Think It Over

In light of our holiday festivities and travels I haven't had time to write but I have been reading! Here's a quote from "Think" by John Piper that fits my current thought processes. Enjoy!

"Recall that in 2 Timothy 2:7 Paul says, 'Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.' So many people swerve off the road to one side of this verse or the other. Some stress 'Think over what I say.' They emphasize the indispensable role of reason and thinking. And they often minimize the supernatural role of God in making the mind able to see and embrace the truth. Others stress the second half of the verse: 'for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.' They emphasize the futility of reason without God's illumining work.

But Paul will not be divided that way. And I am writing this book to plead that we follow Paul in this - that we not swerve to the right or the left, but embrace both human thinking and divine illumination. For Paul it was not either-or, but both-and. 'Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.' Notice the little word for. This is one of those crucial connecting words that makes us ask the question; Why is it here? It beckons us to ponder.

This word 'for' means that the willingness of God to give us understanding is the ground of our thinking, not the substitute for it. Paul does not say, 'God give you understanding, so don't waste your time thinking over what I say.' Nor does he say, 'Think hard over what I say because it all depends on you, and God does not illumine the mind.' No. He emphatically makes God's gift the ground of our effort. He makes God's giving light the reason for our pursuing light. 'Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding.'

There is no reason to believe that a person who thinks without prayerful trust in God's gift of understanding will get it. And there is no reason to believe that a person who waits for God's gift of understanding without thinking about his Word will get it either. Both-and. Not either-or."

~~~excerpt taken from John Piper's book entitled "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God" on pages 64-65
~~~emphasis on last paragraph is mine

Theology for Girls?!

I love theology. I really do...and I'm a girl. Strange, huh? Most women I know do not have the same sentiment. When I express my heart in this area I am most often met with these kinds of comments:

"Theology? That's way too hard for me! I'm just not that smart."
"That's nice but I don't need all that high and lofty stuff, I just need something practical to get me through the day."
"Who has time? I have laundry, dishes, meals to make and kids to deal with."
"What difference does that really make? I just read the Bible and try to get something out of it."

As I have walked with women through life I have come to the conclusion that too often we sell ourselves short. We've allowed theology to become a man's world and thus there are few women studying scripture, reading church history and having doctrinal dialogues from a woman's perspective. God has created us to function differently then men so don't we have something to offer to the church as His daughters? (There is much more to say on this topic but that's for another day.)


Over my next few posts I want to try to show that theology is important and approachable! I'm planning to look at the practicality of theology, the necessity of theology to reading scripture well, the academic nature of theology and the time factor. Please join me. I promise they won't be too academic just a little something to get your brain moving!

God's Prep Work

Our Christmas cards went in the mail today.

In this house, that's a miracle for two reasons. First, we actually sent Christmas cards this year. Second, they went out before Christmas.

I must admit that Christmas usually sneaks up on me and I don't get a chance to enter into the wonder of it all because I'm too busy ridding myself of the guilt I feel over not making sugar cookies and forgetting to buy the mailman a gift...again. But this year, I'm on the ball! Preparations are coming along and there's a plan in place.

And yet, as I reflect on the Christmas story I can't help but contrast that with Mary's experience of actually birthing Christ into this world. She has no place to "nest," no baby showers to ensure that she has all the right gear babies are supposed to have, no cute baby boy nursery in eggshell blue. Instead she travels eighty miles on the back of a donkey with a new husband. What must it have been like to give birth for the first time in a barn with a carpenter as a midwife. She knows no one around. There's no phone call to mom to celebrate this extraordinary moment. No friends dropping by to hold the baby only a bunch of stinky low class shepherds she's never seen before!

I have to wonder if Mary questioned God's plan in this? Did she wonder if God had abandoned her? Or did she rest in His sovereignty, His authorship of the redemption story? Did she see His hand despite her lack of preparation?

It's a strong reminder God is writing His story and I'm not. I'm not always going to be prepared for the direction that story takes. This is no excuse for laziness, for not planning at all, but instead an encouragement to have an open handedness that puts my plans into His sovereign hands.

Those same hands that about 30 years later were spread across rough hewn wood, driven through with nails so I would know that even the unexpected is bathed in His love. I wish that being in the center of His will was always going to be easy but that's not the picture that His story paints. Mary gives birth in an animal stall mostly alone and far from home. Christ dies on a cross, abandoned by his friends and heckled by his enemies. This is the story that gives us hope, the one that also contains a resurrection and a marriage feast.

So I make my Christmas plans and even if they go sideways and chaos ensues God can still show up. In fact, that may have been His plan all along.