The painted wall was old with an open knot hole letting those passing by peek through should any care, but in this mundane setting no one bothered. All that was on the other side was the mystery of another family’s sense of home.
Was it Bert’s family where bankruptcy and divorce left the remaining member, Bert, wondering how to get even, wondering why, wondering and then resting from wondering? Was it Clara’s family whose husband was buried last month wondering when it would be her turn and wondering how she would be able to get by on her own until then?
Was it Bill’s family where Bill suggested repentance and reconciliation for Bert as Bill’s wife stopped by to see Clara to let her know she was not alone? Was it some other family of lovers and beloved perhaps even your own?
Denise offers the word “mundane” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Eugenia offers “lovers” as the theme for her prompt this week.
Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian slave, was the one who told us our God is the God who sees (Genesis 16). That may not seem like much, but the blind idols we construct to imitate God have no interest in us.
Those who think they can get by on their own might prefer blind gods, but it doesn’t matter what any of us prefer. All we have, given our experiences of bliss or despair in this wonderful universe, is whether we will choose to serve God or not. Those who are blessed to realize that they can’t get by on their own yearn for Him with repentance, praise and thanksgiving.
God sees you. God sees me. God sees.
I am grateful to Kathie Lee Gifford and Nicole C. Mullen whose oratorio The God Who Sees presented Hagar and to revivedwriter whose poemCall Me Hagar brought Hagar to mind.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Vayachel 25 Adar, 5782 – February 26, 2022 Torah:Exodus 35:1-38:20 Haftarah:Kings II 11:17 – 12:17 Brit Chadashah:2 Corinthians 9:6-11; 3:7-18 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Niko had not one but six godmothers carefully selected by his father and mother. He had just as many godfathers, too, because those godmothers were all happily married even though their marriages might have suffered through times when the husband, the wife, or usually both, were a bit rambunctious.
Being an infant Niko didn’t remember the oil anointing at his dedication, but now with the battles raging about them he gave thanks for all of his extended family who faithfully showed him by their examples the narrow path all those years. As the men and women who stood by him fell he remained fearless. He prayed that all would find their way home.
When Niko himself found his way home his mother and all those godmothers along with his father and all those godfathers rushed to welcome him laughing and singing like joyfully rambunctious children eagerly showing him by their example the dance of praise before the Lord.
Denise offers the word “rambunctious” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
I sometimes forget the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian rebirth since many of the fruits of the Spirit I can fake for a short while with my own efforts. Trusting too much in my own efforts leads me to doubt that there even is a Holy Spirit.
Joy is a fruit that is difficult to fake. True, I can smile when events or emotions challenge me, but people looking closely see through it.
What this tells me is there is more going on to make joy possible than my own efforts. Although I might be tempted to refuse to participate in the working of the Holy Spirit, the more I let the Holy Spirit work in me the less I am persuaded to work against Him.
And yet there are many times when circumstances seem overwhelming. Imagine the despair the Israelites felt trapped between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army. And yet God was there for them. Or, imagine what Hagar felt in the desert before God spoke to her. But then He spoke.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Ki Tisa 18 Adar, 5782 – February 19, 2022 Torah:Exodus 30:11-34:35 Haftarah:Kings I 18:20-39 Brit Chadashah:2 Corinthians 3:1-18 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
The kind of evolution being questioned is biological evolution, not the alleged evolution of solar systems or galaxies, although I don’t think that kind of evolution is possible either. The universe is winding down through entropy. It is not evolving into something more complicated than what we see around us.
Biological evolution is also not the differentiation of a specific kind of animal into new breeds or sub-species. That comes about routinely with either artificial or natural selection. However, no new kind of animal can be formed by this selection process alone.
Biological evolution is a way to go from something simple to something complicated without involving the free will of any agent such as God. The whole point of biological evolution is to do away with God as an explanation.
Since God is not involved, evolution will need some mechanism by which change can take place making a transition from slime mold to ourselves plausible. The current mechanism offered is random mutations. Given mutations over long periods of time DNA is supposedly changed so slime mold can turn into a chicken or maybe a dinosaur and the dinosaur can turn into an ape and the ape can become a human being.
However, it has become apparent that mutations aren’t enough to make that happen.
The reason mutations won’t work is because they are generally deleterious. Rarely do they benefit the species undergoing them. That is why our bodies try to correct them, but they do not always succeed. We pass on some of these mistakes to our children who pass them on to their children with additional mutations. A mutational load builds up generation after generation.
This increasing mutational load is what John Sanford calls genetic entropy. Natural selection cannot stop it. The end result of genetic entropy is not some superior creature, but mutational meltdown. That’s when a species is no longer able to reproduce. It goes extinct.
So, unless there is some mechanism for biological evolution to occur besides mutations to supplement natural selection, biological evolution is not possible. Genetic entropy prevents it.
That’s why I celebrate Question Evolution Day.
Admittedly the extinction part is depressing. However, God said that He not only created a very good world with us in it, but in response to the fall of Adam and Eve, He offered us His Son whose sacrifice almost two thousand years ago would allow for a new heaven and a new earth. Given genetic entropy, we are going to need it.
Timothy was driving to a closing angry at the “idiot” going only 85 miles per hour in the fast lane. To pass the time he was wasting he went through a list of people he felt needed a piece of his mind giving the windshield a spirited round of abuse he wished those on the list could hear.
In particular he scolded his sister who kept bugging him about “repentance” and “redemption”. When she told him the second coming would be here any day now he reminded her that she told him that very same thing forty years ago and so far nothing, nothing’s happened.
Frustrated with the driver in front of him Timothy jerked his car from the fast lane into the middle lane just as another driver from the opposite side of the expressway accelerated without looking into the middle lane aiming for rapid deliverance in the fast lane. Neither knew what hit them as the traffic unfortunate enough to be following collided or braked to a stop.
We pray for God’s intervention in our lives, then congratulate ourselves rather than God for the results.
Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness, (page 101)
We pray to God for something to happen. It happens. However, since it is always possible to concoct some explanation for what happened that does not involve God, we forget about thanking Him. Do we think He wasn’t listening? Do we think He wasn’t involved in that event? If we do, why did we even bother praying?
Bridges adds, “Thanksgiving is a normal result of a vital union with Christ, and a direct measure of the extent to which we are experiencing the reality of that union in our lives.” (page 103)
If we are not thankful after something we explicitly prayed for, and we take Bridges seriously, does that mean we may not have a vital union with Christ?
Earlier I had no idea what to write for this post. I prayed. Afterwards much of what’s in this post came to mind as well as suggestions for revisions.
Now, finishing the post, I do not want to be thanking some sentimental imitation, some Greek muse, some forest faerie, some earth mother goddess, some pan-psychic cosmic consciousness for what happened. I hope none of them were involved. To the extent any were, I apologize for the results.
I prayed to God, Adonai, specifically, to Yehovah (the Father) through Yeshua (the Son, Jesus,) in Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) (Ephesians 2:18). I thank God over and over again with joy.
Even if nothing had come to mind for this post, and none of it did in the ways I expected it would, I would still thank God, because I prayed, grateful that I can pray, accepting responsibility for any mistakes I made.
Gerald deciphered the script covering the small tablet. The scribe who wrote it did not anticipate that he would have a reader four thousand years in the future. Indeed, given the evils of the conquering lord whose forces had killed almost everyone in his own house, all the scribe hoped for was the world’s imminent end.
At that end, when the real Lord appeared, every tear would be wiped away as praise and thanksgiving joined in an eternal caress. The scribe prayed for mercy, or so Gerald imagined reading now between the lines of the tightly written tablet.
In the meanwhile the currently reigning lord of calamity was busy devouring the land with no time to waste on mercy.
Denise offers the word “scribe” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. And Eugenia offers the word “caress” for her prompt this week.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
The opposite of trusting in the Lord and listening for the Shepherd’s voice is autonomy. Autonomy is trusting in my own understanding and goodness. The delusion that I am doing something good is what drives me down the road to hell powered by those good intentions.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Great Divorce, a tale of deluded shades who preferred hell to heaven, either we say to God, “Thy will be done,” or God says that right back to us.
The following video from Answers in Genesis Canada shows how human autonomy pervades our culture, and perhaps even our own personal worldviews, in rejecting the Lord by following our own understanding justified by a belief in our own goodness.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Terumah 4 Adar, 5782 – February 5, 2022 Torah:Exodus 25:1-27:19 Haftarah:I Kings 5:26-6:13 Brit Chadashah:2 Corinthians 9:1-15; Matthew 5:33-37 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Sunrise with clouds, boat, water, sun and departing darkness
George loved to stir-fry Steve’s faults. Every now and then he force-fed Steve a taste. Steve himself had a kettle of righteousness in which he boiled every embarrassing detail he could recall or invent from George’s past.
Although this provided some satisfaction for these two friends, it never satisfied them long enough to stop.
Since so far nothing major happened neither expected anything to wear down as a result of their mischief. When it did both knew the other side needed to apologize though neither knew how they could bring themselves to forgive should that happen.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 