Archive for wisdom

Unexpected Currents

March 25, 2009 at 8:26 am · Filed under holidays, society, wisdom

Have you ever spent any time in the ocean?

My in-laws have a house in southern Orange County. Whenever we visit, we go down to the same beach near their home. So we stake out a place on the beach and then we go out into the surf to swim and splash around.

I enjoy bobbing in the surf. I love the feeling when a wave comes along and lifts me up like I don’t weigh a thing. Then I’ll look over and see everyone else it lifts up and I’ll get a sense of the ocean’s size and power. Then a wave will flip me over and rub me into the sand and gravel just as easily, and that part isn’t so much fun. But it’s not so bad either, so I stay out there until the next wave comes along and keep doing it two, three, four, five times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment

Read and Comment

March 19, 2009 at 6:03 am · Filed under book, quotations, wisdom

From Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy:

The “real” world has little room for a God of sparrows and children. To it, Jesus can only seem “otherworldly” — a good-hearted person out of touch with reality. Yes, it must be admitted that he is influential, but only because he affirms what weak-minded and fainthearted individuals fantasize in the face of a brutal world. He is like a cheerleader who continues to shout, “We are going to win,” though the score is 98 to 3 against us in the last minute of the game.

When this cheerleading approach to the “real world” triumphs among those who profess Christ, they may then have faith in faith but will have little faith in God. For God and his world are just not “real” to them. They may believe in believing but not be able to rely on God — like many in our current culture who love love but in practice are unable to love real people. They may believe in prayer, think it quite a good thing, but be unable to pray believing and so will rarely, if ever, pray at all.

(On pp. 90-91.)

Leave a Comment

Good advice from the Preacher

September 12, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under Bible, living, wisdom

Ecclesiastes can be a little tough to take. But I was reading it the other day and this jumped out at me:

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 9:9

There’s wisdom in that. The spouse whom you love (and the enjoyment of life you share) is your portion.

It’s an interesting word, portion. It means the part that is assigned to you. TNIV renders portion “your lot in life.” NLT/2E over-translates it as “your reward.” The Hebrew word chelek is fairly neutral. It occurs in Scripture 26 times in 22 verses and doesn’t have any emotional overtones that I can detect, although we might be tempted in that direction in Ruth 2:3 when Ruth gleans in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz.

Leave a Comment

« Newer Posts