I am posting this weekend from Minneapolis. The Desiring God National Conference this year focuses on the 500th anniversary of the great reformer’s birth. Here is a picture of John Calvin.

Haven’t posted for a while. September has been insane. All good stuff but intense. Thanks be to God for the mercy ministry outreach. Here’s a picture of the finished house. Should have been a painting contractor. Not really. Took me two days to recover. I think I’ll stick to writing sermons from behind a desk.

But I did recover, thankfully, enough to write this post tonight from a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Someone gifted me a trip to the Desiring God National Conference commemorating the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. I do love this place. I treasure this ministry. I pray the viral contagion of Christian hedonism infects me and my ministry all the more from yet another exposure to the truths and passion of this work.

It was no picnic getting here, that’s for sure. It was one of those days for teaching you the virtue of patience. Didn’t sleep well the night before. Hit every red light, it seemed, on 436 between Casselberry and OIA. Sat for two extra hours in the Atlanta airport waiting for rain to clear at MSP. Waited interminably long, or at least it felt that way, in the Super Shuttle while a new mom tried to figure out how to install a ginormous car seat in the van for her baby. Hit rush hour traffic going downtown. And then to top it all off, at dinner, I go to open the catsup bottle and the thing erupts in an explosion of the red stuff all over my hands, shirt, and the only pair of jeans I’ve got with me for this trip. It was almost comical.

All was not for nought, though. The manager took pity on me and comped the meal. Sure glad I offered to buy. I left the server an extra big grat. My server son would have been proud. My Father, I think, was pleased that in my desire to get to Minneapolis for a conference that matters to me I didn’t miss the bigger picture that today was a day for cultivating the virtue of patience, and it really didn’t matter if the delays ate up the margin and if I walk around all weekend with catsup stains on my jeans. Perhaps I am learning something about what matters most after all these years.

I received this email from a fellow pastor friend today.

Psalm 1:1 ¶ Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Father, I want to thank you for Curt, as I am reminded of his birthday. Lord, I pray for him to be a blessed man. A man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; my prayer for Curt this coming year is that his full delight will be in the law of the LORD, and on Your law he will meditate day and night. Lord, I ask for you to make him like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Lord, I pray that in all Curt does this year he will prosper. Lord, thank you for keeping him from the influence of wicked men this past year. The wicked are not like the tree that prospers but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. But, Lord I pray that you will know Curt’s way this upcoming year because he will be walking in righteousness. I also pray you will give him wisdom to avoid the way of the wicked that will perish. Thank you Lord, for Your faithfulness in Curt’s life in the last year and I pray for your continued mercy and grace in the year to come. Amen & Amen.

Happy Birthday, brother. I treasure your friendship & partnership in ministry.

Few gifts have greater value than praying Scripture back to God for someone. I was hugely blessed and greatly encouraged by the gesture.

Happy birthday to me!

Recognize this young lady? She has joined the blogosphere. Check it out here.

Another birthday. I turn 57 today. Yikes. I can see 60 from here. Amazing. James is right. We are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (4:14).

I suppose I feel all the more that way after my bout with head and neck cancer four years ago. Every day is a gift. I’m not really old, I don’t think, but after wondering if you might have died at age 53, things take on a different perspective the older you get.

For each of the years since finishing cancer treatment, I have acknowledged my birthdays with a different little ditty of my own making. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the significance of marking another year I didn’t know for sure if I would ever have.

Fifty-three was 53 and cancer free.
Fifty-four was 54 and ready for more.
Fifty-five was 55 and staying alive (OK, so I stole that one from the federal government).
Fifty-six, last year, was 56 and up to the same old tricks.
Fifty-seven is 57 and not ready for heaven – at least not as far as cancer seems to be concerned. You never know, but I do praise God for four years now where I remain cancer free and able to do my pastoral work for His glory and others’ joy.

How is this so? Why do I continue on?

Isaiah 46:3-4 answers these questions.

3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; 4 even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

In contrast to idols of Babylon like Bel and Nebo (see v. 1-2), God doesn’t make burdens for His people; He bears His people and their burdens ALL THEIR LIVES.

He really wants us to get this. Listen to me, he says. The accumulation of verbs saying essentially the same thing jumps off the page. You have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on Isaiah:

As God began early to do them good (when Israel was a child, then I loved him), so he had constantly continued to do them good: he had carried them from the womb to this day. And we may all witness for God that he has been thus gracious to us. We have been borne by him from the belly, from the womb, else we should have died from the womb and given up the ghost when we came out of the belly. We have been the constant care of his kind providence, carried in the arms of his power and in the bosom of his love and pity.

Borne, carried, — these words speak of God’s faithfulness in the past to his aging people, from the womb no less. Will carry, will bear, will carry, will save, — these words speak of God’s ongoing promised faithfulness into the twilight years, should He grant length of days.

Again, Matthew Henry:

God has graciously engaged to support and comfort his faithful servants, even in their old age: “Even to your old age, when you grow unfit for business, when you are compassed with infirmities, and perhaps your relations begin to grow weary of you, yet I am he—he that I am, he that I have been—the very same by whom you have been borne from the belly and carried from the womb. You change, but I am the same. I am he that I have promised to be, he that you have found me, and he that you would have me to be. I will carry you, I will bear, will bear you up and bear you out, and will carry you on in your way and carry you home at last.’’

What a contrast God is to the idols of Babylon and the idols of our 21st century making! The latter bears us down with burdens unspeakably heavy; the former, our great God, Jehovah, through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, lifts (the Hebrew word for carried in the context literally means to raise) us up and bears us along through all of life, from womb to tomb as they say, rescuing us at every turn.

There is no god like our God from the moment of conception to the 57th birthday and beyond.

I wonder what rhymes with 58?

Yet two more special reasons, among some 200 others, I love being in covenant community with God’s people in a local church.

Another brand new reason, among some 200 others, I love being a shepherd of God’s people!

Dr. Mohler has a post about recent photos from the Hubble telescope and how they declare the glory of God in oh so fabulous fasion.

Check it out here.

Some years ago, John Eldredge wrote a hugely popular book about men called Wild at Heart. Recently I have reread it along with a sequel, The Way of the Wild Heart. God worked uniquely in my life as a man on both counts. He contends this in the first book:

Christianity, as it currently exists, has done some terrible things to men. When all is said and done, I think most men in the church believe that God put them on the earth to be a good boy . . . a nice guy. . . . Now let me ask my male readers: In all your boyhood dreams growing up, did you ever dream of becoming a Nice Guy (p. 7)?

Whatever one may think about Eldredge’s treatise of masculinity, I can tell you what God wants men to pray about becoming as men in His church. He wants them to dream of becoming good men.

Paul tells Titus in 2:14 that Jesus gave himself for us . . . to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Titus gets a commission from Paul in this pastoral letter. He tells his ward to go hard after teaching and preaching that promotes a lifestyle of good works. He describes what that looks like in three spheres: the church (chapter one), the home (chapter two), and the world (chapter 3).

God cares greatly whether or not we excel in goodness as men, just as he does women, as the rest of the context in Titus 2 bears out. The Lord charges Titus to teach what accords with sound doctrine (2:1). The aim of such teaching is plain — that the believers on Crete would take care to devote themselves to good works (3:8).

But the ultimate motivation for such teaching and resultant devotion comes into focus clearly in chapter two in three different verses making the same point.

Verse 5 – that the word of God may not be reviled.

Verse 8 – so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Verse 10 – so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

In every instance the concern remains the same. We must calculate the impact of the lifestyles we live in terms of the way they reflect upon the faith we profess before the critical eyes of a watching, unbelieving world.

Men, we can act in such a way so as to blaspheme God. We can cause His word, the Christian faith, to come under reviling, blasphemous scorn. We can act in such a way so as to set unbelievers off saying all sorts of unflattering things about Christians. We can act in such a way so as to appear to be wearing anything but the doctrine of God our Savior.

May God give us grace to act like men of God so that the name of God may be glorified in us.

How does one battle discouragement in prolonged suffering?

My journal entry from 9.11.05 filled only five lines.

Again there is no change in my condition, except that my lip is nearly healed. I continue to make mucous, especially at night. If I swallow any, it gets thrown up at some point – violently. The amount of mucous is staggering. It is difficult not to be discouraged. Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you (Psa. 55:22).

Take this massive promise to the vault of heaven and cash it in over and over again from the endless resources of God’s care.

That’s how to battle discouragement in prolonged suffering.