QICQA #4

I just finished helping my wonderful wife peel apples for apple crisp. This brought back to mind a question that has plagued me for decades:

Why do we contort our faces to help us concentrate?

And furthermore, how does such an unattractive treatment of the human face actually produce the desired effect of increased concentration and dexterity? I found it nearly impossible to peel an apple without my jaw jutting out in what must have been a most unattractive bulldoggish grimace.

p.s. while I'm on the subject of QICQA's, I must confess my disappointment at the apparent lack of interest in the last QICQA. Not one of my four readers spoke up. At least that one was a question with some theological import.

Roundup: Back in Action

Anyone who has a blog knows that the longer you wait between posts, the harder it is to write a post. I'm determining to overcome the inertia right now with a general roundup post that gets me up to date.

South Africa was really wonderful. I met many dear people and renewed many friendships from seminary. It was also pretty tiring – three, 3-day conferences in a row with two Sundays included. I taught for 11 or 12 days straight, including travel days. The trip home was epic – started in Cape Town on the morning of June 4, arrived home in L.A. around noon the 5^th. Door-to-door, it was 32 hours. I was rather brain-dead.

Upon arrival in the U.S., my laptop promptly crashed. After some anxious moments over the course of a week, our heroic IT staff at GCC/TMS installed a new hard drive and retrieved all the data from the old one! They also gave me a loaner (on Sunday, no less) so that I would have something to use for my summer class beginning on Monday. I love those guys…

So, I arrived home on Friday, and I started teaching summer school on Monday. Theology 1, my bread-and-butter class in the M.Div. program. I'm now finished teaching (the class was 3 weeks long), but I'm working on several ideas that will enhance the class for fall – a whole new approach to the attributes of God, and a slightly modified way of tackling the sovereignty of God and problem of evil. Can't wait to get back to that in a couple weeks.

In the middle of all that, I attended the Resolved Conference, one of my favorite events of the year. It's like summer camp for big people. So encouraging and challenging – Piper's sessions on sin and the glory of God were really helpful to me, not just as a believer, but as a theology professor. I also had the unique privilege of serving the band, Enfield, as a kind of chaplain. I had devotions with them before the sessions—their own call to worship, if you will. It was a blessing. Oh, and you should get the CD.

Finally, I taught in Crossroads today. They asked me to do an adaptation of my seminar from the Shepherd's Conference, on theology of worship. It was a challenge, but it was so valuable to take the principles that I have brought to church leaders and explore the congregational perspective. This will help me greatly as I develop my class on theology of worship for next spring at TMS.

And that brings us up to date. I have two more weeks at home, including two days of seminars with D.Min. students at TMS, then on July 10 I leave for the Grand Canyon and a 7-day rafting trip. More on that, and an update on Dark Dog, coming in the days ahead.

Moving Quickly

This is a placeholder post. I am alive and well in Pretoria, South Africa. I arrived last Wednesday evening, did a little sightseeing for two days while trying to adjust to the time difference. Taught once Saturday and got a tour of one of the townships with a church planter. Preached 3 times yesterday, and the Shepherds Conference series starts today: three, 3-day conferences in a row, in three different cities - Johannesburg, Polokwane, and Cape Town. And I'll preach twice on Sunday morning between conferences 2 and 3. There will be a few free hours here and there, but I may not have time to post anything substantive, and I don't know if I'll have internet. It's an exciting time - please pray for me, all 4 of you, and I'll update here or on Twitter when I can.

QICQA #3

This one really gets me: why do animals play?

There's something to know about the Creator here. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I'm utterly fascinated by the pervasive sense of play in the animal kingdom.

Illustrations from Gardening

(Long Post Alert – get coffee before proceeding)

Today I fought the third (and final, I hope) battle of the Great Crabgrass War of '09. Rehabilitating the mostly undeveloped border of my back yard has been quite an arduous task. On the one hand, there's a part of me that enjoys the manual labor of spading the ground, pulling the weeds, and installing irrigation (this is SoCal – nothing desirable grows without sprinkers). On the other hand, there were some frustrating challenges – like several patches where crabgrass had mostly taken over the soil, and I had quite a mess to deal with.

As I was digging, pulling, sifting, raking, and listening to music (mostly Big Daddy Weave and the new Newsboys album), I meditated on the manifold analogies between defeating this stubborn, insidious weed and battling sin in my life. Here's a taste:

• Crabgrass always starts small, and creeps in from some other part of the ground. Several years ago I completely re-did my back yard: dug out tree roots, plowed up the whole thing, leveled it, installed new sprinkler systems, prepared the soil, and put down fresh sod. There was nothing but beautiful, consistent, soft Marathon #1 from wall to wall, except for the border strip that would be a flower/veggie garden someday. On that day you would never have guessed that a few years later I would be engaged in an epic battle against a strong and well-established intruder. But here he is – having come in from deep in the topsoil that retained root fragments. Some of it actually came through the joints in the concrete block wall that defines my property's boundary. This is strong, stubborn stuff, now that it has had time to establish itself. The analogy with sin is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Seemingly small sins of pride, anger, lust, envy – you name it – can become entrenched patterns while I am distracted with other things and not tending to my heart.
  
• Crabgrass digs in deeply and reaches out quickly to establish many different root systems. Given enough time, crabgrass becomes a network of reaching tendrils and redundant root systems. It seems to seek out sources of water and nutrients by sending thick roots under the surface (they're even sharp on the end) and tough vine-like branches along the surface of the ground. As the roots grow horizontally, they send up shoots to the surface. As the vines reach along the surface, they send down new root systems every 10 inches or so. It is nothing to be trifled with. You can't just grab it anywhere and give it a yank – you'll just be deceiving yourself into thinking you're actually dealing with the problem. Which leads to the next lesson…
  
• To get rid of crabgrass, you have to dig until you find the biggest root. It would have been fairly easy to take a weed-whacker and cut everything off right at the surface. I would have had clean-looking flowerbeds immediately. But that wouldn't stop the process described above. The roots would just send up new shoots, and in a couple weeks the system would be stronger than ever. I had to dig up every square inch of that patch (about 40 square feet) to a dept of about 9 inches. I had to sift through the soil, breaking up the clods as I went. As I did this, I found the multitude of little intertwined roots, but I also found huge, pencil-thick main roots that were giving strength and stability to the system. Dealing with sin is not too different from this. You can't trivialize individual offenses against God – you have to go for the heart motive – what am I seeking instead of being satisfied with Jesus? What am I worshiping instead of giving God his proper place in my life? I have to deal with those things, love Jesus instead of them, and the root of sin will be destroyed.
  
• When eliminating the weed, you must retain the good soil that gets caught in its roots. I could have eliminated the crabgrass patch by shoveling all the dirt out of the garden – just throw it all in the dumpster. But that's counterproductive – a waste of good topsoil. So I had to break up the clods around the roots as I was pulling them out so that the nutrient-rich soil would remain behind to provide a bed for growing flowers and vegetables. I think this is sometimes an overlooked principle in spiritual growth. God has given us so many good things that we pervert into sin. Sanctification is not about eliminating the good things so that we won't pervert them; it's about receiving them as gifts of God and seeking to enjoy them to his glory. Food, drink, sex, words, music, power, talents – all can be cultivated as gifts of grace, or perverted into ugly weeds that choke out their intended purpose.
  
• Finally, once you've done the initial job of digging out a patch of crabgrass, you must be vigilant to guard against a recurrence. You see, you never really totally eliminate crabgrass. It can begin again from a small root that is left behind, or it can creep in again, even through the concrete walls you've erected. But – and here's the key – the sooner you deal with it, the less painful it will be for you, and the less disruptive it will be for your garden. Better to pull tiny shoots than dig ugly roots. The parallels with sin are obvious, and this post is already way too long.
  

It's been a slightly strange Saturday. I wish I was as intent on eliminating sin in my life as I was in seeking to eradicate the crabgrass from my garden. So, what's growing in your garden these days?