursday, November 3, 2016. Five days until Election Day. Seven days until our Glen Rose weekend.

Quote of the Day

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.” – Walt Whitman

That quote reminds me of this song by The Choir.

Word of the Day

Galimatias – confused or unintelligible talk. (Sounds more like a dinosaur, doesn’t it?)

Today is Cliche Day. Celebrating this is easy. Just use lots of cliches. Go out there and give 110%.

The Cubs broke history, last night. The Curse of the Goat is ended. 107 years of World Series drought is over. The Indians’ drought continues to 68 seasons. They are now the team with the longest World Series drought. We watched part of the game, but didn’t stay up for the whole thing. When I went to sleep, the Cubs were up 6-3. Imagine my surprise when I got up at one point in the night and saw that the final score had been 8-7 in ten innings! Now that’s baseball. That’s how a World Series should end! I will always think that the 1975 World Series is the best one, but 2016 will be very close to that.

I get free lunch today. I never mentioned this, but I was named “Employee of the Month” for September. I was out on vacation when that announcement was made. Just my luck, huh? I got back to work and people were congratulating me. So, today, our manager is taking the EotM for August and me out to lunch. We are going to a place called Grubs Burger Bar. The boss really likes it, and we’re both, like, we don’t care . . . it’s free lunch.

So what do we do, now that baseball is over? We stare out the window and wait for spring, as Rogers Hornsby once said.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!Psalm 57:8
As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! Psalm 40:11
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Psalm 57:7
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved. Psalm 55:22

(From Praying With the Psalms)

A Song of Ascents. When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad. Psalm 126:1-3

As the people traveled to Jerusalem, they remembered the great restorations that God brought to them in history. These were acts, miracles of impossibility. The celebrated with laughter, shouts of joy, and hymns.

“I renew the memories of your work, O God, and know that whatever ills or trouble I fall into, there is a way out in Jesus Christ. I celebrate what you did in the past, and I anticipate what you will do in the future. Amen.”

“The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” (Oswald Chambers)

Jesus, I pray for help today, that I might sign away my rights to myself and become your bondservant.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” . . . Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:15, 18)

Grace and peace, friends.

I Don’t Have To Be First

What does it hurt to let someone in front of me?

Today’s word of the day, from the Oxford English Dictionry, is aesthesis, “The perception of the external world by the senses.”

Today is Cliche Day, so everyone go out there and give it all you’ve got; give 110%! And don’t forget to peel back the onion and throw someone under the bus.

We have booked our vacation house for our Galveston trip next April. It’s called “Shore Fun.” I put the link there so you can look at if you so desire. We’re already very excited about this, but, once again, we make plans with the attitude of, “If the Lord says so, too.”

No Huddle for me, tonight, but Christi still has her bowling right after work. She should be home by around 7:00, though, so we will still have a nice evening at home together. I’ll probably watch The Walking Dead while getting something ready for dinner.

Band practice was fun, as usual, and we got a new trombone player last night. And she’s a girl! She’s also very good. I know this because she sat between me and the other first part player, so I could hear her. She’s younger than the rest of us, I think (except for maybe one of the third part players), and hasn’t had a period of time where she didn’t play. I heard very nice, warm tones coming from her trombone, which inspires me to practice between rehearsals. I’m still experiencing some issues from my lengthy hiatus of trombone playing, so I need to practice basic rudiments because I would really like to get back to the level of playing from when I was in college. I know that’s a lot to ask, but we’ll see how it goes.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

(From Daily Guideposts 2015)

Today’s reading begins with 1 Corinthians 6:7, a verse that teaches something that I dare say many of us struggle with. To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?

Daniel Shantz writes of being in line in a barber shop. He had counted eight people in front of him. When his turn came, he got up and began to walk toward a barber’s chair. But he noticed another man moving toward the same chair.

Irritation began to set in. “If this man thinks he is going to jump in ahead of me, he needs to think again.” Then he noticed that the man was close to seven feet tall, about three hundred pounds. Wearing a brown uniform. With handcuffs and a gun. And the word “Sheriff” on his shirt pocket.

“Suddenly, I remembered that math was never my best subject and that there was a distinct possibility I had counted wrong and it was really this man’s turn for a haircut.”

The sheriff proceeded to regale the entire barbershop with tales of inept criminals, and so on. Daniel says that, when the time came, he was actually sorry to see him leave.

Every morning, I face traffic on the way to work, just as many of us do. As we drive, I’m sure we all encounter those people who have to be first, who have to get ahead. We also face others who refuse to let anyone else in front of them, driving mere inches away from the bumper in front of them. I have become firmly convicted that, as God’s people, we need not be either one of those. What does it hurt if someone gets ahead of us? Especially in traffic. As is the case, most of the time, we have no idea what is going on in the lives of all of those other drivers. As children of God, we are meant to display grace. One of the ways that we can display grace is to let others go first. In fact, Paul tells us in one of his writings that we should always consider others to be more important than ourselves. What a difficult concept to display in our culture!!

As Shantz says in today’s reading, “If I am willing to be ‘wronged,’ I might find that God has something better for me than mere justice.”

Father, keep teaching me that it is better to consider others as more important than myself. Keep teaching me that it’s okay to let others go first. I don’t need to be first, I don’t need to be most important. Rather, I need to do whatever it is that you have created me to do, the most important thing being to praise and honor your name, love others as Christ loved me, and share your Kingdom to a dark world.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Grace and peace, friends.