Calvin: purpose of affliction

He can best restrain this arrogance when He proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity but also the frailty under which we labour. Therefore He afflicts us either with disgrace or poverty, or bereavement, or disease or other calamities. Utterly unequal to bearing these, in so far as they touch us, we soon succumb to them. Thus humbled, we learn to call upon His power, which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of afflictions...

In peaceful times [holy persons] preened themselves on their great constancy and patience, only to learn when humbled by adversity that this was all hypocrisy. Believers warned, I say, by such proofs of their diseases, advance toward humility and so, sloughing off perverse confidence in the flesh, betake themselves to God's grace. Now when they have betaken themselves there they experience the presence of a divine power in which they have protection enough and to spare...

And it is of no slight importance for you to be cleansed of your blind love of self, that you may be made more nearly aware of your incapacity; to feel your own incapacity that you may learn to distrust yourself; to distrust yourself that you may transfer your trust to God; to rest with a trustful heart in God that, relying upon His help, you may persevere unconquered to the end; to take your stand in His grace that you may comprehend the truth of His promises; to have unquestioned certainty of His promises that your hope may thereby be strengthened.

Institutes 3.8.2-3 (Battles p703-4)

Oh Calvin!

Halfway through the massive Institutes is this one, entertaining sentence:

By nature, I love brevity.

Institutes 3.6.1 (Battles p685)

#25 ------?

So, here is my last one. We've been doing this for nearly 6 months you know! Our next phase of mid-life crisis is already in the pipeline, but here's to the end of a short era.

So what to choose? I thought I'd have one clear final boom. But there's a lot jostling about here. So before I put my final track, here's what nearly made it:

Cantaloop by US3
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes
Free At Last by DC Talk
Some Kind of Zombie by Audio Adrenaline
Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks
Hey Jude by The Beatles
Missing You by John Waite
Need Your Love by Fleetwood Mac

Instead I have chosen to go out with something ridiculous by a man who admits he has very little musical talent. But, despite it's lack of merit and the insults I will garner, it's fun!

Bitter-sweet sacrifice

Cut and pasted this from les Davey de France:

From today's Sud-Ouest, the story of an AirFrance air hostess who found out recently that she is pregnant and so was routinely switched from cabin duties to airport duties. She was due to have been on flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, but instead she was on check-in at Mérignac.

She says, "Because I was reassigned they had to find another air hostess to complete the team. I know that someone died in my place, and I ask myself in what circumstances. This baby that I'm carrying has already saved my life before I even give birth. I am divided between a double joie de vivre and a sense of blame."

If you owe your life to one who died in your place, if a promised child has saved your life, then you'll understand her feelings of double-joy mixed with shame - especially when that child is the one who died under God's condemnation in our place at the cross.

Upon that cross of Jesus my eye at times can see
The very dying form of one who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

Techno community

Taking his thoughts from Trinity Sunday, and the way God has determined to share his love in embodied humans in community, Mark Galli writes,

Every technology has the ability to enhance embodied life or to subvert it. Take transportation. Planes, trains, and automobiles allow us to enjoy embodied fellowship with people who live far away from us. This is a great good. But speedy, cheap transportation also makes possible the transient culture we live in, where people struggle to put down roots in one place and ground themselves in their neighborhood...

...Not a few of us find ourselves addicted to email. It is a wonderful thing to be able to connect with so many people so quickly and efficiently. But like many, I often find myself so drawn to my Blackberry and laptop that I fail to be present with the flesh and blood person who is standing before me. I look at them and pretend like I'm listening, but my mind strains to get back to my email. The technology is obviously undermining my ability to be present in an embodied way to the real person in front of me.

Mark Galli, Christianity Today

#24 Takin' Care of Business

Firstly I'd like to observe that I have now, by June 4th, exceeded my total blog entries for the whole of last year. I'm not sure if this is significant, but I felt it was historical at least.

Secondly, there is a bottleneck forming now we're nearly at the end of our mid-life crisis stage 1. This was nearly Sweet Child O'Mine - I don't like Guns&Roses at all, but every band seems to have its moment (even Hawkwind had Silver Machine, ie one actual proper song in 40 years). But in the end I have settled for something that may well cause humiliation as BTO have been a joke in the UK ever since Smashie and Nicie.

Anyway, here it is: a slightly sarcastic look at the rock'n'roll lifestyle:
Spotify

Parental faith

To parents: it may sound cliché, but we followed our father’s teaching in part because he practiced what he preached. Like all children, we needed to look up and see our parents looking up at a great God who has great things in store for those who love him.

Daughter of Bruce Ware, quoted on Discerning Reader reviewing Big Truths for Young Hearts