Posts by Zack

God is not boring

October 26, 2006, by Zack No comments yet

There’s a chapter in the John Piper devotional that I’ve been reading called “God Is Not Boring.” I read it and was so struck by it that I read it again the next day… and again the next day. I started underlining things, but soon found that I wanted underline everything.

What I love about the chapter is that he very simply puts into words what I have been trying to wrap my head around… my life around for a while. I fear that writing out my favorite parts will be some kind of copyright problem, since I pretty much want to share the whole chapter. So, think of this more as a commercial for the book. Go buy it and see for yourself why I believe that the 22nd century, if it comes, will remember John Piper as one of the greatest heros of the 21st century.

Here are a few lines from the chapter that stand out to me:

One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination.
…I say that imagination is a Christian duty for two reasons. One is that you can’t apply Jesus’ golden rule without it… Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover…

The other reason I say that imagination is a Christian duty is that when a person speaks or writes or sings or paints about breathtaking truth in a boring way, it is probably a sin. The supremacy of God in the life of the mind is not honored when God and His amazing world are observed truly, analyzed duly, and communicated boringly…

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that God has given us to make the communication of His beauty beautiful.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying. Poets and painters and preachers don’t make God’s beauty more beautiful. They make it more visible… They cut through the dull fog of our finite, fallible, sin-distorted perception, and help us see God’s beauty for what it really is. Imagination is like a telescope to the stars: It doesn’t make them big. They are big without the telescope. It makes them look like what they are.

…Imagination is also contagious. When you are around someone (alive or dead) who uses it a lot, you tend to catch it. So I suggest that you hang out with some people ( mainly dead poets) who are full of imagination, and that you exert yourself to think of a new way to say an old truth. God is worthy…

What do you think?

Are you kidding me?

October 17, 2006, by Zack No comments yet

OK. So last night I was planning to take Stephanie to go see the Monet exibit at the NC Museum of Art. I love art, although probably not enough to go spend money to look at it, but I thought it would be a fun date night. So I go online to look up the cost and hours and everything, and wouldn’t you know it: the only day that the museum is closed is Monday…

And sure enough, the art museum in Chapel Hill, as well as the one at Duke are both closed on Monday… only Monday! Who sent out the memo that art lovers get Monday off???

But that’s not what I’m writing about…

Our alternative plan was to get some dinner and then start looking at stores where we might register for four wedding (oh yeah kids… break out those checkbooks :0)

So we’re in Bed, Bath, and Beyond — walking around… looking at this and that and gauking about the prices of somethings… imagining what it’ll be like when all this wedding madness is over and we can finally just be husband and wife, and then we saw it… A trash can with a price tag of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

Let that sink in. One hundred dollars… as in, you can go to the dollar tree and buy ONE HUNDRED trash cans for the price of this one. And that doesn’t take into account that you gotta buy SEPERATE BATTERIES for this thing!
You wanna know why it was a hundred bucks? It has an infrared motion sensor, so the lid automatically opens when you get close to it. A trash can for people who are too lazy to open the lid.

So, I now know how I’m going to get rich so we can move overseas: The “TDL” appliance line. “TDL” stands for “Too Dern Lazy”. Our products will be for people who are too dern lazy to do the unreasonable, difficult tasks, such as:

turn on the faucet
plug in the vaccuum cleaner
flush the toilet

…you get the idea!

So what do you think. The TDL trashcan is already out in the stores, so what should be our first product to market and make our millions on. You never know… YOU could be our first business partner :0)

Food for thought from J.P.

October 9, 2006, by Zack No comments yet

A few days ago, Stephanie and I escaped to Barnes and Noble to get some quiet time and dig into the Word a little bit. I discovered a new devotional from John Piper called “Life as a Vapor”. It has lots of short, food for thought tidbits to chew on. Here are a few excerpts from my reading over the past couple of days:

From “A Word to the Reader”:
You exist forever. There is no use protesting that you did not ask to exist and would like not to. That is not an option. You and God are both in the universe to stay — either as friends on His terms, or else enemies… Which it will be is proven in this life, and this life is a vapor…

Closing prayer from “Does it Matter What Others Think?” :
Father, at times the way of Christ is complex to our sin-stained and finite minds. Forgive us for the times we have justified our vanity in the name of a good reputation. O, Lord, grant us, in this brief life, the wisdom and courage to please others, or not to please others, for the sake of Christ alone, and not our own praise…

From “Suffering, Mercy, and Heavenly Regret” :
But all this leaves me trembling that I not throw away the one short life that I will look back on for all eternity. Just think of it. You have one life. One very short life. Then an eternity to remember. Does not the suffering in this world seem inexplicable to you? Is not this great, global (and intensely personal) suffering a call to magnify the mercy of Christ by how we respond? Is not suffering a seamless fabric, stretching into eternity for unbelievers? And therefore, are not Christians the only people who can respond with helpful relief to the totality of misery?

Closing prayer from “Suffering, Mercy, and Heavenly Regret” :
Father in heaven, have mercy on the misery of this world. Forgive us for our part in causing the pain of others. Waken us as never before to the preciousness of Your mercy bought by the blood of Christ. Fix our hopes so full on the job of heaven that we become the freest of all people on earth. May our everlasting memories of Your grace make us glad of all You changed and all You forgave…