Did a bit more work today. Bloo version 0.12 is now up – here are the main changes that you’ll see in this release:
More goodies coming out later this week (hopefully a better pinger and an RSS feed, among other things.)
Good night all.
*yawn*
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge . . .
– Proverbs 1:7 (NIV)
Fearing God is not in vogue these days, at least not in the culture in which we live. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around verses like Proverbs 1:7. The verse continues: “but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” This is scary in itself (speaking of fear) when I think about how much I despise discipline.
So I’m pondering this passage: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge”.
Knowledge of what?
A possible answer comes to me. Fear of the Lord is – in part – the knowledge of how completely helpless I am without Him. Do I understand that? I’m an American, with a checking account and a college degree and a 401k and a house and three (three?) cars. It’s easy for the well-integrated unbelievers among us to not “feel” helpless. Our physical circumstances are not desperate.
Yet, without Christ we are helpless. There is no “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” in the Kingdom of God. We have so little power on our own. Christ died for us while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. You can’t get much more helpless than “dead”.
But if we’re in the Kingdom, adopted children and beloved by our Father, why the fear aspect? Why does fear need to intrude into my relationship with God? Wouldn’t fearing God interfere with my love for Him?
Oh, if I could only begin to comprehend His holiness, His power, His splendor and His glory, I might know real fear for the first time. Fear expressing itself in dumbfounded awe, trembling love, and prostrate devotion. Fear that only leads me to love Him more.
I leave you with a favorite passage from Job:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
“Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
“Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?Job 38:1-4a (NASB)
And on and on for 60+ more awe-inspiring verses.
And Job gets it. He knows where he was when God laid the foundations of the earth.
He was nowhere.
Nowhere, that is, except within the loving and holy thoughts of his Creator.
Then Job answered the LORD and said,
“Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
Job understood the fear of the Lord. And it made him wise.
I lay my hand on my mouth.
Out of the Bloo has just been upgraded to Bloo v 0.11. The following new features are included in this release:
The development on Bloo still continues to “flow” quite nicely. I always know when I’ve hit the groove – attained “Nerdvana” you might say – when anything new I want to do to my basic software framework flows with that framework and is implemented as unobtrusively as possible. The monthly archives “SnapOn” for instance (in the right sidebar) – took me about 20 minutes. Very simple (and it works).
Bloo is not yet ready for public domain, but hopefully in a few more releases it will be.
Watch me for the changes . . .
The invaluable, most excellent Dawn Eden has some wonderful news!
I have two pieces of incredibly, unbelievably wonderful news to share.
This is not an April Fool.
The first is that today I received official notice that I will begin a new, permanent full-time job on April 11. It promises to be the best job I have ever had in my life.
I am sorry that I cannot give full details of the position here, because after my experience at my last job, I recognize the necessity of keeping my blog and job completely separate, both for my own sake and out of courtesy to my employer. However, I can tell you that it is a higher-level position than my last job, with greater opportunity for advancement (that is to say, there is opportunity for advancement); it pays better; the benefits are better; I like the organization and the people I’ve met there; and – most importantly – I’ll be doing the kind of work that I’ve been longing to do.
In other words, this is a complete answer to prayer – a greater answer than I had hoped for.
The other news is that today I accepted an offer to write a book for one of the largest Christian publishers.
Details of my book will be available here, but I’m waiting until the ink is dry on the contract and until my publisher lets me know it’s OK to get the word out. For now, I can tell you that it’ll be based on themes I’ve developed on this blog (not relating to Planned Parenthood – perhaps that’ll be another book).
As one who has followed with interest the travails and triumphs of this brave and increasingly influential Christian blogger, I’d like to congratulate Dawn. This is awesome news!
Wisdom calls aloud in the street,
she raises her voice in the public squares;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out,
in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:Proverbs 1:20-21 (NIV)
Wisdom – what is it? As you read the Bible you realize that, however it is defined, it is golden in God’s eyes. It seems to me that wisdom is not so much “knowledge”, and it is not high philosophy or an intricate system of logic. It is what God granted Solomon in 1 Kings 3 when he prayed for a discerning heart and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. It is the ability to see clearly, and to judge rightly, and to know God’s will. True wisdom only comes from God.
And Wisdom is not something God hoards. No, the God whom Paul referred to as the “Only Wise” invites us to ask Him for it. He’s got a storehouse of it that He is ready to pour out on you and I, liberally and without reproach:
If you need wisdom–if you want to know what God wants you to do–ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. – James 1:5
How can we not fall head over heels in love with God after reading that? We all need wisdom – it keeps us from making dumb choices and messing up our lives and the lives of those around us. And God offers it lavishly. He wants us to ask.
And wisdom is persistent – she’s in the streets, crying out, rattling cages, practically whacking us over the head.
“You simpletons!” she cries. “How long will you go on being simpleminded? How long will you mockers relish your mocking? How long will you fools fight the facts? Come here and listen to me! I’ll pour out the spirit of wisdom upon you and make you wise. – Proverbs 1:22-23
Heh – I like the fact that God chose to personify Wisdom as a lady in this passage, and one not to be trifled with either. Wisdom is a commodity that we often think we can do without, and we – wait, let me just change that to “I” – flounder about, making my daily choices usually depending on my own increasingly faulty faculties.
I may not be a king like Solomon, but I am a dad, and I’ve got a family that is depending on me to lead them wisely, and we’re facing situations that we’ve never dealt with before, and, dear Lord, the stakes are high.
So I’m asking, Lord. Pour out a spirit of wisdom on us and make us wise. Lady Wisdom is invited to come make herself at home, rearrange the furniture, sing loudly at the breakfast table, and whack us over the heads if need be. Thank you for Your promise.
Lord, grant us wisdom!
I was reading the great and terrible third chapter of Lamentations this morning (just a little something light to start off my day) – I am struck by the honesty that can descend on a human being when he has reached the end of himself, and all his illusions are gone.
The great prophet wails in the ruins of Jerusalem:
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
Jeremiah suffered something that most of us have never faced – the complete destruction of everything he knew. And the absence of the God who had animated his bold and tragic prophecies for so long.
Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
I appreciate (although I cannot articulate it well) the honesty of the prophet. He knows that it isn’t the cruel Babylonians who have destroyed him.
God has.
God is the one who has laid the siege, not Nebuchadnezzar. Do I understand these things?
No.
But my Lord is greater than I can understand, and His ways are higher, His thoughts deeper, and His purposes beyond comprehension. I tend to keep Him at a safe distance, and relate to him via the dry vehicles of logic and stated truths. Nice and safe. And God is indeed the great Logos and the Author of Truth. But my Lord is also a warrior poet, an artist without parallel. He inspired his weeping prophet to write these words in a Hebrew acrostic poem in the middle of the book of Lamentations, and in the midst of destruction and hopelessness. For some reason that amazes me. A poem when I would have simply been shrieking. If Jeremiah can write these words prostrate in the rubble and blood of shattered Jerusalem, surely I can cling to and hope in God in the midst of my easy, untroubled life?
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
Let him put his mouth in the dust–
There may yet be hope.
Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.
For the Lord will not cast off forever.
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
He does not afflict willingly. But He does afflict, in His wisdom and His love, and for a time. He will not cast off forever. Which means that we can hope! His faithfulness is great, and His mercies are new, every single morning.
I pray for a new morning in the life of the one who feels cast off, who has lost hope, who’s chains are heavy and who’s prayer seems shut out. God is not absent. The cynics and fools have it wrong – God is not dead. He is here, alive and the Author of life, and He will not cast off forever. His faithfulness is greater than we can imagine.
That’s one reason we sometimes have trouble imagining it.