Last Christmas our friends at AbondanteLiving.com sent our family each a salt pig. Now I had never heard of such a thing before. It is a little crock with an open front and a nob on the top, and you keep your salt in it near your stove top. I have really been enjoying mine, and I fill it with Kosher salt, or the Maldon salt I brought back from England. I carried the Merkles’ salt pig over to England for them when I went in January, and Bekah has hers strategically located by her stove as well. It’s a very handy gadget and I heartily recommend it. My younger daughter has not an inch of space in her kitchen where she can put her salt pig, so her husband has adopted it for the time being, and it is a treat pig on his desk at the office. So treat yourself and all your family to a salt pig if you are looking for a unique gift. It’s the fun stuff.
Monthly Archive for May, 2007
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Recently when talking with my son about the blessings God has been pouring out on our family and our congregation, he compared God’s blessings to a big, heavy basket of fruit which is not always easy to carry. A huge load of heavy gifts requires a strong set of shoulders to bear. That has been a wonderful analogy for me ever since. And when we got the very exciting word yesterday that our youngest is bearing twins, I thought again of this heavy basket of fruit. But God gives us the shoulders to bear the incredible blessings He graciously pours out on us. Twins! This will make a baker’s dozen of grandchildren for us! We are overjoyed and thrilled. This morning my daughter got out the pictures from the ultrasound just to double check that she hadn’t been dreaming the whole thing up. No, there they are: twin A and twin B. Miraculous! What mercies surround us on every side.
Many of you saw our town on the news yesterday. We woke up Sunday morning to hear that a sniper had been shooting from the First Presbyterian Church on Saturday night, where we had attended a wedding earlier that day. As the story unfolded, we learned that one of the young women in our congregation had been in the line of fire. She had been hired recently as a dispatcher at the county courthouse and was at the sheriff’s office when the man started shooting. Her car is riddled with bullet holes, and God spared her and the others who were hiding out there. She told me that as she was lying on the floor while the bullets were whizzing into the building, she was reciting Psalm 23 and praying, and she felt much peace in the midst of this weird nightmarish drama.
I was struck Sunday morning at our worship service as we were singing the offertory from Ecclesiastes 11:1-2: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight: for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.” We have no idea what may happen tomorrow. We must, in a sense, live for today, giving all we have now and not putting it off. Things can happen very fast. So give unto the Lord. Be generous. Don’t put it off. You never know.
“Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another” (Gal. 5:26).
While listening to a tape series, I was struck by an off-hand comment made by the speaker. She said that women are some of the worst misogynists in the world. This is really true. The women’s movement itself is fueled by a woman-hating agenda. It certainly has not created unity among unbelieving women, but has rather divided and alienated them.But this woman-hating attitude can exist even among Christian sisters, where criticism, envy, and distrust can destroy the possibility of close fellowship. Though there may be a surface congeniality, a deep love of the sisters is frequently nonexistent. Where there should be kindness and love, there is instead “debates, envying, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults” (2 Cor. 12:20). Women tend to be far more critical of the other women than they are of men. But, by the grace of God, Christian women have the opportunity to build a wonderful climate of love, encouragement, and support among the sisters in the church community. What is it that causes women to be so quick to be critical, envious, and distrustful of one another?I believe part of the answer has to do with a sinful sense of competition among sisters that keeps them from fulfilling their obligation to love one another. This competition centers, of course, around men. The young women compete for attention from the young men, and the older married women can carry on the Continue reading ‘Loving the Sisters’
Quietness is the thing which even the busy, noisy part of the world would pretend to desire and pursue: they will be quiet, yea, that they will, or they will not endure the least disturbance of their quietness. But verily they go a mad way to work, in pursuit of quietness; greatly to disquiet themselves inwardly, and put their souls into a continual hurry, only to prevent or remedy some small outward disquietude from others. But he that is meek finds a sweeter, safer quietness, and much greater comfort than that which they in vain pursue. -Matthew Henry, The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit
God is Kind
A definition: sympathetic, friendly, gentle, tender-hearted, generous. Also note the connection to mercy in many of the verses below. Mercy is a disposition to forgive, pity; it is compassionate, implies forbearance and sympathy. Kindness is bestowing blessings.
Nehemiah 9:17b But you are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them.
Psalm 117 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples! For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!
Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you.
Titus 3:4-7 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The godly woman speaks with kindness.
Proverbs 31:26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.This means she has the law of kindness governing all she says. Psalm 141:3 is a prayer for God to set a watch at the “door of my lips.” We should ask God to station kindness as a guard there. Continue reading ‘Kindness’
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