32 In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.33 So he ended their days in futility
and their years in .
Futile days pass when no great purpose commands them. The years they constitute are terrifying when they are ended and nothing left but God's wrath. Save me from them. Remove the back-brace of unbelief.
1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."
Hagar got 'uppity' around Sarai, because even though her was to build a family though her son, Sarai herself would be the last of her line, supplanted by Hagar.
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
So Hagar fled. I don't know what Sarai wanted (except a child), but she is ruining one thing after another.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her . 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
One question has been rolling around in my brain like a rock since dinner-time: Why did God have pity on Hagar?7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
"I'm running away from my Sarai," she answered.9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your and submit to her." 10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
11 The angel of the LORD also said to her:
"You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, [a]
for the LORD has heard of your misery.12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward [b] all his brothers."
I don't get what's so desirable about being a wild donkey. Maybe it ensures that, like Esau, you won't stay under anyone's domination. (By the way, Ishmael means 'God hears'.)
13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen [c] the One who sees me." 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi [d] ; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
P.S.
15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
Graphics:
From London Metals Exchange website, http://www.lme.co.uk/dataprices_pricegraphs.asp
Price graph with values: copper, Jan. 1 2001-Nov. 21 2006, 3 months buyer contract.
Price graph with values: copper, Jan. 1-Nov. 21 2006, 3 months buyer contract.
Copper 3-months buyer contracts on LME
I've been intrigued by the Rebelution's new post about cell phone use and misuse, since I can speak philosophically from much experience with related subjects. I commented thus:
In one way, ubiquitous cell phone use decreases responsible independency: if you're always asking someone else's opinion, you won't make judgment calls on your own.
I don't use a cell phone, although my parents do. I've never had txting; I ran the IM run-around the last year I did debate, mostly to communicate with my partner who lived too far away to visit often. It became addicting, and I'm glad to leave it alone (as I'm sure you are too, Brett). Lonely people use IM like they do email to look for affirmation and companionship; they don't really want to give it unless it is necessary for the above goal, or to imitate the manners of others. The other time I've used it was when I spent a month teaching English in China, and welcomed real-time conversations with someone familiar (my family and a couple friends).
Forums (or should it be fora?) are useful when limited by subject matter. HSD is fine while you are competing in the league, as long as you keep a Christian spirit. To incessantly te controversy corners turns is a distortion of the perspective of the original forum... which was to facilitate preparation for speaking, not an end in itself.
However, the main danger of discoursing with unbelievers (or those like them) on matters of moral significance is not that you will assimilate ungodly ideas, although that does happen. The first and main danger is of tracing ungodly patterns of speech and heart. The ideas can be resisted by willpower and bullying. The attitudes are created by willpower and bullying. You can't win as long as these are your constant companions. The same thing goes for friends met in other conTEXTs. "...[Y]ou may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared." (Prov. 22:25)
Other purposes for communication make online messaging useful. My dad uses a Cabinet Makers Association forum to exchange tips for woodworking.
The advantage of letter-writing comes from having more time to think of what to say, learning to ask important questions, anticipating needs, and putting more thought into the words.
Read the diary of John Quincy Adams and the letters among his family while he was in his teens.
Email loops, in my experience, are more on point than forums or chat rooms, because they preserve the letter-writing form rather than the tavern-style forum. This is at least partly because list participants don’t have a specific location to give the illusion of face-to-face colloquialism. Did I just liken an online forum to a tavern? A prettier comparison is the committee meeting or conference call, but the real prototype is the Socratic restroom graffiti dialogue (an ancient Mediterranean tradition).
An email list is also useful because it is subject-oriented. If you read Scott Turow’s autobiographical novel One L, you find Harvard Law School in the 1970s an extremely competitive environment. The only way for spoiled egos to gain recognition is by excelling at legal knowledge, so students give themselves heart and soul to extra research, outlines, and study groups.
In the same way, reading email from fellow enthusiasts of bird watching or Biblical Greek, cooking or cabinet making, literature or law, microbiology or Milton, Middle East or Middle Ages, mechanics or mathematics, monetary policy or music, will bring vitality to problems in that area of life. You will spend half an hour researching the deductibility of business expenses because someone asked about it. If the question were instead found in the back of your textbook, you would have guessed at it and flipped to the answer. Learning has a social element you can’t replace, which is why my distance-learning paralegal classmates and I started a Yahoo group.
Having friends to email only when I’m thinking on a certain topic is useful, but at the same time, it would be wrong to call someone a friend with whom I don’t share many good things of life. How can I meet an Internet friend’s needs when he is neglecting his family to talk with me? I would thus make the costliest friends those under my own roof with whom I do owe a duty of care. I’d then say befriend those in my neighborhood and church, where I know I can give to them physically as well as spiritually.
Social life has a learning element. Will you learn of good or ill? With fellow disciples of Jesus, discuss those interests that feed the spirit rather than the flesh. Also discuss those topics that will make you more valuable to your employer. Hobbies are wonderful when they involve family, as G.K. Chesterton points out in his Autobiography (ch. 2). The house should always be bigger on the inside than on the outside. But as Chesterton wrote also in Heretics (ch. 17),
What we really desire of any man conducting any business is that the full force of an ordinary man should be put into that particular study … We do not in the least wish that our particular law-suit should pour its energy into our barrister’s games with his children, or rides on his bicycle, or meditations on the morning star. But we do, as a matter of fact, desire that his games with his children, and his rides on his bicycle, and his meditations on the morning star should pour something of their energy into our law-suit.
A man’s love for God should pour out into his work as he serves an earthly master – or teacher. Thus, there is nothing better than for a man to find satisfaction in his life’s work. Side interests ought to make one more useful rather than less useful. Social life should contribute to both godliness and contentment, thereby producing great gain.
§108. EXCELLENCY OF CHRIST. When we behold a beautiful body, a lovely proportion, a beautiful harmony of features of face, delightful airs of countenance and voice, and sweet motion and gesture, we are charmed with it; not under the notion of a corporeal, but a mental beauty. For if there could be a statue that should have exactly the same, could be made to have the same sound, and have the same motions precisely, we should not be so delighted with it; we should not fall entirely in love with the image, if we knew certainly that it had no perception or understanding. The reason is, we are apt to look upon this agreeableness, these airs, to be emanations of perfections of the mind, and immediate effects of internal purity and sweetness. Especially it is so, when we love the person for the airs of voice, countenance and gesture; which have much greater power upon us, than barely colors and proportion of dimensions. And 'tis certainly because there is an analogy between such a countenance and such airs, and these and those excellencies of the mind-a sort of I know not what in them, that is agreeable and does consent with such mental perfections-so that we cannot think of such habitudes of mind without having an idea of them at the same time.
Nor can it be only from custom, for the same dispositions and actings of mind naturally beget such kind of airs of countenance and gesture; otherwise, they never would have come into custom. (I speak not here of the ceremonies of behavior, but of those simple and natural motions and airs.) So it appears, because the same habitudes and actings of mind do beget airs in general the same, amongst all nations in all ages.
There are limitations on such power which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments. Implied reservations of individual rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name. No court, for instance, would hesitate to declare void a statute which enacted that A. and B. who were husband and wife to each other should be so no longer, but that A. should thereafter be the husband of C., and B. the wife of D. Or which should enact that the homestead now owned by A. should no longer be his, but should henceforth be the property of B.
Miller, J. (op. cit.)
To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms. Nor is it taxation.
A major question was whether Terri's life should be upheld even though there was hearsay evidence that she had, prior to her brain injury, not wanted to be kept alive in such a helpless state. Was this hearsay evidence sufficient?
In his autobiography Justice Douglas recounts from his 36 years on the high court his experience with an earlier but reminiscent situation.
The Court Years: 1939-1975, pp. 79-81.
_______________________________________
There are obvious differences between Schiavo and Rosenberg. The Rosenbergs' punishment was a government action and directly controlled by 5th Amendment due process. Schiavo was not a criminal, which means she had more rights than the Rosenbergs. The similarities, however, are plainer than the differences. There was major public outcry from both sides as the Supreme Court considered a stay. Both cases evidenced harsh animosity by those in favor of de_th. Both cases saw the triumph of that animosity. Both cases featured a fundamental ambiguity in law or in fact. And both cases sorely needed the wisdom to recall that elemental principle of law: that any ambiguity in a law should be resolved in favor of life, not against it.
It matters not how unpopular the petitioner is. For Douglas's efforts, many in the House of Representative sought his impeachment. Liberal or no, Justice Douglas has here set a precedent we ought to follow.
The following quotes are taken from Martin Luther's 1520s sermon entitled "Christ’s answer to the question John asked him, his praise of John, and the application of this gospel." I was listening to this sermon on mp3, and transcribed the sentences that truly impressed me.
_________
Where Christ is, there surely the gospel will be preached, but where the gospel is not preached, there Christ is not present.
Moreover, if one’s life is bad, it should be strange indeed if he should preach right. He would always have to preach against himself, which, he will hardly do without additions and foreign doctrines.
Just as God acknowledges no law besides the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets, he makes no promises except through Christ alone…. There is no book in the Bible in which both are not found. God has always placed side-by-side both law and promise, for he teaches by the law what we are to do, and by the promises, whence we shall receive power to do it.
Extol faith and exercise love: faith receives the good works of Christ; love bestows good works on our neighbor.
Who stumbles at Christ? All who teach you to do works instead of teaching you to believe; those who hold forth Christ to you as a lawmaker and a judge, and refuse to let Christ be a helper and a comforter, torment you by putting works before and in the way of God, in order to atone for your sins, and to merit grace.
For God demands of us no other work that we should do for him than to exercise faith in Christ. With that, he is satisfied, and with that we give honor to him as to one who is merciful, longsuffering, wise, kind, truthful, and the like. After this, think of nothing else than to do to your neighbor as Christ has done to you, and let all your works together with your life be applied to your neighbor.
Proverbs 8 depicts a young lady with a heart for hospitality. She also loves to teach. She lives with her sister Prudence. Miss Wisdom is building and furnishing her house, setting her table, going to much trouble, and then running out to the intersection to invite guests. She calls the simple. She calls the fools. She calls the ignorant. I did something similar when my family went to Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland to pass out blankets and Bibles to the homeless men and women this February. Temperature was just above freezing. A friend and I accompanied Mrs. Vandermeer, going up and down streets, asking loiterers if they know someone who needs a blanket, coat, or something hot to drink. Telling them it's over at the Square. This is what Miss Wisdom does. Where is this table she's set? That's the beauty of it -- it's set every morning at 6:30 in my dining room. The Bibles are there every morning. Who are these simpletons Miss Wisdom wants to entice? Me and you.
God has a message for me and you. The problem is, we don't know to look hard for it. That's why Miss Wisdom, aka the Holy Spirit, keeps pounding the streets, and why our dads continue to get the Bibles out each morning. Do you ever get the feeling that what you're reading doesn't apply to you? Or burn inside when your sister sweetly asked how you were going to personally apply the verse you picked out? Well, there's good news on the second count. It's just you and God this time, and he's got all the time in the world to help you come up with an application. As to the first, there are several reasons the scripture might seem dry.
1. You're not really paying attention when it's not your turn to read. Your seven-year-old sister is taking ten seconds to sound out the third word in a 32 word paragraph; your other sister pinches you for covering up her page so she couldn't give out the word, take over the paragraph, or skip the names; you're looking up a cross-reference; your brother kicked your sister under the table.
2. You've been reading over the verses too fast. Sure you participated in Bible time, but you already saw these verses last year, and the part about living by the spirit and your flesh being because of sin still is about as enlightening as the motherboard to the old computer your brother dismantled last month.
3. You have all kinds of distracting thoughts. If you get right down to it, what you're imagining is sinful, but you don't know how to deal with it other than superimposing a cross, biting your tongue, and reminding yourself that "in Christ" you really aren't like that. In fact, you've gotten very good at ignoring that voice that says you should confess it to your parents and ask them to pray for you -- after all, that voice is just another emotion. You should practice self-control and purpose not to be swayed by it.
I know about all these reasons, because they have been true of me in recent years, weeks, and hours. They may be true of you as well. Examine closely what Miss Wisdom says, because these words were inspired by God. She tells us to choose her instruction over choice silver. To search for it as for hidden treasure. She also tells us how:
"Blessed is the man who listens to me,
watching daily at my doors,
waiting at my doorway." (Prov. 8:34)
Many my age have "friends" who write very cool and stimulating blogs. We subscribe to these, so we can get an annoying email every time they post anew. We also have very cool acquaintances, who occasionally post something about what they are doing or thinking, and we look forward to those emails because it brings us closer to their minds (even if they don't know it). However, unlike some of your online friends, Miss Wisdom has worthy things to say. Your parents won't ask who it is when you check up on her latest post.
Proverbs assures us that "He who finds a wife finds what is good, and receives favor from the Lord." (Prov. 18:22) There is one other verse in there that parallels that guarantee, and it is gotten by equally diligent (and exciting) means. Your parents know that when you seek wisdom that way, she says, "whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD. But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who me love ." (Prov. 8:35-36) Subscribe to Wisdom's blog. It will bring you closer to the mind of Jesus Christ.
Now, since those three earlier problems are still up there, keeping us from making a solid connection with wisdom, I want to give some suggestions for each.
During Bible time, if you're unwittingly getting a sidetracked focus, sit up! Recall what Paul told his friend Tim: train yourself to be godly. Think of the rewards that God promises for godliness, both in this life, and the life to come. (1 Tim. 4:7-8) He, with a great cloud of witnesses, is watching you now, and so will the whole world at judgment day. Think of how you are affecting your siblings -- do you want them to act like you in two years? By then they might be bigger than you. (I've experienced this when roughhousing with my brother, who's now almost fifteen.) Daily concentration during Bible time takes an honest effort, but its rewards are just as real. It's just like the results of brushing teeth consistently. Isn't it a relief when the dentist says you have zero cavities this time? Train yourself to be focused on the wisdom in the pages.
Just as we saw in the last paragraph with Paul's advice to Timothy, God always has something to say to us. If you are struggling with something new, this is your chance to exercise a brand-new weapon. But you don't know what that weapon is unless you have it in your pack when Apollyon swoops down to the path in front of you. And you won't know how to use the weapon unless you handle it during spare moments, puzzle over it, and keep it shined. That's why you should memorize. You have to think hard about it. Romans chapter 8 appeared to have little to do with my situation until I started unhooking each sentence and replicating it in my mind. It seemed like a lot of comforting metaphysics. Chapter 7 appeared terribly depressing on the first quick read through. But when I have them memorized I can understand why I can't conquer sin without the Holy Spirit. I can agree that the wages of sin is and know what those wages look like.
Por ejemplo, tonight I reluctantly began to work on my life purpose with Mom and Dad. In the course of it, though, a long-suppressed, horrifying thought came to my mind. In the past, I have struggled with . I am so glad to be redeemed from it yet so ashamed to have given way to it, that it would be unthinkable that God would want people with the same struggle to be my field of ministry. Right? I kept pushing it out of my mind. But Mom kept asking me, "So what are you thinking?" Finally, finally I told her. It's gotten a little bit easier with practice. We discussed it more, and Dad and Mom reminded me that God equips those he calls, and his plan might not be what I think -- but the most important thing is to seek his will wholeheartedly, and find identity in him. Half an hour later, a verse came to mind, which epitomized the conversation. "You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship." (Rom. 8:15) I was jumping for joy. Train yourself to keep God’s word before your eyes.
The third obstacle we mentioned is unconfessed sin. It distracts us, taking at least a third of our mental RAM and blocking the way for further growth until it is resolved. Let me say first off, that if the voice is God's Spirit, it will become more effective as you read more scriptures. The Bible is full of commandments that tell us how to gain forgiveness. If you keep on ignoring them, your heart will become hard and unfeeling. By quenching God's Spirit, you are draining your own lifeblood and vitality. You are trading a lifetime of grace for a moment's pride. By writing off the temptation and the conviction as inconsequential, you are making your own personhood inconsequential -- nothing ultimate will be accessible. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is faithful to give us opportunity to repent and to confess our sins when we humble ourselves. That grace was purchased on the cross, by a suffering that was undeserved. Ask for it.
"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
But if Christ is in you, your body is because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the is living in you, he who raised Christ from the will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you." (Rom. 8:9-11)
The Holy Spirit is the most immediate proof that God is real, and his salvation genuine. I realized this when I was in China to teach English. While praying in my dorm, I realized (and remarked to my roommate) that the words coming from my mouth were nothing I could have prayed if I was faking it: it was the Holy Spirit praying in me and interceding. So listen to the Spirit, and obey when he confronts you with a commandment that you don't like. Quote the commandments and promises to yourself. In fact, rejoice that you now have a new verse that applies directly to you. In my case, it has been was humbling myself to confess how I had given way to the sinful nature. With it came a new appreciation for God's love expressed through my parents, and God's grace in new fellowship with his Spirit and a desire to memorize scripture so I won't sin in the future. And while memorizing Romans 6-8, I have realized how Jesus' and resurrection apply to me. Train yourself to be spiritually-minded.
Listen to what Paul says about the call of Miss Wisdom. "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is , but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God." (Rom. 8:5-7) Think hard about this verse. Live according to the Spirit and set your mind on what the Spirit desires. Search for wisdom tomorrow morning at Bible time. Cry aloud for understanding. Peer for knowledge about God like the poor guys who pay $450 for three days in a rustic cabin 30 miles from Grant's Pass to mine for bits of placer gold.[1] Of course they won't get rich, it’s only a retreat. But we can do it every day. That's the way to please God. It's the only way to find a pleasure stronger than sin. Do this and get life and peace. Isn't Wisdom the only blog worth subscribing to?
[1] “Getting to Know… Dave Rutan: Gold mining host.” The Reflector (Battle Ground, WA) p. A3 (3/22/06)
