Happy Friday,
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalm 90:17
This verse concludes the Psalmist’s prayer asking God to teach His people to live wisely and well. It is a good prayer for today.
Reading: John Stott suggests two questions when reading your Bible. 1) What does it mean? (to the original audience in the original context) 2) What does it say? (to our church context today)
Write Your Own Friday Update: In case you missed Mike’s note last week, he is in Israel and I, Ben Dockery, am filling in. You should try to write your own Friday Update. It’s fun-ish. Keep notes all week and then cram it all together in Mike’s inimitable format.
Quote Worth Requoting: “What is the Christian understanding of work? Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.” Why Work?, an essay by Dorothy Sayers, 1942.
Without Comment: 1) 58% of Americans report they own stock; 2) Playing the game Dota 2, Johan “N0tail” Sundstein was the highest paid gamer last year. Overall earnings: $6,976,271; 3) 100 years ago, Babe Ruth was the highest paid athlete with a $52,000 salary (valued around $900K today). A few years later he earned more than President Hoover and said, “I had a better year than he did.”; 4) Scientists unveiled the first ever images of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope; 5) Practicing Christians are more than twice as likely to adopt children than the general population; 6) The World Economic Forum shows that despite hosting 60% of the world’s arable land, Africa is a major importer of food.
With Comment: Malcom Gladwell suggested, “All learning begins with the ability to make mistakes.” Comment: One task of a leader is to take responsibility for building a culture where people can make mistakes.
Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist, claimed, “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.” Comment: Your attention, my attention is what is at stake. Attend to that which steals your attention as if it were your money.
George MacDonald said, “A man’s real belief is that which he lives by. What a man believes is the thing he does, not the thing he thinks.” Comment: I wish this were not true. I’d like to say my real beliefs are the things I think and not the things I’ve done and left undone.
Justin Earley wrote, “The habits of our hearts often follow the habits of our phones.” Comment: Ouch!
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WOTW: I looked long and hard for a good Hebrew word to align with Mike’s trip to Israel. Alas, shalom and shabbat weren’t making headlines this week. Instead, let’s go with “bearish.” Bulls charge and bears hibernate, and lots of people are talking about a possible bear market. Runner up WOTW: “still-too-close-to-call.”
Inner Peace: In a meeting this week, a pastor noted that everyone is making a cocktail of life practices to help with their mental health. It sounded like a comment I heard from another pastor who described the inner search this way: The secular notion of justification is either inward and subjective, or cosmic and impersonal. So, we must either be right with “ourselves,” or right with “the universe.”
Inner Peace 2.0: Sandra McCracken sings about God’s presence.
Closing Prayer: I will build my house, Whether storm or drought
On the rock that does not move, I will set my hope
In your love, O Lord, And your faithfulness will prove
You are steadfast, steadfast (Sandra McCracken)