So I’ve moved from “occupied” to “occupation”. It’s back to the classroom, and then to the tutoring floor. Long days have halted my chance to write. I hope to have the opportunity to write more soon.

My mind now is a room filled with thoughts rather than furniture. And the thoughts have been those about writing; about improving writing. I have visited The Rabbit Room website, and becoming a better writer is a contagious topic there.

I enjoy writing. I suppose it is my hobby; if I have one. I hope to improve .

He was not budget-minded when He determined to save us; He sat not on His throne in Heaven saying, “I would like to save these poor, wretched creatures from their sin so they can go free, and start over with things”; His heart was poised rather to save us and bring us into His family. Can it be fathomed? The object of our disdain; the One we avoided at every turn in our lives before we knew just how He loved us; the One of whom we said in our hearts, “I will not have this Man to reign over me”: this same One devised a plan that was laced and woven with love for us from start to finish. He crafted, like a composer, a glorious symphony, that when played out, would set such tones aloft; such lilting melodies, with the intricate design of a master musician; that we would find ourselves blushing at the thought of being the subject of such labor: we, the ones whose rebellion led His lovely Son to breathe His last on the accursed tree at Calvary. This love so foreign to us would well up within the heart of the Father to the extent that He would desire to call us sons!

The thought of “God’s extravagance” has been bubbling under the surface for me in the last month or so. We were watching a nature show, when the host, while walking through a remote place in a desert region, spotted a singular pink flower a few feet above eye level. His comment was to the effect that the flower showed “God’s extravagance”, in that there are likely millions of flowers positioned in far-away places; far from the eye-sight of any human. And his comment was only in regard to a flower. What of unknown (to us) plant and animal species; or the depths of the ocean that veil discoveries; or the vastness of the cosmos: the impenetrable depths of that which is “out past the edges”?

Initially, my thoughts centered upon His extravagance in creation; then another thought occurred to me: what if we look at this flower, and the other lavishness that we see around us, as fingerprints? What if this One, who gives us all things richly to enjoy, is at work in our lives daily, and we are simply too busy or bothered or indifferent, to notice, or appreciate, this love that would embrace us; envelope us; point us God-ward every moment? Perhaps we would profit and He would be honored more in our lives if we would allow our spiritual antennae to be more active. I know He would help us if we asked.

It was one of those interesting moments well-known to parents of young children. We were sitting at Chili’s tonight, waiting for our food to be brought out. We were there in celebration of my bride’s 38th birthday. She received a gift certificate, so we decided to go and enjoy a dinner with the whole family. So as were waiting, my son spotted a sign in the distance that displayed in large letters, “Happy Hour!”. This brought great excitement to him, but not for the same reason that those words bring delight to those who indulge in that kind of drink. His frame of reference comes from Sonic’s happy hour. And all of us at the table knew what he meant. But I’m not sure if the people at the table adjacent to us quite understood why an eight-year-old would get so excited about Happy Hour. I’m thankful that Grace was quick to point out the difference between the two types of happy hours.

The amusing mix-up of terms took my mind to eternity future, when God’s children would revel in arguably the happiest hour of all. This world has nothing on God’s Happy Hour. You think dollar drinks do the trick? Just wait until you drink deeply from the well of salvation; when you realize that eternal life is “on the house”; that our great salvation has been paid for in blood not our own.

Yes, saints, there is a day coming that will cause us to fall at the feet of the One who is worthy. The One whose final gasps of air were not consumed for the purpose of spewing out hatred at His murderers. Nor were they utilized as a request for help. In fact, those last painful moments contained the sweetest words for a sinner’s ear. They were, “Father, forgive them…”.

So the Happy Hour we hope for is coming. It may even happen before you finish reading this post. As a brother once said, it may be that you “put your right foot onto Main Street, and your left foot into glory”. In the twinkling of an eye, brothers and sisters, God’s happy hour is coming.

One bright hour, He will come for me

One bright hour, He’ll set the captive free

And one bright hour, He will wipe the tears away

From eyes that now can see

One bright hour

Bebo Norman

Happy, happy birthday to my lovely bride. I hope your day is wonderful! I’m sorry I asked if you were ready to be “39″. Didn’t mean to rush you. Lord bless your day!

The power of God creation shows,

His wisdom Nature doth disclose,

But by the Atonement He has shown

His love, which else had been unknown.

When chaos reigned in ceaseless night

His voice was heard: “Let there be light!”

And light without sun, moon, or star,

Outshone and chased the darkness far!

His hand with beauty decked the scene

Which void and shapeless erst had been!

He breathed on Adam’s cold, clay frame,

And man a living soul became!

Was power exhausted as He stood

And, viewing all, pronounced it good?

Or was His wisdom at an end

When Nature’s laws He made to blend,

And caused the worlds through pathless space

Harmoniously to run their race?

And, though in these in vast degree

His wisdom and His power we see,

They are but glimmers, faint and dim -

All power and wisdom are in Him -

But more His love could not have done

Than yielded up His only Son.

William Blane – from The Atonement

I was speaking with a brother at the chapel today, and we began a discussion about the uniqueness of Christianity. Specifically, the conversation centered upon God’s power in comparison with His love. In our limited view of the world, we talked about how it seems that people of other faiths may reject the message of the Gospel due to a certain misunderstanding: that God somehow conceded to diminish His power when He displayed His love.

To put it in further terms, it seems that many in the world are of the opinion that the Gospel message of God allowing His Son to die on the cross for the sins of the world necessitates that any thinking person should reject the message on the following grounds: God cannot be God if He would allow His own Son to be subjected to such abuse. The suggestion of weakness on God’s part seems to create a problem in the minds of those who doubt the Gospel’s credibility.

Fascination with absolute power may be the culprit here. Maybe our minds have difficulty reconciling the existence of power and love in one person. We ordinarily characterize people by either their strength or by their tenderness, but not a combination of the two. Our three-pound brains try to recompute when we are faced with the possibility that God holds absolute power, and that He is Love itself. “How do these two fit in the same person?” we ask.

So, we conclude that some folks struggle with the thoughts mentioned above. The poem at the head of the post presents a beautiful thought that is worth considering. I am in awe of this thought that His wisdom and power were not exhausted by the creation; that He created all according to His ability, and not out of His ability. We cannot view God as one who has all His power stored in a bank of some sort, and that when He has need of it, He must make a withdrawal; nor should we assume that each withdrawal reduces His power. He is eternally omnipotent!

His Love is contrasted with His power in this way: although He could endlessly display His power to us in a myriad of ways, His love shown to us at the cross is the grand pinnacle of all pinnacles. There is no higher expression of love than what we see in this Man left alone to die for our sins. There is nothing more for God to say on the matter. He pulled out all the stops, so to speak.

May God bless you as you consider the One who loved you to death.

I read a blog post today that encouraged me to continue to write. The gist of the post is the same as I have learned as a teacher, and the same that I tell parents of students, and the students themselves, who struggle in whatever particular area of academia in which they are currently struggling. Side note please…isn’t it amazing what can be done with words? Back to the gist. The writer talks about how that we can become expert at “whatever” after we have practiced it for ten thousand hours. This particular post that I read focused on writing, and it encouraged me to continue doing that which I love – writing. Though I have never logged my hours as a writer (and probably won’t), I take away from the post just this – keep writing and you will become a better writer. And I believe this to be true. And I plan to do this. It helps that writing is an enjoyable activity for me. Writing can convey the beauty of a sunset or a waterfall. It can teach someone how to disassemble a lawn mower (or how to judge whether or not one should proceed to cut a lawn with really tall grass blades). For me, writing is what helps me materialize my thinking. Countless times I have set to writing, and found my thoughts just coming together, as if they were flowing through my fingers onto the page (or the screen). It’s truly a privilege to experience this. Anyway, I say thanks to the author of the post to which I have linked above.

What you are seeing in the picture above is three blades of St. Augustine grass which I plucked from a yard I mowed today. I retrieved it for proof. Proof that the grass I mowed was, in fact, 18 inches long! A foot and a half! This was probably not the most enjoyable yard to mow. Probably goes without saying, but I said it anyway.

One little note…accolades for my precious wife – when I brought the blade home and asked my family to guess how long it was, my bride said, “Probably about a foot and a half”. She’s a great estimator!

Another little note…one should charge a little bit extra when mowing a yard like the one I mowed today.

As we come nearer to the day that our next-door-neighbor will move to the Great Northwest, I make some mental cogitations about ways in which I will miss his presence. I enjoy his humor, and his understanding of technology, and generally just spending some time with him.

For the sake of specificity, I will write about a quirky thing that he is performing while I type. We are in the middle of a rare July thunderstorm – wind blowing, lightning flashing, rain falling, lawn-mowing. “Lawn-mowing?” you ask? You read it correctly. Kane is currently mowing his lawn while 2/3 of the world’s electric current rests about a mile above our general vicinity…just perched up there and ready to strike any foolish enough to challenge its authority.

This kind of thing will be missed. The unconventional approach to life that makes us giggle.

When Kane saw me gawking at this spectacle, he stopped the mower, and motioned with his hands as if to say, “What’s the problem?” My response was, “Don’t you want to make it to Portland? You’re gonna die right there!”.

Kane’s response was very Kane-esque. He said, “It’s [the lightning] afraid of me!”. Again, his humor will be missed.

About six months ago, my son Benjamin began wearing braces. He recently had them removed, and is now wearing a retainer only at night. He is faithful about cleaning it in the evening just before bed, and it seems like every night (I’m exaggerating) he says, “This thing smells horrible! You wanna smell it?” I know he has asked me this question at least three times in the past month. Every time he has made this unique offer, I have declined. Call me crazy. Tonight, after he repeated his favorite question, and after I repeated my consistent answer in the negative, I decided I would punctuate my answer with a new twist. I said, “No.” (Pause for effect, and for time to tabulate how many times he has asked the question) Then I said, “I am pretty sure my answer will always be ‘no’.” I wonder if that will sink in…