Welch: 2 things

There are two things you should know about fear or worry.

First, like any strong emotion, it wants to be the boss.  It claims to tell us how life really is. and it won’t be easily persuaded otherwise.  If my experience of fear says that there is danger and you say there isn’t, my fear wins...It tenaciously holds on to its self-protecting agenda...

Second, when fear escalates, it wants relief and it wants it now.  Fear is impatient...It will alight on a promising treatment, give it a few seconds, then flit to something else without ever returning.  Fear has tried God and God didn’t work.  To reconsider God goes against fear’s manic style...

...Why highlight this?  Because one of the first steps in combating fear and worry is to slow down.  “Be still” (Ps.46:10)

Running Scared, p62-63

Self-fulfilling feelings....?

Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates.  Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work towards their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigour.  Mac's resignation seemed to paralyse him, and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped.  Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness were becoming self-fulfilling.

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, p 148

Welch: some possible messages from worry

You have purposes in your anxieties...

...One message is obvious:  If I imagine the worst, I will be more prepared for it. Worry is looking for control.  It is still irrational because worry will not prepare us for anything, but at least it has its reasons.

...Going one step further to track this message back to its origins, there is an entire worldview implicit in some worry.  It cries out about an ultimate aloneness.  There is no one who can really help.  No one can rescue.  No one is really looking out for you...

...we can find a selfish bent to our lives. If that is true, it is likely even our worry reflects some self-centredness : worry puts the focus on me.  

Running Scared, p53

Welch: the night before

Have you noticed that when you are actually overtaken by your fear, it is rarely as bad as anticipated?

...When you are actually in the battle you aren’t thinking about fear.  The hard part is the night before....Anxiety about the future event is usually worse than the event itself. 

Running Scared, p50

Welch: fear says something

There is no dawdling in the face of fear. When we perceive it creeping up on us we want to keep moving. To slow down and listen to what it might be saying is counter-intuitive...Listen and you hear: “I am not in control”...Here is where fear is a door to spiritual reality.  It suggests that authentic humanness was never intended to be autonomous and self-reliant.  Humans are needy by design...

Will we abandon the myth of independence and seek God? Fear, control, God – they are all linked together.  Since independence only works during the really good times, the obvious answer would be to seek God. 

Running Scared, pp37, 40, 41

Welch: fear and anger and the connection

Fear and anger can be the same words spoken with a different attitude.

Running Scared p34

Quick Review: Running Scared -

Fear, Worry and the God of Rest - by Edward T Welch

Well, I don't often say these words, but here goes: this is one of the best Christian books I have ever read.  In fact it's one of the best books I have read, period.

It's a quick review so I won't flood the page with gushing comments.  But I ought to say:

Nothing is a quick, simple cure for anxiety and fear, not in this fallen world, not without direct intervention from God.  But on the long road to severing its power, this book could be one of the most useful, powerful helps you can get.  In fact although it is a book about worry, it is essentially a book about life as a Christian in the Kingdom of God.  It is comforting, but it is not soft - prepare to have some surprising areas of your life confronted.  Very well written, honest, resolutely Biblical, deeply understanding of the condition(s), with suggested practical responses, from a highly qualified professional in the field....it's one of the handful of books I would put on the list headed "Books I wish I had read when a young Christian which could have saved me a lot of bother".

(and thanks to Dickie Mint for inadvertently causing me to buy it)

Quick Review: A Room with a View

by EM Forster

Generally I find that books called "Modern Classics" leave me befuddled as to what gives them this status.  It's no different with this one.  I don't mean, as I might with some modern classics that, actually, they're rubbish.  I just mean: what is it that makes it classic?  Maybe I'll never know.  Maybe I just don't have that intellectual component.  Maybe, sometimes, maybe...they are some Emperor's new clothes involved.  But maybe not.

Anyway, I found this book a pleasant read with some very finely written passages.  I got the impression from the introduction that at the time of it's composure, it was literary suicide to write a book where boy meets girl, and no one dies in misery at the end (though many years later Forster wrote a little piece to bring the story up to date, which effectively solved that problem).

If anyone can tell me why it's a classic I'd be much obliged.

Fishing from a smaller marriage pond

Instead of pre-marital religious commitment, Riley considers age at first marriage as a leading factor. "It is the most religious people who marry young," she explains, while the likelihood of entering an interfaith marriage increases notably with the increasing age at marriage. As one gets older, the pool of suitable marriage partners shrinks, such that even those with a strong faith commitment can feel tempted to go fishing in other faith ponds. "Church-going women in their late twenties and beyond complain that they don't find many eligible bachelors at church," Riley writes. "And so they end up leaving that environment in order to find a husband.

CT, quoting Naomi Shaefer Riley

Things won't fit (Forster)

Given this was published over 100 years ago, it seems remarkably current: the analysis of what is wrong in George's soul, his father's secular bewilderment as to why he can't live peaceably with it, and the (innocently and well-meant) solution put forward by Lucy which completely bypasses the nature of the problem....

"...By understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be good for both of you."

To this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer.

"I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."

"And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.

"The old trouble; things won't fit."

"What things?"

"The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"

In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

  "'From far, from eve and morning,
   And yon twelve-winded sky,
   The stuff of life to knit me
   Blew hither: here am I'

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow."

Miss Honeychurch assented.

"Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes—a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes."

Suddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy because the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a tangle or a wind, or a Yes, or something!

"I'm very sorry," she cried. "You'll think me unfeeling, but—but—" Then she became matronly.

"Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can generally forget them at the piano; and collecting stamps did no end of good for my brother. Perhaps Italy bores him; you ought to try the Alps or the Lakes."

The old man's face saddened, and he touched her gently with his hand.

A Room with a View, p47f

Turmoil

The way we pastors deal with the turmoil around us depends on how we deal with the turmoil within us.

Lee Eclov
Leadership

How we ought to feel - and the pernicious charm of Italy (Forster)

Lucy has been trying to enjoy Italy the way she feels she ought to, as per guide books and education.  Then Forster writes:

Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy.

A Room with a View, p41

Quick Review: The Fiery Trial...

...Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner


This is a demanding book, not because it is obscure or badly written (far from it) but because of its specialist nature - ie it is following just one strand of Lincoln's life and thought, plus it assumes on the part of the reader a certain amount of working knowledge both of Lincoln and the Civil War.  I don't have much of either, but still found it a helpful book, despite having to go slowly and work some things out.

Probably the most memorable element it moves you from Lincoln as the 'president who abolished slavery' caricature, to see how his views developed over the years, the factors and priorities involved in this change, and the far from straightforward situation in which he found himself. 

If you have an interest in Lincoln, or in American slavery, you will get something from this book.  If you're looking for an overview of either Lincoln or slavery, then there are most likely much more accessible books available.

Piper: fear and trembling in attacking personal sin

The text that broke though my inconsistency was Philippians 2:12-13.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so
now, not only as in my presence but much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and
to work for his good pleasure.

Why should there be "fear and trembling" as I attack my sin and bring about salvation from self-pity? The reason given in the text is not a threat. It's a gift. Work to kill your sin, and will to kill your sin, and do it with fear and trembling because God Almighty—Maker of heaven and earth, Redeemer, Justifier, Sustainer, Father, Lover—is so close to you that your working and willing is his working and willing. Tremble at this breathtaking thought. God Almighty is in you. God is the one in you willing. God is the one in you working. Your "continuous, sustained, strenuous" effort is not only being carried out in the presence of the all-holy God, but is the very continuous, sustained, strenuous effort of God himself. I am not waiting for a miracle. I am acting a miracle. God is the decisive cause, but my will is the agent. And it becomes the agent in obedience to the command "work!" For in your working, God is working.

CT

Keller: timing

It seemed to Jairus and the disciples that Jesus was delaying for no good reason, but they didn't have all the facts.  And so often, if God seems to be unconscionably delaying his grace and committing malpractice in our life, it's because there is some crucial piece of information that we don't yet have, some essential variable that's unavailable to us...

We're not God, but we have such delusions of grandeur that our self-righteousness and arrogance sometimes have to be knocked out of our heart by God's delays.

King's Cross, p66-67

Keller: what we really need

But precisely because of the delay both Jairus and the woman both get more than they asked for.  Be aware that when you go to Jesus for help, you will both give to and get from him far more than you bargained for.  Be patient because the deal often doesn't work out the way you expected.

King's Cross, p64

Quick review: The Nine Tailors

...by Dorothy L Sayers

Continuing my quest through the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, I found a change from the increasingly slim volumes of the recently read stories to a quite substantial book by comparison.  The Wimsey books are odd in that they aren't simply detective stories, but often seem to be looking at an angle or area of life as well.  This time, in addition to Wimsey (who, in my opinion. no longer has enough funny one-liners) and Bunter (who doesn't get to reveal his hidden Jeeves-like talents sufficiently) haring through East Anglia, we also become very competently immersed in the life and history of a village; in bell-ringing (an activity which, I discovered some years ago in another book, is a deep and lifelong compulsion of dense mathematical complexity for some people); in the difficulty and engineering necessities of life in the Fens in the first part of the 20th Century.  And there's a mystery which gradually unravels throughout (I realised who did it about a fifth from the end, but I suspect only because Sayers' clever idea has been pinched on a number of occasions since).

So...well worth reading.

Endeavour: Sabbath

Overwork or underwork violates that nature [Sabbath rhythm of work and rest] and leads to breakdown.  To rest is actually a way to enjoy and honour the goodness of God's creation and our own. To violate the rhythm of work and rest (in either direction) leads to chaos in our life and in the world around us. Sabbath is therefore a celebration of our design.

...Endeavour...p235

Endeavour: God's love

When God's gracious love becomes not an abstract doctrine but a living reality, it means our heart is less controlled by anxiety and pride, two powerful forces that constantly lead us to unwisely over- or under-react to situations.

...Endeavour...p210

Endeavour: common grace

Without an understanding of common grace, Christians will have trouble understanding why non-Christians so often exceed Christians morally and in wisdom.  Properly understood, the doctrine of sin means that believers are never as good as our true worldview should make us.  Similarly, the doctrine of grace means that unbelievers are never as messed up as their false worldview should make them.

...Endeavour... p191

Endeavour: secular idols

Nietzsche was mainly looking at modern cultures, but he observed that all cultures - even self-styled 'secular' ones - promote moral absolutes and transcendent values to which (they said) all people must conform if they are to have worth or meaning.  These cultural ideals are truly idols in the biblical sense;  they are not commended as simply good ideas.  Rather, they are treated as holy and unassailable, and promoted with religious fervour and passion.  They are said to bestow happiness and fulfilment (earthly forms of salvation).  All people are obliged to serve these ideals, and those who despise them are themselves to be rejected.  So while ancient cultures ostracised anyone who disbelieved in the gods, modern culture castigates anyone who is thought guilty of bigotry or appears to be an enemy of equality and individual freedom.

...Christians seeking to work faithfully and well must discern the shape of the idols functioning in their professions and industries so as to both affirm the beneficial aspects and offset the excesses ad distortions.

...Endeavour... p137

Endeavour: God using diversity of jobs

Ray Bakke...points out that God shows the diversity of people he uses by giving us three different books in the Bible describing how he restores the nation of Israel back to its homeland.  First, the book of Ezra is about a minister, a teacher of the word.  The Jews needed to be a reacquainted with the Bible so their lives could be shaped by what God said.  Second, the book of Nehemiah is about an urban planner and developer who used his management skills to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and reinstate stability so that economic and civic life could begin to flourish again.  Last, the book of Esther is about a woman with power in the civil government working against racial injustice.  Here you have male and female, lay and clergy.  You have people working for spiritual maturity, economic flourishing, and better public policy, in cultures that defined and valued these ideas differently from the Jews. And God is using them all.

...Endeavour...p120.

Endeavour: all options can be heroism or shmuckdom

Many of those students seem to have a blinkered view of their options.  There's crass but affluent investment banking.  There's the poor but noble nonprofit world.  And then there is the world of high-tech start-ups, which magically provides money and coolness simultaneously.  But there was little interest in or awareness of the ministry, the military, the academy, government service or the zillion other sectors.  Furthermore, few students showed any interest in working for a company that actually makes products...

[C]ommunity service has become a patch for morality.  Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in what way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service...In whatever field you go into, you will face greed, frustration and failure.  You may find your life challenged by depression, alcoholism, infidelity, your own stupidity and self-indulgence...Furthermore...[a]round what ultimate purpose should your life revolve? Are you capable of heroic self-sacrifice or is life just a series of achievement hoops?  ... You can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero. Understanding heroism and shmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets, more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job.

David Brooks, quoted in ...Endeavour..., p107

we know the end of the space programme

My 5-year-old son is a space buff. Consequently, we have done a lot of reading with him about the U.S. space program. His favorite mission is Apollo 11, the first to land on the moon. My husband recently found himself wishing he could have been on that incredible mission. Then he realized how little he would have actually enjoyed it, because of the sheer terror of not knowing whether he'd get back to earth safely. He imagined it—being confined inside a tiny metal box, hundreds of thousands of miles away from his home planet, while any one of a million things could have gone wrong and killed him instantly—and concluded that his fear would have overshadowed any real appreciation of the adventure. The story of Apollo 11 seems nothing but glorious now, but that is only because we know how it ended. I suspect that Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and the late Neil Armstrong would have given anything to relive their mission with the knowledge that they would come home safely.

Jesus wants us to know the ending of our story. Otherwise, the terror of the unknown would distract us from living life to the fullest. Because we are united to Christ, when we look at him, we see the end of our story. We do get to come home safely. That changes our experience of this "mission" that is our lives. We can live them joyfully, as adventure stories and not tragedies in the making.

May we rest in the security of our union with Christ. We are tethered—to a strong character, to a settled plot—and will not disappear into deep space. Let us embrace our unpredictable seasons of life as those who are confident in the quality of the plot, committed to character development, and enjoying our relationship with the protagonist. Christ in us is "the hope of glory." And hope does not disappoint us (Rom. 5:5).

Sarah Lebhar Hall

Endeavour: frustration and vocation

Just because you cannot realise your highest aspirations in work does not mean you have chosen wrongly, or are not called to your profession, or that you should spend your life looking for the perfect career that is devoid of frustration.  That would be a fruitless search for anyone.  You should expect to be regularly frustrated  in your work even though you may be in exactly the right vocation.

Endeavour...p94

Endeavour: interconnectedness (paycheque)

[Our] paycheck turns out to buy us the use of far more than we could possibly make for ourselves in the time it takes to earn the check...Work...yields far more in return upon our efforts than our particular jobs put in...

Lester DeKoster, quoted ,,,Endeavour..., p76

Endeavour: why we're not better

This means, ironically, that Christians who understand biblical doctrine ought to be the ones who appreciate the work of non-Christians the most.  We know we are saved by grace alone, and therefore we are not better fathers or mothers, better artists and businesspersons, than those who do not believe as we do.  Our gospel-trained eyes can see the world ablaze with the glory of God's work through the people he has created and called - in everything from the simplest actions, such as milking a cow, to the most brilliant artistic or hisotric achievements.

Keller, ...Endeavour..., p74