Speaking of Happy: Last week I gave a series of brief (3 minute) devotions on Joy. (You can listen here). One of the points I made was that God is the most joyful being in the universe. My comments reminded one reader of something Dallas Willard wrote in his magnum opus The Divine Conspiracy. If you have not read this before—and I think you would remember if you had—you need to. It is here.
Working from Home: A recent Vanity Fair piece opens: “I once heard a story about an older gentleman who wrote novels for a living, and who did so working from a home office. The man would wake up each morning, go down for breakfast with his wife, and then go through a morning ritual that he had done every single weekday, without fail, for almost five decades. He would shower, shave, and then get dressed in a three-piece suit, replete with a bow tie and matching pocket square, grab his briefcase, and then kiss his wife goodbye, before walking about 10 feet into his home office, where he would close the door, and spend the morning writing. The man, apparently, had deduced that the only way to work from home was to act like he wasn’t actually home. Self-deception is normally considered a psychopathology—but in the case of working from home, it actually might be the only way to maintain mental health.” He goes on to claim that science seems to be backing this up. If you need to trick yourself into greater productivity this days, you can read the rest of the article here.
Vanity Fair: I want to admit my surprise at citing Vanity Fair. The term was coined by John Bunyan in his 17th century classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. As a Christian was striving ahead, he was distracted by a fair in the city of Vanity. It was a place of empty and idle amusement. The term Vanity Fair came to mean decadent distractions. Today, we think of it as a magazine.
Dismissing Comparison: According to the CDC, since 2007 the suicide rate for teen girls has climbed 100 percent, and the rate for boys is up 30. What happened in 2007? Smartphones. Of course correlation is not causation; but there are studies suggesting that smart phones = social media = anxiety. It is worth reminding ourselves that comparison is a flawed exercise, always done from a distance and subject to massive manipulation. I can compare myself to an athlete’s 40 yard time or his intellect. Conversely, I can compare myself to Bill Gates’ 40 yard time or his intellect. I can design things to feel worthless or superior. None of it helps.
Psalm 22: A friend wrote to provide support for a previous entry on Psalm 22. Noting that one of his colleagues did her doctoral work on Christ’s “cry of dereliction” from the cross, he wrote: the first line of Psalm 22—“My God my God why have you forsaken me?”—is an “incipit.” With an incipit, I recite the first line and you instinctively know what to say for the second line. So I when say, “the more things change…,” you know intuitively to say, “…the more they stay the same.” The way an incipit works with Scripture is that I recite the first line of the psalm, and you instinctively know that I’m actually quoting the message of the whole psalm including the final line. So Jesus does offer a cry of dereliction from the cross without a doubt. But he also offers an incipit. The one who cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” proclaims to all those who know how the Psalm ends in such a way that they can respond intuitively, “He has done it.”
Stark on Pandemics: Back in 1992, Notre Dame historian Rodney Stark published “Epidemics, Networks, and the Rise of Christianity” in which he suggested that the church’s response in the wake of catastrophes and epidemics is one of the reasons it grew. If you want to know how/why, click here.
Quotes Worth ReQuoting: “The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in.” R.C. Sproul.
Dying Well: The WSJ published a moving reflection by a Duke Divinity school professor on his young wife’s death. It’s worth reading. Click here.
Closing Prayer: “O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God… I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made thirstier still… Give me grace to rise up and follow Thee.” A.W. Tozer