Happy Friday,
“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Jesus, Luke 14
Some think it wrong to be motivated by eternal rewards. Not Jesus. He encouraged it, going so far as to instruct us to store up our treasure in heaven.
September: There’s much to be celebrated about this moment: the temps are mild, the Cubs are still in the hunt, and the Bears are undefeated. But, September? Seriously? What happened to August? For that matter, what happened to July? When I was little, summers went on for a looooong time. They now feel like a three-day weekend.
WOTW: Honorable mention goes to 6G (which is not technically a word, but it’s here), nuclear intermission (the period of relative peace some geopolitical strategists claim is ending), retailanment (a word used in this NYT piece to describe struggling malls filling empty space with Play-Doh-Nerf-Lego themed games to bring people in), and marriage paradox (the irony that the institution’s decline is coming at the moment its objective value is being documented). Full honors—perhaps I should say, “full dishonor”—goes to MAID, which stands for Medical Assistance In Dying. This WSJ article, “Welcome to Canada, the Doctor Will Kill You Now,” documents MAID’s impact on the Great White North. BTW, the five-year-old I recently credited with coining nervicited was just repeating a line from Pinkie Pie in My Little Pony. Somehow, I missed that episode.
Confused: Never mind the homonyms that shaped several SAT questions—for, four, and fore or meat, meet, and mete—I’ve been confusing Ivan Illich (the Austrian priest) with Ivan Ivanovich (the Dostoyevsky character) and Tom Holland (the actor) with Tom Holland (the Oxford historian). I also thought sea-change (a term that plays off the rising and falling tides) was C-change (i.e., a change driven from the C-suite). I’m glad to report I’m not confused about anything else.
Without Comment: 1) 5.3% of those living in the US have two jobs; 2) Per this WSJ piece, our body ages in waves, with 44 and 60 being pronounced; 3) Per Barna, 35% of Americans believe that Jesus is God and have made a personal commitment to him. 26% of Americans are “Jesus Skeptics” —i.e., they deny that he lived on Earth, that he was more than man, or that anyone can know if God exists.
Resilience 3.0: I’ve offended some by lauding the grit of several less-than-saint-like people. I offer this 3-minute video as an olive branch. The resilience Derek Redmond displays should be easy for everyone to celebrate. BTW, while I am here, let me note that by the age of 14, Katie Ledecky was swimming 50,000 meters per week, and when Simone Biles was 14 she was spending up to 8 hours per day in the gym. The place where grit is most needed is when no one is watching.
FWIW: 1) In line with national reports, I’m seeing people leave the church. I’m also seeing some return; 2) A fool can tear down a country, a church, or a school. It takes much more to maintain one and much, much more to build one up; 3) We’re free to criticize the political positions of others, but we must not demonize those holding them; and 4) People advocating a tepid commitment to Jesus will always be able to find someone to affirm their lukewarmness.
Looking Around the Corner 2.0: Few predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, the crash of 2008, the rise of nationalism, etc. Consequently, I’m skittish about going on record. However, it seems very likely that 1) we will eventually see government efforts to spike the US population, which will largely fail, and 2) public education will continue to lose market share, which will lead to skirmishes in state legislatures over how many teachers to employ.
Speaking of Predictions: In 1776, the French skeptic Voltaire predicted that within one hundred years of his death, there would not be a Bible on earth except “one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” However, within fifty years of his death, the Evangelical Society of Geneva bought his house and filled it with printing presses with which to print the Bible and Christian literature.
Prayer Request: 1) The world and its leaders need prayer—especially the Middle East; and 2) This Saturday at 5 p.m., we relaunch our Saturday night services.
Closing Prayer: Gracious and gentle and condescending God, God of peace, Father of mercy, God of all comfort; see, I lament before you the evil of my heart; I acknowledge that I am too much disposed to anger, jealousy, and revenge, to ambition and pride, with often give rise to discord and bitter feelings between me and others. Too often in this way I have offended and grieved you, my long-suffering Father, as well as my neighbors. Oh! forgive me this sin, and allow me to share in the blessings which you have promised to the peacemakers, who shall be called the children of God. Amen. (Johann Arndt, 1555 – 1621)