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Archive for February, 2019

Struggling In How to Proceed

Posted in Experience, Faith, General, Guidance, Poems, Problems, Questioning, Struggling, tagged , , , , on February 28, 2019| 1 Comment »

With what are you struggling? Struggling with temptation is a matter of replacing it with something good and godly. I find that Romans 6:11 helps me to focus in times of temptation. Philippians 4:8 helps it to be less of a problem in the first place and less burdensome when happening. But what if the struggle is not a temptation but concerning a desire that you have thought to be a godly ambition? You pursue it, but thus far, to no avail. Patience and acquiescence to God’s will are certainly needed, but as platitudes they do not answer questions about how to proceed. So, here is how I am struggling:

My senses all say no
As do comments and circumstances
Whence comes this great desire
When all else says there are thin chances

To prayer I did devote
This ambition of which I now speak
Much counsel, plans I wrote
And God’s will in this matter I seek

How do I now proceed?
Exercise patience and longer wait?
More scrutiny it need?
Oh my mind and emotional state?

Is it time to give up?
To admit it was not in God’s will?
Accept this empty cup
As good providence rather than ill?

This I know above all
God is good and His will is the best
May stumble but not fall
Be bewildered but finally blest

I will continue on
Trusting God and in His guidance rest
Listening I will hone
Find His direction and pass the test

 

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Density

Posted in General, Learning, Poems, Science, Understanding, Weather and Climate, tagged , , , , , on February 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

In my years of teaching Earth Science, I have discovered that one concept seems to tie more physical phenomena together than any other. Frequently it is the cause of what is observed and often it is the connecting thread between interactions of matter and energy. So I thought to give a few examples of why it is so often the correct answer to questions in Earth Science:

Earth Science is all about density
What will go up and what will come down
That convective cell propensity

Uneven heating of the atmosphere
Solar gain and wind and pressure change
Forced aloft forms clouds, sinking air clear

Heat, salt, and wind stir up the oceans
Many upwellings from the great deep
Gyres and thermohalocline motions

Far below the roots of the mountains
Plates form rifts, volcanoes, and trenches
Float on plastic and magma fountains

In the stars war gravity and fusion
Caldera of rarified plasma
Spots and flares in boiling confusion

Thus mass divided by volume seen
In many small and grandiose ways
And from its study much knowledge glean

 

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My Writing

Posted in General, God Thoughts, Learning, Thanksgiving, Truth, Wisdom, tagged , , , , , , , on February 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »

My pastor asked me if I would share about my writing and how it has benefited me spiritually. I have been writing for many years by many means. I have journaled with pen to paper and fingers to keyboard in order to capture my thoughts. I have written newspaper articles and research papers supporting God’s view of Creation and salvation. I have written poetry and songs and short stories about struggles and joys of everyday life. I have written about family, friends, and colleagues. I have designed diagrams to explain ideas. Writing has been a long-term blessing in my life.

But why writing? Speaking to friends is easy. It’s real time, interactive, and engaging. You clarify and correct as you go. Facial expressions and voice intonations make understanding easier. Writing is harder. It has to make sense without the opportunity to correct misunderstandings. Writing speaks long after you are gone, for posterity or ridicule. Therefore, writing forces the writer to be more careful with words.

Why do I write? I write to focus, organize, and deepen my thoughts. I write in order to understand better and to make myself better understood by others. I write to hone arguments for truth and simplify complex ideas. I write to remember what I thought when God imparted understanding and wisdom to me. I write to quiet fretful, fearful, and frantic thoughts, to put my mind at rest by musing on truth. I write to plead with God, praise God, and thank God.

Psalm 139: 17-18a says, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.” His thoughts are indeed precious and numerous. The more I consider His thoughts, His works, His beauty, and His person as seen in Scripture, in Creation, and in my experience of Him, the more I realize the truth of Johannes Kepler’s words: “I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.” So, I write to record and mull over observations I have made of God and His work in His Word, the world, and my life.

Writing may help you to think more biblically, more deeply, and more clearly. I would urge you to give it a try. If writing seems distasteful to you, it may be because it is difficult for you to do. I don’t claim to be a very good writer, but I have considered what has caused me to improve. Following are my tips for writing. (“P” is such a handy letter for the the tautograms and alliterations of poets and preachers. I went a little wild.)

1) Practice. Focused attempts to write will bring improvement.

2) Write with a purpose. Writing simply to record information is useful, but there are better reasons to write. Tell a story. Organize thinking. Simplify complex concepts with new analogies. Pursue your interests.

3) Pretend you have an audience. This procedure forces you to make yourself understood and tends to induce you to put more effort into delivery.

4) Be precise. Choose words and turns of phrase that convey what you intend. It takes effort.

5) Prune your writing. Concise thought is more organized, better understood, and better remembered.

6) Proof-read your writing several times and have others proof-read it. Make at least one pass for grammar and spelling, one pass for clarity, and one pass for readability.

7) Make your writing personal. Even if you are explaining difficult theological or scientific concepts, tell how it matters to you, why you want to know, what prompted your search, and how it will effect you.

8) Give praise to God for His providence in pleasant and problematic circumstances so that His goodness and power will be seen as active in the present as it was in the past.

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Why Me?

Posted in Experience, General, God Thoughts, Hurry, Learning, Problems, Questioning, Sustaining, Wisdom, tagged , , , , on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Why Me? There are generally two ways to answer that question.

Why me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong?

         Or…

Why me? What is God trying to teach me? How is He using these circumstances to guide me?

On a very pleasant, sunny afternoon my wife and I were preparing to go for a walk on our local Greenway. We were talking and enjoying conversation and she was understanding well. You see, she is a stroke victim and most days communication is poor and ponderous. We went to the car, talking away as we went. I distinctly remember enjoying the moment.

I pulled out of the driveway, looking both ways. In my blind spot a car had pulled up on the opposite curb. I looked in my rear side mirror and reacted just soon enough to dent his passenger door no more than about four inches. Two inches less and a toilet plunger would have fixed the problem, but the main beam was damaged and irrepairable. It was an expensive mistake.

Now two months later I was at the body shop paying for the repair. I had planned other business nearby. When I came out of the shop, my truck would not start. After a half hour cleaning the battery cable, I was underway, too late to do the other business I thought so important.

Why had all of this happened? Why was I prevented and redirected? What chain of events is God orchestrating for His glory and my benefit through these less than pleasant events?

I may never know, but I do know that the Scripture says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) I lived a good portion of my life frustrated by annoying sidetracks and roadblocks, but I have come to understand what the Psalmist means when he says, “It is vain to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” (Psalm 127:2) I want to end my days trusting God, as the Psalmist says, “The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble; and those who know Your name will put their trust in You. For You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.” (Psalm 9:9-10)

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At Long Last

Posted in General, God Thoughts, Grace, Piety, Poems, Struggling, Work of Jesus, tagged , , , , , on February 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

On the drive to church this morning,
I wrote the first verse of the following poem.
Hands free communication (as with a cellphone) disallowed me
to write it down, so the beginning of the second verse was lost
to me before I could write it down. But the direction in which
I was thinking remained for the rest of the poem to come this afternoon. God’s grace and goodness are so great, especially in contrast to our inability to comply to His commands and wishes.

So much wickedness in my heart
Made in God’s image, tarnished art
Frequent failings, falling away
To often straying from the way

Desire to follow ever grows
Distracted by pleasures and woes
Many small failings of the heart
Who will give me a brand new start?

Jesus only, beginning, end
Power to enable, transcend
All my failings and weakness
Distracted thoughts and selfishness

All by grace He has given me
From Him any good that you see
This fragile glass His strengths reveal
Demonstrates His goodness is real

One day my faulty service gone
Perfect obedience will dawn
In good time I will be steadfast
Then I will see God at long last

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Useful Tool

Posted in Blessing, Experience, General, Photo, Pick-up Trucks, Thanksgiving, Vehicles, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Man is a tool making animal (I only say in jest, since he is made in God’s image, and animal only by way of bodily similarity.). For repetitive, dangerous, or difficult jobs there is nothing like the right tool. I have been blessed with the use of many good tools and frustrated by the use of many inadequate and wrongly purposed tools. One item that I own and use that many people would not readily see as tool is my car. My 2007 Hyundai Elantra is not fancy, but it is nice, functional, easy and fun to drive, and dependable. It reached a milestone a few nights ago appropriately at the end of a trip over the mountains that we take frequently. In fact, we have probably taken this trip for more miles on this car than all the rest put together. Check out what happened.

Odo200K

Coming of Age.

I hope this tool will function without major repair for another 50,000 miles. But how do you know when to trade it in? Will it go 500 more miles without major repairs needing to be done, or 5000, or 50,000? The engine runs very well and blows by no more oil than it did 100,000 miles ago. The front end will need reworked soon, but how soon? The clutch shows wear but no sense is it near an end.

I have had a tendency to drive vehicles until someone has to tow them to a junkyard (It has happened at least 4 times.) Is that frugality or poor timing? One was catastrophic engine failure that could not have reasonably been foreseen, but others were death by degrees and dollars. For all of the roadside or shade tree repairs I have had a number of dependable and useful vehicles. I don’t say cars, because pick-up trucks figured among 4 of the vehicles, along with 8 cars, that God has provided over my 41 years of owning vehicles.

I married into one, bought two from family and two from friends, and one was gifted new from my father. I had one repainted, which I also replaced the the differential for a higher torque, lower gear, 1 1/2 ton version. One I replaced the bed (or box, and the Canadian’s called it) with a wooden bed that carried twice as much firewood. On one I had the transmission rebuilt, another I helped a mechanic rebuild the transmission in his personal shop, and another I junked because rebuilding transmissions was expensive and odious to me by then.

I hauled children, luggage, firewood, gravel, trash, and trailers with cars, dirt, brush, wood, more trash, etc. I’ve hauled pianos, an enlarging camera, furniture, building materials of amazing variety, hay and straw, manure, for recycling household and oil products. I shouldn’t have started that list because I can’t finish it and it is already too long to be of any interest to anyone.

My experiences, needs, and personality drive me to prefer pick-up trucks and small cars with clutches. I don’t like the inside of my vehicles to be trashy or dirty nor the outside particularly ugly, but necessity above presentation and function above beauty.

All in all, I have been blessed by God with many useful tools of transportation for which I am thankful. In moments of repair frustration or roadside delay, I have not been emotionally up to this thanksgiving, but I know it is true. 200K on the newest one was an apt reminder of God’s goodness and provision.

 

 

 

 

 

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Overflows from the Heart

"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart…" Matthew 15:18

CreatorWorship

Pointing to the One who made, saved, and sustains