Happy Friday:
Three times I was beaten with rods.
Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:24f
In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul riffs about the hardships he faced working to advance the Gospel. “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” The most remarkable thing about this passage is … it’s not all that remarkable. All 28 chapters of Acts make Kingdom work look ridiculously hard. Silly me, I keep expecting that changing the world – and changing my own heart – should be easy and happen quickly.
Good News / Bad News: In this article, Yuval Levin lists reasons we should be encouraged – e.g., the U.S. divorce rate has hit a fifty-year low and teen pregnancies are at their lowest point since records started being kept in 1930. Unfortunately, he also lists several reasons we should be alarmed – most notably, both marriage and fertility rates are at all-time lows in the United States.
Take the Gratitude Challenge: At some point today you should: 1) Disconnect; 2) Take out a sheet of paper; and 3) Write down at least twenty-five reasons you have to be thankful. Set the list somewhere you’ll see it tomorrow so you can read it over and add to it. Do this for a week and let me know how it goes. BTW, I shared this challenge at church this weekend, and have since heard back from one woman whose list is up to 600 entries. (Need a running start? Thank God for: color, music, the rotation of the earth, grace, apples, laughter, the ability to read, etc.)
The Great Resignation: An estimated 4.4 million workers voluntarily quit their jobs in September. When you add them to the 24 million workers who have left their jobs since April – and the 700K+ who have died of COVID – you understand the labor shortage. Experts say those quitting are doing so in light of, “better opportunities, pandemic burnout, and a shift in priorities.” I’m not great at math, but I am starting to think there are only a few of us left working. Maybe only you and me. And, honestly, I am not that sure about you. (On a related note, the latest Barna research suggests that thirty-eight percent of pastors have “seriously considered leaving ministry during the pandemic.”)
The Chosen: A few weeks ago, I endorsed The Chosen. I am not rescinding that endorsement, but FWIW, my image of the Sermon on the Mount does not line up with theirs. For one thing, I believe the reason there is some daylight between what Matthew records (Mt. 5-8) versus Luke (Luke 6) is because Jesus gave this sermon on many different occasions. That said, I look forward to season three.
Word of the Year: The Oxford English Dictionary has already weighed in with their 2021 selection. It is…drum roll please: vax. Any day now other language pundits will chime in. Why not beat them with your own nomination. Here is a list of previous winners to get you warmed up: 2013 – selfie; 2014- vape; 2015 – the “face with tears” emoji; 2016- post-truth; 2017 – youthquake; 2018 – toxic; 2019 – the nonbinary pronoun “they;” and 2020 – lockdown.
Without Comment: 1) In case you were wondering, five thousand Yale administrators attend to the concerns of the school’s 4,703 students. (Yes, Yale now has more administrators than students.); 2) The YouVersion of the Bible app has amassed over 500M installs; 3) More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between May 2020 and April 2021, marking the first time on record that overdose fatalities have hit six figures in a 12 month window; 4) Eighty percent of the world’s population now has access to electricity. 5) Young people in America are having less sex than previous generations, and this article claims Christian convictions is the reason. (Among never-married individuals under age 35 who attend religious services more than monthly, the rate of sexlessness has risen from about 20% in 2008 to nearly 60% in 2021.)
Thanksgiving Quotes Worth Requoting:
- “Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.” Henri Nouwen
- “If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon
- We should give thanks. It’s God’s will, and it’s really, really good for us: “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton
No Friday Update Next Friday: Happy Thanksgiving (and Black Friday and Cyber Saturday and Small Business Monday and all the other new secular holidays I may have forgotten).
Closing Prayer: O Lord our God and heavenly Father, which of Thy unspeakable mercy towards us, hast provided meate and drinke for the nourishment of our weake bodies. Grant us peace to use them reverently, as from Thy hands, with thankful hearts: let Thy blessing rest upon these Thy good creatures, to our comfort and sustentation: and grant we humbly beseech Thee, good Lord, that as we doe hunger and thirst for this food of our bodies, so our soules may earnestly long after the food of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, Amen. (We do not have a record of the prayer prayed by the Pilgrims back in the early 1700s. This circulates as what it might have been.)