Monthly Archives: April 2010

are your conversations mostly about entertainment or communication?

I’m working through a new discipleship material with some guys. In it recently there was a comparison of religious prayers and gospel filled prayers… it went something like:

A religious prayer life is one in which the concerns of this world are listed and the more concerns we grapple with the harder we pray… its about controlling our environment.

A Gospel filled prayer life is one which has generous times of connecting with God through exaltation and praise.

I sorta kinda liken it to the difference between a three year old crawling up into daddy’s lap just to be there and give and receive love and a teenager asking for the keys to the car… a very imperfect illustration, but you get my drift. Its okay to ask for stuff, we are given that right as adopted children, but its really, really important to dwell and abide with Him.

I was talking very briefly to a politician the other day and this person mentioned that congress had passed a resolution on the Armenian genocide during WWI. I was glad, the politician was surprised at my being pleased, there was no real opportunity for an exchange.

It seems that Bush II and Obama agree that Turkey should not be offended by recognizing this horrific act committed by the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the last century.

I was glad to hear that at least one committee in congress back in March had the willingness to speak up. I have not heard the news since early this morning when the BBC said that some leaders from Armenia were hoping that Obama would use the word genocide. According to what I can find on line, he didn’t. Our NATO allie Turkey would be ticked off. That’s a real shame.

Its a real shame that politicians don’t see justice as justice and not as being subject to who you don’t want to offend.

Use this link to see a brief Russian TV news clip for a summary…

rtsp://v8.cache7.c.youtube.com/CkYLENy73wIaPQkmIZskSXFWvBMYESARFEIJbXYtZ29vZ2xlSARSBXdhdGNoWg5DbGlja1RodW1ibmFpbGCPuISztdSI6UsM/0/0/0/video.3gp

Coffee, my contemplative playlist

Reading The Path

Dwelling with Him

A train horn in the distance interrupts

The bird symphony

Gentle rain keeps time

Morning is worth waking.

Big words huh? I kinda made the first one up, or at least modified real words for my own purpose (at least I’m honest). It comes from a conversation I had with a few guys a couple of weeks ago and then a post on Don Miller’s blog the other day… in the post I’m thinking about, he wondered how personality impacts one’s theology, it is an intriguing thought.
The post made me think about the most recent rise in emphasis on pre-trib, pre-mill theology and the sometimes accompanying emphasis on the importance of the state of Israel. (I say most recent rise because it really is nothing new in church history to see a rise in this type of thinking. It has been particularly busy in the last couple of hundred years with the rise of Zionism and the founding of the modern state of Israel)
Anyway, several of us were talking about this stuff and I said I was a panmillenialist and one of the group responded and we were laughing and one of our group asked, “what is panmillennialism?” So I told him, and we all had a great laugh. See, a pan-millennialist is one who listens to all the other views (they being: a-, pre-, post and the all the subcategories) and says “well, I just believe it will all pan out in the end.” Get it? Pan out… In the END… Oh well, it is humorous sometimes.
So, that conversation has come up a couple of times in conversations and I’ve thought about it a bit and realized that I really am a neopanmillennialist. The neo has to do with the fact that I have so often seen this branch of theology create such division in the church that I decided a long time ago that my own (supposedly ancient) pre-trib views needed to take a back seat to unity in the Kingdom.
Its not that I don’t have a view (like I said, I’m pre-trib, which is a pre-mill view), its just that I’m okay with not making a big deal about it, and even the realization that I may learn from God that I didn’t have my eschatology quite right. And that now, the main thing really is about the Kingdom and extending it in unity with those who may not agree with my view.
But, I am convinced that it will indeed pan out in the end!

I saw this TV movie from ’99 from the fairly well known book. Here are some thoughts and questions from Morrie.

Why are people only comfortable when they are filling the air with words? What’s wrong with silence?

Are you at peace with yourself?

When you know how to die, you know how to live.

Aging isn’t just decay, its growth.

Am I leading the life I want to lead?

Am I the person I want to be?

Work, money, ambition, we bury ourselves in these.

Why are we ashamed of being dependent?

Regrets: pride, vanity, hardness of heart.

Forgive everyone everything now.