Gleanings of Wheat

I just finished reading through Helen Roseveare's " Enough " (very brief book, easy to read, encouraging) and as I read chapter 6 it occurred to me how shallow my trust is. Even though I know God is huge, and powerful, and endlesslessly merciful, somehow I still manage to have this poor view of God's sufficiency for me in Christ. As I read the chapter (really the whole book, but it clicked particularly in this chapter) I realized that when I hear the word "enough" I think of it as something like "skimping through, enough to get by...but barely" rather than what Ephesians 3:20 says: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think , according to the power at work within us, Immeasurably more than I could ever imagine. Enough. That's what Christ is for me. He Giveth More Grace He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength as our labors increase; To added afflictions He addeth...

This was my reading from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening devotional today. So encouraging! Morning “Faultless before the presence of his glory.” (Jud1:24) Revolve in your mind that wondrous word, “faultless!” We are far off from it now; but as our Lord never stops short of perfection in his work of love, we shall reach it one day. The Saviour who will keep his people to the end, will also present them at last to himself, as “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.” All the jewels in the Saviour’s crown are of the first water and without a single flaw. All the maids of honour who attend the Lamb’s wife are pure virgins without spot or stain. But how will Jesus make us faultless? He will wash us from our sins in his own blood until we are white and fair as God’s purest angel; and we shall be clothed in his righteousness, that righteousness which makes the saint who wears it positively faultless; yea, perfect in the sight of...

I've been in the midst of a trial for some time now - I think in large part to the fact that I just don't learn. Though God has provided in huge ways yet I am prone to worry, I am still prone to try and control situations on my own...at the bottom of it I'm still prone to unbelief, to distrust. It is easy for me to be discouraged by this, but I'm also aware of the fact that I've grown (by the grace of God) a lot in the past few years. I know I'm more aware of my sin, I see it better than I used to, and that gives me great hope because I know that I would not see it if it were not for Him...I see these things because He loves me. It is my hope to fight my flesh, to see these trials as tender mercies from His hand, to grow more deeply in love with Him. I've been reading a lot of Spurgeon lately; I've always loved what I've read by him, but it seems like my reading plan has me going through a lot of things dealing with trials. I thought I'd share ...

A friend of mine mentioned that she bakes her oatmeal to me a week or two ago...craziest thing I've ever heard! Turns out it is really good! I made some today for the kiddies, here's the recipe I used. 3 cups rolled oats 1 cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 2 eggs 1/2 cup melted butter 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3/4 cup dried cranberries Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in dried cranberries. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes.

I'm cheating today and going to work through chapter 9 and the epilogue of Tim Challies' book,  The Next Story . Chapter 9 deals with the subjects of privacy and visibility. Digital Footprints It is commonly known that everything you do on your computer will typically leave traces behind. Between cookies and caches and system event logs one can glean a lot of information about a person's computer usage. This is often why people addicted to online pornography are so habitual about clearing their browser history, they try to remove traces of their addiction - of their sin. But even if you successfully clear all evidences of your browsing history and computer usage from your computer, are you aware that those evidences are often likely still out there? Every time I search for something on Google that search is logged into a database. Somewhere out there, perhaps in multiple backups, there is info about my search history. Tim points out, quite rightly, that on some...

I know I'm running behind schedule with these posts on The Next Story , but this time the delay was Blogger's fault. Anyway, this chapter deals with authority and truth - specifically how the technologies that exist are reshaping the way we define truth and downplaying the importance of authority. Truth according to Wikipedia Wikipedia is huge, with over 15 million articles (3 million of them in English) to say that there is a wide variety of information available - for free - is the understatement of the year. One of the amazing things about Wikipedia is the fact that anyone can update an article. If my son knew about it he'd likely be on there reading everything that has to do with Star Wars and could probably fix a few errors he might find. This is great news in that an article can quickly be fixed if something false is found in it; no need to wait until the next edition like magazines, newspapers, or an encyclopedia. The downside? Not everything that gets publis...

In chapter 7 of The Next Story Tim addresses the idea of "more is better" in regards to information and argues that "[amid] all of our information, we have little time for wisdom" (pg 139). The question is - what is wisdom? My church is currently going through a bible study on the book of Proverbs in our small groups and a couple weeks ago we defined wisdom as "rightly applying the truths of God to our lives," in other words, wisdom is walking out what we know is true. Wisdom in action is James 2:17 personified. But how do we gain wisdom? Our starting point as Christians must be God. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10) But what of the world? What of the technologies and trends permeating our culture? Is there a desire for wisdom or merely for the collection of data, of the sorting of that data into information? Tim notes a trend present, that we hear little of the application...