The Bible on trial for a third time in Finland

 

The Bible on trial for a third time in Finland

For the third time in three years, Päivi Räsänen will stand trial in Finland for the “crime” of tweeting a Bible verse. A sitting member of the Finnish parliament, Päivi is being prosecuted for “hate speech” for her 2019 tweet, along with a 2004 church pamphlet she wrote expressing the Christian view of marriage. Her pastor, Bishop Juhana Pohjola, is also being prosecuted for publishing the pamphlet. The pair were unanimously acquitted by the district court in 2022 and the appeals court in 2023. But the Finnish prosecutor has continued to push to censor and sanction them for their free expression, appealing again to Finland’s Supreme Court.

The Story of a Miraculous Healing

 

Yesterday at Redeemer we had the funeral of Carl Cocherell. There were many beautiful testimonies and tributes to Carl.

In my part I shared the miraculous healing Carl experienced some years ago. 

When it happened, I shared it with my friend Craig Keener. Craig inserted the story of Carl's healing in his book Miracles: Two Volumes - The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Craig also shared Carl's story in his book Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God In the Modern World. 

Lee Strobel interviewed Craig for his book The Case for Miracles. As part of the interview Craig shared Carl Cocherell's story. Here it is, from Strobel's The Case for Miracles.

***

“In March 2006, on a trip to Missouri, Carl was checking the oil in his car when he stepped down and felt a sharp crack,” Keener said. “He fainted from the pain, which was the worst he had ever endured. I have a copy of the radiology report of his X-rays, confirming the fracture. The orthopedist ordered him to stay overnight. During that night, though, Carl experienced a voice from the Lord.” 

“What did the voice say?” I asked.

“That the ankle was not broken.” 

I cocked my head. “Despite the X-rays?” 

“That’s right. The next day the doctor casted his leg and warned he would eventually need months of physical therapy. Back in Michigan, his family doctor ordered more X-rays, and this time the results were radically different.” 

“How so?” 

“There were no breaks or even tissue damage where a break had been. Again, I have the radiology report that says there’s no fracture. In fact, the doctor told him, ‘You never had a broken ankle.’” 

“But,” I interjected, “what about the Missouri X-rays?” 

Keener calmly continued the narrative. “The doctor looked again at those Missouri X-rays and said, ‘Now, that’s a broken ankle.’ But at this point, there was no sign of a break. He removed Carl’s cast and sent him home. Carl never had further problems or needed any therapy.” 

“What do you make of all that?” I asked. 

“Personally, I don’t see how this could have occurred naturally,” Keener said. “Would a sixty-two-year-old man’s bone heal so quickly that no sign of a fracture would remain at all? It doesn’t seem likely. And, of course, that wouldn’t explain how God told him in advance what would happen.”

(Strobel, Lee. The Case for Miracles: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural (p. 106). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. )

Mathematical Platonism As a Problem for Physicalism

Comerica Park, Detroit

(At dinner tonight my friends J and D and me discussed mathematical Platonism and the ontological status of abstract objects. I'm re-posting this for them.)

University of Toronto philosopher James Robert Brown argues for Mathematical Platonism in Philosophy of Mathematics: A Contemporary Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures. Brown uses Plato's theory of Ideas and applies it to math, arguing that non-physical mathematical ideas have ontological status; i.e., mathematical ideas exist. 

See Chapter Two - "Platonism." This was the chapter that "disturbed" Massimo Pigliucci. (See here.)

Brown is not the only mathematical Platonist. A number of mathematicians are, to include Frege, Godel, et. al.  Pigliucci writes:

"If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math , one has to face several important philosophical consequences, perhaps the major one being that the notion of physicalism goes out the window. Physicalism is the position that the only things that exist are those that have physical extension [ie, take up space] – and last time I checked, the idea of circle, or Fermat’s theorem, did not have physical extension. It is true that physicalism is now a sophisticated doctrine that includes not just material objects and energy, but also, for instance, physical forces and information. But it isn’t immediately obvious to me that mathematical objects neatly fall into even an extended physicalist ontology. And that definitely gives me pause to ponder."

Brown cites the connection between Platonism and semantic theory. The logic of mathematical Platonism runs like this.  He writes:

"Let us suppose the sentence 'Mary loves ice cream' is true. What makes it so? In answering such a question we'd say 'Mary' refers to the person Mary, 'ice cream' to the substance, and 'love' refers to a particular relation which holds between Mary and ice cream. It follows rather trivially from this that Mary exists. If she didn't, then 'Mary loves ice cream' couldn't be true, any more than 'Phlogiston is released on burning' could be true when phlogiston does not exist.

The same semantic considerations imply Platonism. Consider the following true sentences: '7+5 = 12', and '7 >12'. Both require the number 7 to exist, otherwise the sentences would be false. In standard semantics the objects denoted by singular terms in true sentences ('Mary', '7') exist. Consequently, mathematical objects do exist." (Brown, 13)

So, the number '7', and 'pi', and you-number-it, exist. But where? Surely, not in physical reality. I just hit the number 7 key on my keyboard. The number 7 key exists physically. But I won't be hitting the number 7 anytime in the future.

Brown states: "Mathematical objects are outside space and time." (Ib.) They are non-physical, abstract objects with ontological status.

***

For more see Pater van Inwagen and William Lane Craig, Do Numbers Exist?

Mathematical Platonism

(At dinner tonight my friends J and D and me discussed mathematical Platonism and the ontological status of abstract objects. I'm re-posting this for them.)

This past Sunday, as a passing note in my sermon, I mentioned that many mathematicians are mathematical Platonists (MP). I picked up this bit of information in reading Jim Holt's excellent Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. 

I'd heard of this before. MP is "the metaphysical view that there are abstract mathematical objects whose existence is independent of us and our language, thought, and practices. Just as electrons and planets exist independently of us, so do numbers and sets. And just as statements about electrons and planets are made true or false by the objects with which they are concerned and these objects' perfectly objective properties, so are statements about numbers and sets. Mathematical truths are therefore discovered, not invented." ("Platonism In the Philosophy of Mathematics," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Holt writes that "a majority of contemporary mathematicians (a typical, though disputed, estimate is about two-thirds) believe in a kind of heaven— not a heaven of angels and saints, but one inhabited by the perfect and timeless objects they study: n-dimensional spheres, infinite numbers, the square root of –1, and the like." (Holt, 171)

Who are some MPs?

• Alain Connes, holder of the Chair of Analysis and Geometry at the Collège de France, who has averred that “there exists, independently of the human mind, a raw and immutable mathematical reality.” (Ib., 172) 
• René Thom, who became famous in the 1970s as the father of catastrophe theory. Thom has said: “Mathematicians should have the courage of their most profound convictions, and thus affirm that mathematical forms indeed have an existence that is independent of the mind considering them.” (Ib.)
• Kurt Godel: “We do have something like a perception” of mathematical objects, “despite their remoteness from sense experience.” (Ib., 172)
• James Jeans - "God is a mathematician." (Ib.)
• Eugene Wigner -  How else can we account for the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences”? (Ib.) 
• Max Tegmark (MIT cosmologist)   
• Frege. (Enough said.)
• Quine. (Enough said. Note: Quine's Platonism is "empiricist Platonism.")

And, e.g., Sir Roger Penrose, the emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. "Penrose is among the most formidable mathematical physicists alive." (Ib., 173) Holt spends this chapter interviewing Penrose. On the brilliance of Penrose: "He has been hailed by fellow physicists, notably Kip Thorne, for bringing higher mathematics back into theoretical physics after a long period in which the two fields had ceased to communicate. In the 1960s, working with Stephen Hawking, Penrose used sophisticated mathematical techniques to prove that the expansion of the universe out of the Big Bang must have been a precise reversal of the collapse of a star into a black hole. In other words, the universe must have begun as a singularity." (Ib.)

For Penrose "there are three worlds: the Platonic world, the physical world, and the mental world. And each of the worlds somehow engenders one of the others. The Platonic world, through the magic of mathematics, engenders the physical world. The physical world, through the magic of brain chemistry, engenders the mental world. And the mental world, through the magic of conscious intuition, engenders the Platonic world— which, in turn, engenders the physical world, which engenders the mental world, and so on, around and around. Through this self-contained causal loop— Math creates Matter, Matter creates Mind, and Mind creates Math— the three worlds mutually support one another, hovering in midair over the abyss of Nothingness, like one of Penrose’s impossible objects." (Ib., 180) 

These and many other MPs believe that mathematical truths such as '1+1=2' exist objectively and are discovered rather than invented. Amazing! The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article states that "mathematical platonism has been among the most hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mathematics over the past few decades."

With this we have the belief in a non-physical world. "If it were true, it would put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical." (SEP)

A Prayer Tree and A Holy Indifference

(Walking through trees in my backyard)

When we lived in East Lansing one of my prayer places was thirty feet up in a tall pine tree in a forest preserve. The branches formed a ladder leading upward. It was an easy climb to the two thick branches that formed a seat. Many times I climbed that tree, hung my backpack on a branch, sat on that natural seat, and prayed. I loved when there was a slight wind that gently waved the tree from side to side. I would close my eyes and think of the Holy Spirit, shaping and forming me.

During that time I wore a leather wristband I had made. On the wristband I burned the words "A holy indifference." I got the phrase from Henri Nouwen. Nouwen prayed that he would have a holy indifference to the opinions of others, so that he might have a holy concentration on God. 

This word was for me, too. If I had a holy indifference I would be able to more purely love people. I would not go up and down with what others thought of me. I would be free from people-pleasing, and striving to gain others' love and avoid others' criticism. 

I had been doing too much of that. The result was much outward striving and agitation in my heart. So, I carved "a holy indifference" on a leather band, wore it on my wrist, climbed a tree, and prayed. 

One day, as I was in the praying tree, God told me to take off the wristband and tie it around a branch. I felt I could let it go. God was doing a good thing in me. I was moving into greater freedom, from pleasing people to loving people.

That was forty years ago. Sometimes I think of going back to the praying tree, climbing it one more time, and touching the leather wristband which has now become part of the tree. I'm writing "a holy indifference" on a 3X5 card and carrying it with me today. I'm commemorating the freedom God brought into my life many years ago, while swaying high in the praying tree. 

***
Is it possible to hear from God? I've written about this in Chapter 5 of my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

The Power of Solitude to Combat Depression

                                                         (Linda and our grandson Levi)

(I am re-posting this for a friend.)

For the past fifty-one years I have spent a lot of time alone with God. I write about this in my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

Solitude is not loneliness. 

An emerging body of research suggests that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us. 

Leon Nayfekh, in "The Power of Lonely", says solitude is a good and needed thing, he says. Here are the bullets.

• Even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of achieving focus and creative thinking.
• Research suggests that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life. If we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. I know, after years of regularly taking solitary times with God, that solitude helps me be better with people.
• Solitude (if done right) makes our bodies and minds work better.
• One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they believe they’re experiencing something alone.
• Solitude can make a person more capable of empathy towards others. (I am certain this is true. Especially if solitude is done in the right way. My compassion for others, even for my enemies, increases in extended solitary times with God.)
• In an age when no one is ever more than a text message or an e-mail away from other people, the distinction between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry, even as the potential benefits of true solitude are starting to become clearer.
• Nayfekh writes: "Solitude has long been linked with creativity, spirituality, and intellectual might. The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude. The poet James Russell Lowell identified solitude as “needful to the imagination;” in the 1988 book “Solitude: A Return to the Self,” the British psychiatrist Anthony Storr invoked Beethoven, Kafka, and Newton as examples of solitary genius."
• Solitude is to be distinguished from "loneliness."
• Nayfekh has an interesting review of "solitude research." U-Mass graduate student Christopher Long "started working on a project to precisely define solitude and isolate ways in which it could be experienced constructively. The project’s funding came from, of all places, the US Forest Service, an agency with a deep interest in figuring out once and for all what is meant by “solitude” and how the concept could be used to promote America’s wilderness preserves."
• There is "an emergence of solitude studies." For example, Robert Coplan of Carleton University studies children who play alone. "Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, a leader in the world of positive psychology, has recently overseen an intriguing study that suggests memories are formed more effectively when people think they’re experiencing something individually." 
• Gilbert's study shows that solitude combats "social loafing," "which says that people tend not to try as hard if they think they can rely on others to pick up their slack. (If two people are pulling a rope, for example, neither will pull quite as hard as they would if they were pulling it alone.)" 
• Solitude fosters "metacognitive activity." "Metacognition" is the process of thinking critically and reflectively about our own thoughts."  As Richard Arum shows us in his book Academically Adrift, today's multitasking university students are doing that less and less. (This is Daniel Kahneman's "slow thinking.")
• Reed Larson of the U of Illinois, in his study of teens and solitude, has shown that meaningful times alone allows for a kind of introspection and freedom from self-consciousness that strengthens their sense of identity. I can personally see how this might happen in the fruit of years spent in intentional aloneness with God. Larson found "that kids who spent between 25 and 45 percent of their nonclass time alone tended to have more positive emotions over the course of the weeklong study than their more socially active peers, were more successful in school and were less likely to self-report depression."
• "John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, whose 2008 book “Loneliness” with William Patrick summarized a career’s worth of research on all the negative things that happen to people who can’t establish connections with others, said recently that as long as it’s not motivated by fear or social anxiety, then spending time alone can be a crucially nourishing component of life."
• Psychologist Adam Waytz of Harvard says that "spending a certain amount of time alone... can make us less closed off from others and more capable of empathy — in other words, better social animals."
• Finally, "kids who spent between 25 and 45 percent of their nonclass time alone tended to have more positive emotions over the course of the weeklong study than their more socially active peers, were more successful in school, and were less likely to self-report depression."

Henri Nouwen has told us that there is a "ministry of presence" and a "ministry of absence." There is a time to be alone with God and a time to be with God and people. I've written about the need for Jesus-followers to regularly enter into solitary times with God here.

See my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

FYI - two important pieces on prayer and solitude are: The chapter on "Solitude" in Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, and Henri Nouwen's chapter on solitude in The Way of the Heart.

Good Leadership Is a Channel of Water Controlled by God

Squirrel, in my back yard

In the past week at Redeemer three different people felt led by God to do something that would involve our church family. 

Each person shared their idea with me. Each idea sounded like a from-God thing. And, each person will be the leader of the vision God gave them.

This is how most things happen at Redeemer. Our people pray. God calls them to do something. If it involves our church family, they share it with me. I become one of their support persons, cheering from the sidelines as they lead.

Advantages of doing leadership this way include:

• the pastors doesn't have to come up with things for the people to do
• the pastor doesn't have to recruit people to do those things
• the people experience God leading them to do something
• the people gain ownership over the God-given vision
• the people grow in leadership

This is leadership in a Presence-Driven Church. It is more exciting than top-down, hierarchical leadership. It's healthier, too. We are not striving to make some event happen. It's about hearing from God, and following. Then, watching God produce the results.

We see this in Proverbs 21:1:

Good leadership is a channel of water controlled by God;

he directs it to whatever ends he chooses.

(The Message)

***
My leadership book is:

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

How to Lead a Church Meeting

Holy Spirit Declarations - For Pentecost!

Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday.

Here are some Pentecostal declarations to carry with you. (With a HT to Steve B.)

***

Whatever is true,

whatever is noble,

whatever is right,

whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable,

whatever is excellent,

whatever is worthy of praise,

think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

HOLY SPIRIT DECLARATIONS

• God is revealing deep things about himself to me. (1 Cor. 2:10)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit is explaining spiritual realities to me. (1 Cor. 2:13)
• 
  
• I am experiencing an outpouring of revelation knowledge. (1 Cor. 2:13)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit has made his permanent home in our church. (1 Cor. 3:16)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit is making my heart into his home. (Rom. 8:11)
• 
  
• I have become God’s inner sanctuary.
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit is giving life to my physical body.
• 
  
• Every day I am opening spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit is giving me to encourage and comfort those around me. (1 Cor. 12:11)
• 
  
• I am an equipped, competent, life-giving minister of God’s new covenant of love and power. (2 Cor. 3:6)
• 
  
• Every moment of my life the Holy Spirit is calling out to me that I am God’s true child, and God is my true Father. (Gal. 4:6)
• 
  
• I am moved by the Holy Spirit. I move with the Holy Spirit. (Rom. 8:14)
• 
  
• I am soaring above the domination of the law and experience the full freedom of the Spirit of grace. (Gal. 5:18)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit whispers into my innermost being, telling me I am God’s beloved child.” (Rom. 8:16)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit’s intense cravings are overpowering any sinful cravings I am tempted by. (Gal. 5:17)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit is strengthening me in my weakness. (Rom. 8:26)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit, who knows my deepest longings, is bringing my life into perfect harmony with God’s plan. (Rom. 8:26-27)
• 
  
• What the Holy Spirit is doing in me is better than anything I could have ever thought or imagined. (Rom. 8:28)
• 
  
• The Holy Spirit is unveiling within me the unlimited riches of God’s glory. Supernatural strength is flooding my innermost being with God’s divine might and power. (Eph. 3:16)

Speaking on "Freedom from Addictions" at the "Free Indeed" Conference

                                                                         (Green Lake)

Join me and Linda and several of our ministry colleagues at the HSRM "Free Indeed" Conference.

When: Sunday, June 30 through Thursday, July 4. 

Where: Beautiful Green Lake, Wisconsin. 

Detail and information: https://hsrm.org/events 

It's my joy to open the conference on Sunday evening. I'll speak on "Freedom from Addictions." Expect!

Our Strategy for Evangelism

 

                                                   (Northern lights, from our front yard)

Here is our strategy for evangelism.

1. Make disciples.
2. The disciples share Jesus with others.

Pride and Receiving Criticism

 

                                                                       (Our lilac bush)

I'm now using Tim Keller's 365-day devotional book on Proverbs. I love Proverbs! It's straight-shooting, in-your-face, no-nonsense wisdom about how to live a godly life (and how to avoid destruction).

Yesterday's entry Is on Proverbs 16:5; 18.

The LORD detests all the proud of heart. 

Be sure of this: 

They will not go unpunished. . . . 

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. 

Keller writes:

"The Bible does not say that pride might lead to destruction—it says it will. Why? The practical reason is that pride makes it difficult to receive advice or criticism. You can’t learn from your mistakes or admit your own weaknesses. Everything has to be blamed on other people. You have to maintain the image of yourself as a competent person, as someone who is better than other people. Pride distorts your view of reality, and therefore you’re going to make terrible decisions."  (Keller, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Book of Proverbs, p. 134). 

Keller asks us this. "What negative practical results of pride have you seen recently worked out in your own life or the lives of others you know?" 

Pride is the root of so many things that are wrong with us. This is why C. S. Lewis called pride "the great sin."

Every Community Embraces and Excludes

 

                                                                           (NYC)

All communities both embrace (if you buy into the narrative) and exclude (if you don't).

Amy Chua (Yale) presents this in her book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. 

Chua writes:

"Humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups. We crave bonds and attachments, which is why we love clubs, teams, fraternities, family. Almost no one is a hermit. Even monks and friars belong to orders. But the tribal instinct is not just an instinct to belong. It is also an instinct to exclude.

Some groups are voluntary; some are not. Some tribes are sources of joy and salvation; some are the hideous product of hate mongering by opportunistic power seekers. But once people belong to a group, their identities can become oddly bound with it. They will seek to benefit their group mates even when they personally gain nothing. They will penalize outsiders, seemingly gratuitously. They will sacrifice, and even kill and die, for their groups."

For a deep dive, see Miroslav Volf, 

Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation 

How to Mourn with the Parents of Stillborn and Miscarried Children

(Downtown Monroe)

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Linda and I have three wonderful sons! Sadly, one of them, David, was stillborn. 

If this has happened to one of your friends, here's a helpful article: "How to Mourn with the Parents of Stillborn and Miscarried Children."

Faith Is a Shelter in the Storms of Life

 

                                              (Levi, Josh, and Linda in our back yard)

Have I ever felt afraid? Of course.

After our twin son David was stillborn, and our surviving twin, Josh, was fighting for his life, I had moments of fear. Fear is the emotion a person feels when facing something bad that is happening or is about to happen. Fear is the emotion I feel when my well-being, and that of those I love, is threatened.

To fear is to feel unprotected.

Today a tiny virus is expanding its kingdom of fear with mighty human institutions bowing before its path. What shall we do? Keep following normal precautions, such as sanitizing your hands, often. If you feel sick, stay home, isolated from the public. Follow guidelines like these.

Beyond that, what can I do? Here is where I have found my faith functioning as a shelter in the storms of life.

Consider Jesus’ disciples, in their fishing boat, on the Sea of Galilee. A “furious storm” assaults them. The waves are sweeping over the boat. And Jesus is sleeping.

I think of my trip to India. I’m riding in the back seat of a car, being transported from Hyderabad to Kurnool. A five-hour car ride that brought me a lot of fear. Many times I thought the driver would hit another car, or go off the road. To me, his driving was reckless. I was dead tired from a long flight, but could not sleep. Several times I turned to look at my Indian friend who invited me on this trip. Each time, he was sleeping like a newborn baby. Obviously, he had no fear.

Unable to take the storm any longer, Jesus’ disciples - experienced fishermen - woke Jesus up, begging for help. Jesus wakes, and asks them, “Why are you so afraid?” Had I been in that boat I would have answered, “I’ll tell you why. We are going to drown!”

Jesus responds by getting up and rebuking the wind and waves, as if they were demon-inspired. Upon which the waters calm down. Jesus’ disciples were amazed, and ask, “What kind of man is this?”

When our son Joshua was going under, I prayed and told God, "If You will allow him to live, I shall never have such fear again." Josh lived. And while I have had bouts of fear since then, I remember how Jesus brought Linda and I through this terrible storm. 

What kind of man is this, who is with us in the furious storms of life? His name is Jesus. And we are His followers, people of faith, who love Him, and in whom He works all things together for good.

Getting Acquainted With Grief

I am a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. My son David was stillborn. I held his body in my arms and said goodbye... for now.

This sad event, thirty-nine years ago, sent Linda and I into the light-impoverished place of grief. I was asked to be a pastor for Sparrow Hospital's "HOPING" group to parents who lost children in the Mid-Michigan Neonatal ICU in Lansing, Michigan. Linda and I met with many who suffered these great losses.

Along the way God helped me through some books. They include:

• A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. In the 1970s I was in a bookstore and saw a first edition of this book, written by N.W. Clerk. It was $15. I didn't buy it! Lewis used this pseudonym so as not to freak people out over his frank expression of doubt and struggle at the loss of his wife. God has used this little book, Lewis's journal entries, to comfort many grieving people, including me.
• Lament For a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff. Wolterstorff is a Jesus-follower and a professor of philosophy at Yale. He here reflects on the loss of his 25-year-old son to a mountain climbing accident.
• A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. This is an excruciatingly beautiful and helpful book on the loss of Vanauken's wife
• I'll Hold You in Heaven: Healing and Hope for the Parent Who has Lost a Child through Miscarriage, Stillbirth, Abortion or Early Infant Death, by Jack Hayford. This was the little book that helped Linda and I the most after our son David's death.
• Broken In the Right Place, by Alan Nelson. While this book is not essentially focused on grief, it does relate to sufferings and trials we go through, and God's redemptive activity in their midst. 
• A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, by Jerry Sittser. My friend Don Follis told me about this book. Linda thought it was excellent. We'll have referred it to many.
• A Grace Revealed: How God Reveals the Story of Your Life, by Sittser. 
• Don't Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart: How to Relate to Those Who Are Suffering, by Kenneth Haugk. Another recommendation from Don Follis. Haugk's Journeying Through Grief also looks good.
• When a Daughter Dies: Walking the Way of Grace In the Midst of Our Grief, by Ben Witherington
• A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart, by Martin Marty. Recommended to me by Elmo Familiaran.
• The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society, by Henri Nouwen. The is the classic text on ministering to others out of our own grief; through our stripes, others are healed.

Your Identity is: Peacemaker

(My back yard)

In 2 Corinthians 5 we learn the following. 

• When a person gets saved they become a new creation.
• As a new creation, they no longer live narcissistic lives for themselves, but live for Him.
• As a new creation, they no longer view people "according to the flesh (kata sarka), but according to the Spirit (kata pneuma).
• We see people, all of them, as either reconciled to God, or not reconciled to God.
• New creations are burdened by this. They "implore" ("beg) people to be reconciled to God.
• God gives we new creations a "ministry of reconciliation." In this, we are "ambassadors for Christ."

If you are a Jesus-follower, you have a ministry of reconciliation. You bring people to God, and bring people to one another. You are a reconciler, not a divider. Any fool can divide; blessed and few are the peacemakers. 

The apostle Paul wrote: 

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, 

the new creation has come: 

The old has gone, the new is here!

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 

19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, 

not counting people’s sins against them. 

And he has committed to us 

the message of reconciliation.

God reconciled you, through Christ, to himself. God did not count your sins against you. God did not look at you and the mess you made of life and say, "Nothing good can ever come from this person." You have the message that God did not treat us this way. You are to share this with others. This is Good News.

Because of this core message of Real Christianity, Linda and I labor to reconcile husbands and wives and friends and families in failing relationships. We have a ministry of reconciliation, just like you. Un-ity, not di-vorce, is the God-thing. 

Tap into God's creative, restorative, reconciling abilities to unite people. God can work, through you, to dissolve disparity between people. 

Abide in Him, and receive His empowering for a peace unlike this world dishes out. Your identity is peacemaker (not peace-lover). 

Do not assist division. Reconcilers refuse to enable dysfunction and sin. Have nothing to do with tearing marriages and families and friends asunder. 

Refuse to entertain words like "This marriage will never make it," or "We could never be friends again," or "Nothing good can ever come out of these people." (Warning: as you refuse to enable sin, the enablee will be outraged because, from their egocentric viewpoint, you are not "helping" them. They may even accuse you of not following Jesus, as if Jesus assists people on the road to destruction. In short, the enablee will likely dishonor you and, in their blindness, view you as trying to control them. How absurd!)

Your core belief is: God is able to reconcile. You know this is true, for He reconciled you, to Him, and to others. The idea is: If two people follow Jesus, and are "in him," they will come together since, in Christ, divisive relationships are nonexistent. View things this way. Think community, not individuality.

If you are a Jesus-follower, you are a gatherer, not a scatterer. 

You assist people on the road to life, rather then enable people on the path of craziness. 

You are someone who brings people to God, and brings people together. 

This is dynamic, far more so than those dark, mediocre voices of relational failure that enumerate sins against people and give up on them. 

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My books are HERE. 

Adventures With God - Episode 01 - "Desperation"

I'm with Robby Dawkins, Bryan Schwartz, Jamie Galloway, and Darren Wilson in the first episode of Adventures of God. 

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Three of my books are:

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (Co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Why I Pray

Downtown Monroe

This morning I received two e-mails from friends who have been desperately praying for answers from God. Today, they received those answers, and were blown away by this. One person wrote, “Why do I not expect this to happen?” Now, for the moment at least, they are motivated to pray more. God’s loving responses to them motivate me to pray more. 

In a few minutes I will walk to the back of our property, by the river, where there is an old table, and my praying chair. I’ll bring my journal, Bible, and a cup of coffee… to meet with God for a while, and pray. I will pray for others, and I will listen to God speak to me. At this point in my life, I rarely leave these prayer times without feeling encouraged and strengthened. 

Why do I do this? Why do I pray? The basic reason is: because Jesus did. Here’s my reasoning. 

1. Jesus is my Great Shepherd. 
2. My Great Shepherd spent much time praying. 
3. Therefore, I spend much time praying. 

How do we know Jesus spent much time praying? Because “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.” (Luke 22:29) What Jesus did there was: 

1) instruct his disciples to watch and pray. 
2) pray, himself. 

“As usual,” Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and prayed. “As was his custom.” Praying was Jesus’ customary way of doing life. If Jesus habitually did this, who am I, one of his followers, not to? 

I read of a sign, supposedly on the Alaskan Highway, where the road turned from pavement to dirt. It read: “Choose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it for the next hundred miles.” Choose praying. Over time, it will become the habitual rut in which you live your life.

- From John Piippo, Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God (Kindle Locations 3636-3652).