Thursday, April 28, 2011

The path of a cloud

Today marks my blog's third birthday. After three years of blogging, it's obvious that I'm beginning to change the pace at which I add new posts. After initially averaging 7+ posts a month for the first 20 months, I tapered off to four or five a month in 2010, and now only find myself writing about three posts per month thus far this year. I alluded to the reason for this dramatic drop in production in a post I wrote in February, which essentially said that I suddenly began feeling the need to slow down my writing in order to better keep up with living what I write. That feeling hasn't changed, and occasionally leaves me wondering about discontinuing this blog altogether. But however much I may be tempted to quit, I still have my moments when I suddenly feel a strong desire -- nay, even a compulsion -- to write about something particularly meaningful to me at the time. And if someone out there in blogland ends up encouraged or stirred by such posts, so much the better.

So in lieu of this momentous occasion, and just to see how it would turn out, I created a wordcloud of the past six months of posts on The View from Here (which you can click on to see it enlarged on Wordle).

Wordle: The View from Here








© 2011 by Ken Peters

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Holy Saturday

I never pay attention to the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. It's like the oft-ignored middle child of the Easter weekend. After all, it's nothing but an in-between time -- dead space between two major events. Right?

Upon reflection, I'm not so sure. In some circles, this day is called Holy Saturday. It's the day Jesus was in the ground. A precious seed buried. The disciples struggling with uncertainty. A time of unresolved tension and unanswered questions. Yet even though it was a day of discouragement for all those who mourned Jesus' death, it was also a day not far from breakthrough -- a day of then unknown possibilities.

Does that sound like it could be relevant for anyone dealing with disappointment and confusion in their walk with God? It does to me. It's a beautiful picture of the fact that, with God, there can be hope in the darkness; expectation amidst apparent defeat. A seed may be buried, but there's something going on just beneath the surface. And it's about to sprout forth! This helps me to see that I needn't be so fearful of the unresolved things in my life.

Life is so full of untidy outcomes and unexplainable circumstances, that it's helpful to reflect on a Holy Saturday when God waited...  He chose to let the followers of His Son live in the empty, worrisome space called uncertainty before He moved that stone. In God's wisdom, there needed to be a Saturday, when the minutes may have felt like hours, before the events of that glorious Sunday unfolded!

There's something holy about waiting when God is the One who's in charge. And there's something good about feeling the tension of an uncertain outcome that provides us with the thrilling opportunity to trust God in the dark rather than only when it's obvious how God plans to see us through. I think I need to develop a greater appreciation of the Saturday before Resurrection Sunday.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The appeal of heroes

Rotten Tomatoes has a list of the most anticipated movies for 2011. What a list. What is it that attracts us to all these movies with such highly unrealistic, larger-than-life characters who save the world from all those wantonly evil villains out there?


I know I might see a few of those movies, and yet I feel a little guilty about it. I think that the reason I'm interested in some of them is because of the thrill ride they can be. And when done well, they can also provide such a sense of satisfaction in how they show an underdog-turned-superhero pulverizing an horrifically evil and egotistical bad guy (even if -- or maybe especially if -- the hero is a little bit flawed himself).

But I think the reason I feel a bit guilty about liking such films is because I wonder how much there's some kind of replacement-theology going on out there? What I mean is, I wonder if -- in the absence of people's convictions regarding a God who wants to save them amidst the obvious troubles of this world -- people feel the need to invent their own saviours to quell the need we feel for them. And then I go to be entertained by them. Is it wrong for me to find some sense of satisfaction in such flawed saviours?

Possibly, but what I'm more inclined to think is that the true Gospel story of a humble Saviour rescuing hell-bound sinners is such a compelling one, that story writers who don't even know the Gospel story aren't able to avoid re-writing it again and again and again. It's ingrained in us. People love the story of a saviour when all hope is lost, and God has provided such a Saviour! And there's nothing wrong with revelling in such a theme on a big screen. I simply hope that more and more people will recognize who the real Saviour is -- this Jesus who has offered Himself up for us -- and that more and more people in this volatile world will begin to find Him even more compelling than the Hollywood heroes ever could be.

But will they recognize a hero who humbly rides into town on a donkey, only to be crucified among criminals?

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A pale blue dot

Just the other day, I added a framed image to my office wall. And every time I look up at it, I'm awestruck. Really. Every time my eyes glance in its direction, I stop whatever I was doing and I stare in wonder.


The print I bought and framed is an image of what has come to be known as The Pale Blue Dot. I've written about it before. Here's some background information on my picture from that previous blog post...


It's a wonderful image taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 while it was on its way out of our solar system, more than 4 billion miles away from earth, and gives a very real sense of our smallness. As Voyager 1 grew increasingly distant, Ground Control on Earth commanded it to turn around and take some pictures of our solar system. From that vast distance, in one of the pictures, Earth can be seen as an infinitesimal point of light visible in a ray of sunlight (enlarged in the image to the right, or click on the image to the left to enlarge it).

As the famous astronomist Carl Sagan later said, "That's here. That's home. That's us." That little dot is where "everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives... every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

So now, as I sit at my desk, sometimes stressing over a phone call I need to make or worrying about something I just said in a call I just completed, or sometimes struggling with a project I need to complete or wondering how on earth I'll meet a deadline, I just look up and I get a dose of perspective. Because whatever I'm stressing over or struggling with, it's probably not as earth-shattering as I may think it to be. And whether I succeed or fail at some tiny task at some tiny point in the history of this tiny dot in the universe is probably not as important as I may be tempted to think.


But in addition to realizing that, I find that the pale blue dot in that image leaves me utterly amazed at how God took notice of each person on this "mote of dust," and despite how infinitesimally small we are, God sent His Son Jesus to this precious jewel in this vast universe to rescue us from our sins and to offer us a new and infinite life with Him! That kind of love leaves me in awe every time I look up from my modest pursuits and stare at a simple dot. And it leaves me lost in wonder as I think that God cares enough to draw near to us here and to wrap us in His loving arms!

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Every Command is a Promise (church bulletin cover)

There’s great hope when God tells us to do what’s impossible to do. He knows we can’t do it, and He really doesn’t want us trying to do it as if we thought we could do it ourselves.

For example, we know that God strictly commanded Israel to “drive out all the inhabitants of the land” (Numbers 33:52), and we know that it was actually God who was “driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:38). In fact, God promised that it would be “the Lord your God who fights for you” as the children of Israel took the land (Deut. 3:22). So in light of all that, it makes sense for Moses to say, “...that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised” (Deut. 6:18-19).

Notice it doesn’t say, “...as the Lord has commanded.” This is because God promised to do the very same thing that He had commanded His people to do. And this is why we never need to fret when God asks us to do what seems impossible. Because as we take a step of obedience to do what God has commanded, God steps in to help us accomplish what’s in His heart for us to do. We have a part – He has a part. We can’t do our part without Him, and He doesn’t want to do his part without us. So we do our part in faith-filled dependence on Him, and He does His part out of grace-filled love for us. What a wonderful arrangement!

It seems to me that this means that when God’s grace is involved, every command God gives us contains a promise that it’s by His strength that it’ll happen. That’s why I don’t want to get stressed out when God tells me to do what seems impossible — because as a child of God, we can be sure that whatever God commands is also a promise!

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

I Act the Miracle

I found a very helpful devotional on John Piper's blog today. It's something I very much needed to hear, as it seemed to relate very well to what I'd just recently posted to my own blog, and I plan to listen to the longer version for which a link is provided below. Check it out, and perhaps you'll also find it a helpful insight!...

When it comes to killing my sin I don’t wait for the miracle, I Act the Miracle.

Acting a miracle is different from working a miracle. If Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up, and he gets up, Jesus works a miracle. But if I am the paralyzed man and Jesus tells me to get up, and I obey and get up, I act the miracle. If I am dead Lazarus and Jesus commands me to get up, and I obey, Jesus works the miracle, I act the miracle.

So when it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait passively for the miracle of sin-killing to be worked on me, I act the miracle.

For example, Paul says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

So he tells me to put my sin to death. I should not wait for God to kill it while I remain passive. But he tells me to kill it “by the Spirit." Sin-killing is a miracle of the Spirit. But I do not wait passively, I act the miracle.

Again Paul says, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

So Paul works hard to kill the sins of lethargy and distraction in his ministry. “I worked harder than any of them.” But the decisive animation of that work is the grace of God. It is a miracle. But Paul does not wait passively, he acts the miracle.

Or consider Philippians 2:12-13. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).

Paul commands me to work out my salvation, because God is the one who works this in me. My willing and working is God’s willing and working. It is a miracle. But I do not wait passively, I act the miracle.

I spoke to the Bethlehem College and Seminary Chapel about this crucial act of miraculous sin-killing in my own life. These are lessons I learned afresh on my leave of absence. They feel very fresh, very important and very powerful in my life right now. It is a very personal message.

I invite you to listen or watch “I Act the Miracle.”

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Monday, February 28, 2011

A way to close the gap

Have you ever felt bothered about the gap between how much information you've taken in compared to how much of it you've put into practice? I'm thinking of all the sermons I've heard and of all the books I've read and of the many blog posts I've written! If I were to put everything into practice that I've absorbed in those ways, I would be truly quite amazing, thank you very much! And it's the blog posts that really bug me, because they're things that I often feel God is depositing directly into my heart. Why can't I at least be walking my own personal writings? In fact, it makes me wonder if I should keep writing about present lessons learned if the new blog posts are simply distracting me from past lessons forgotten. If this blog was simply a collection of anecdotes from my life rather than a catalog of applications to live, I'm sure I could write on without reservation. But it's not, and I'm now beginning to wonder if I get more satisfaction from writing about what I'm learning than from seeking and obeying the God I'm learning from, for it's not uncommon to find me spending more time writing about insights I've gained from reading God's Word than praying for His help to live what I'm learning. And I'm quite certain that Jesus didn't say "If you love Me, you will write about my commandments." He'd rather we keep His commandments (John 14:15). And as I continue to write more, I feel a growing gap between what I know and what I do -- what I understand and what I undertake. That can only go on for so long until there's gap so large that I'm no longer living an honest life. But if it's the same challenge re sermons I've heard and books I've read, I can't say that I believe the answer is to stop listening to sermons or to stop reading. So what's to be done?

I was recently reading about William Wilberforce's life, and he stressed the importance of desiring God more than simply knowledge or understanding. And he cultivated his desire for God through what he referred to as the "retired hours" of prayer. Wilberforce also saw that there was a link between life and doctrine, and that link was prayer. In other words, the truths we understand can only consistently become truths that we live through seeking God and depending on Him for strength.

I want to grow in my desire for God more than in my desire for understanding. But knowing that as we seek God, He wants to give us increased understanding, I also want my growing desire for God -- expressed in the retired hours of prayer -- to be the link that I need between what I know and what I do. That may mean I spend less time writing, and then use the time that I once spent writing to pray. I doubt that'll affect too many people anyway. And if there actually is anyone who still wants to know what my mind is on in the wider gaps between my blog posts, just look in the archives of this blog and you may find me there as well, praying for God's help in living some of those past lessons learned.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Monday, February 21, 2011

My struggles living in an I.T. world

I'm not entirely sure why, but I've never been a huge fan of all the spanking new information technology that's constantly out there, or with the ever-accelerating momentum of today's massive I.T. marketplace. At times I wonder if it's because I feel so technologically incompetent that I feel too intimidated to learn how to operate all those new devices. And at other times I think it's because I'm such a cheapskate that I can't bring myself to pay for all this new stuff that gets so old so fast.

But I've never been entirely satisfied with those reasons. They've never really fully expressed what I feel like is going on inside me every time I hear about the latest thing. It can't simply be intimidation, because I've happily grown quite capable of using some extremely helpful (although admittedly simple) forms of I.T. technology over the years. And I know it's deeper than just being tight with my money, because I'm quite happy to spend money on many other things that I could easily live without. There's something else. Speaking in a general sense, I think it's that there seems to be such a collective headlong rush to get the newest and the latest that we end up neglecting the oldest and the truest. Speaking personally along the same lines, I've found that I'd often rather Google something or Facebook someone than simply sit down and pray and read God's Word. And the more distracted I get, the more easily I end up preferring the pursuit of an Ipad (or how about a plasma TV) over the pursuit of how to obey what I heard God say during unhurried times with Him. Yes, too often it feels like these new technologies can create such attention-demanding distractions that it's difficult to avoid feeling like the I.T. world is at odds with God's kingdom. In actual fact, it doesn't have to be that way. When used wisely, these new technologies represent huge opportunities to help advance God's kingdom.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The kind of strength I need

I tend to think of the apostle Peter as a big strong fisherman who could haul in heavy nets full of fish, heave on heavy canvas sails and pull up heavy boats onto a beach. I tend to think of him as a man who had gained his self-confidence from his broad-shouldered, man-against-the-elements approach to the livelihood he'd embraced. And so it doesn't surprise me that when Jesus told Peter that He was praying for him so that his faith wouldn't fail (Luke 22:33), Peter responded by saying that he'd go to prison and even die for Jesus (v.33)! That's when Jesus warned Peter that'd he'd actually deny that he even knew Him -- not once, but three times before that very night was over. And when that happened, and the rooster crowed just like Jesus said it would to signal Peter's denials, it says that "the Lord looked at Peter" (v.61) and that Peter "went out and wept bitterly" (v.62).

The strong man no longer felt strong. The strength he thought he had had failed him. I'm sure the Lord's look was a look of love, but Peter must have felt exposed nonetheless. Exposed as weak -- something he'd never thought himself to be. And through that experience, Peter must have learned that the kind of strength he needed -- and would soon have -- was of a different nature than the forcefulness and aggressiveness of a seasoned fisherman. He needed a strength of heart that came from heaven and that depended on God rather than on guts.

And I have to wonder which sort of strength I'm most inclined to depend on when the pressure is on. Is it the strength of my own momentum as I push to get things done for God, using the forcefulness of my own will to try to make things happen as I offer God a helping hand? That does sound a little like me in the seasons of life that appear more like me doing work for God than like God doing His work through me. Or is it a peaceful yet determined strength of heart that comes from patiently seeking and hearing the voice of God, obeying Him as He leads me? Because I know that only one of those strengths will stand the test of adversity, and only one will bring God glory as I seek to follow Him.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Trained to do the Impossible!

I'm so grateful that God hears us when we pray! And it's such a thrill to read a description of how the Lord thunders down from heaven, lightning flashing and hailstones flying as He routs the enemies of King David in answer to his prayers (Psalm 18:6-15)! Then verses 17-18 say, "He rescued me from my strong enemy" and "the Lord was my support". It's such a spectacle of God's power in those opening verses of Psalm 18 that it's tempting to think that having "called upon the Lord" (v.6), we can then just sit back and watch God do His thing. He'll just come and rescue me because He delights in me (v.19).

But it's a long psalm, and if I read on, I get a different perspective. "For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? The God who equipped me with strength... [and] trains my hand for war... For You equipped me with strength for the battle" (vv.31-39). Sure it's God who "made those who rise up against me sink under me" (v.39), and who "made my enemies turn their backs to me" (v.40), but if I'm to apply this psalm to my own life, it's supposed to be me who "pursued my enemies and overtook them" (v.37). In other words, God is not interested in me being an unassertive spectator as I passively watch Him do His thing! He wants me as involved in the answer as I am in the cry for help so that I can grow through the experience of being trained by Him.

That doesn't mean that I end up answering my own prayers. No, it means I get the thrill of participating with God as He enables me to do the impossible as He answers my prayers -- "For by You I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall!" (v.29). It very well may be that God wants us to patiently wait in hope for Him to answer our prayers (eg- Psalm 40:1), but I don't think that necessarily means that He wants us to passively wait in hope for those same answers. Some might say that (in a New Testament context) it's simply the act of praying in faith amidst the battles we face that constitutes doing the impossible, but I'm more inclined to believe that God wants us actively taking authority over things in the areas we pray about, and that's how God wants to help us to do the impossible as we "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, [and] cast out demons" (Matthew 10:8).

So I'm asking myself: Am I available to be trained (v.34) and equipped (v.32) and engaged in the battle as I ask God to defeat the enemies I face? Because it seems that He doesn't want to do it without us!

© 2011 by Ken Peters