Ok, thanks to some help from my good buddy Thor, Thinklings looks like it’s up again. It’s been completely reloaded and upgraded.
Cross your fingers 🙂
Thinklings, Reloaded
10
Prayers from Iraq
Omar from Iraq the Model graciously writes:
It seems that we were pretty much occupied with the bridge tragedy in Baghdad that we didn’t keep track of the news elsewhere till last night when I discovered the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in the hurricane affected areas in the US.
I wish there was a way I could offer some help but there’s nothing but prayers I can give from where I am.
Knowing that people are dying and suffering in Louisiana hurts just as much as if that suffering and death were in Baghdad.
Those people are in our thoughts and prayers. May God help them and guide their rescuers.
Gratitude and Hoopla
Just noticed that Bob at Mr. Standfast has a new blog called Gratitude and Hoopla. He’ll be posting there primarily, although he’s not decided whether Mr. Standfast will continue to get bloggage. I’ve got them both on the bloogroll.
Yesterday I heard a preacher say, “The party’s on!” Yes, that’s about right. The party’s on. I’m no cockeyed optimist when it comes to this life, this world, but, well, I know the hope (the celebration) to which I’ve been called. The end, the destination, is a party. The joy then will be complete. Perfect. Not marred by sin, tears, dissipation. So . . . I’m already excited. If it looks and sounds like pure foolishness to you, oh well. I’m just letting you know, this is what I’m about. this is where I’m at. This is why it’s called “Gratitude & Hoopla.”
Well said.
Thinklings is back up – Not
In case anyone was wondering Thinklings is now upgraded to WordPress (well, most of the way upgraded 🙂 and is back up and running. Update, Thursday morning: NOT REALLY 🙁
I’m punchy.
I leave you with this. This is very, very inspiring at 12:30am (I’m not kidding).
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
– Isaiah 40:28 (ESV)
If you haven’t known or haven’t heard about our great God I hope and pray that you will reach out to him. He’s not sleeping right now – he never does. And he has all the time allowed by his eternal Now to take you in his arms, even as he is moving and active all over this huge world and all its 6 billion+ souls. He has time for you.
Lots going on
I have a lot going on. Work is busy. Our family life is busy. I’m in the middle of upgrading another blog and it’s going to take a lot longer than I thought. That’s one reason I’m still up. My pillow beckons me . . .
I’m crosseyed from staring at the computer screen, manually restructuring tables, upgrading software fully 2 years out of date. Ah. . .
And I’ve got it so good. I’m blessed – tonight I went to church to pick up my daughters and their friend Taylor and I ran into some of the amazing people from our student ministry. That was – well, it was just great! It’s amazing what encouragement a few high-fives, a quick conversation with Stroke, a bright smile from Tamera, a great time spent catching up with Mego, watching Kevo, Brad and Candice practice, and a friendly poke in the arm from Jenny can do for a guy. And I had a fabulous “daddy-date” with Molly at Del Pueblo. I plan on doing the same with Bethany later this week (hang in there Beth!). Bethany gave me a sweet hug tonight – that’s gold!
I’m going to the guitar center and IHOP with Andrew tomorrow night. That will be very cool. And I played a soccer game with Blake tonight – man, he’s so good.
I’ve got a beautiful wife who really loves me. And – as much as I complain – I have a great job that I don’t deserve. And I still have a place to serve at church (the pastor search team) – even though I remain in a state of low-level grief over being called out of the Student ministry. I miss them, but I know that was the right thing to do and God is in control.
Amidst all my complaints that “I don’t have the time to do what I need to do” I am reminded that I have precisely the same number of hours in the day as Jesus Christ did.
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
– Mark 1:35-39 (ESV)
Perspective . . .
Lord, thank you for everything. May I become more like you.
A note about Bloo 0.16 – Cascading Themes
If you don’t have an inner-geek you can skip this post.
I’ve been working on Themes in this release. Got a decent amount of work done this weekend, although I’m still fretting through the best way to organize the code.
Bloo 0.16 (hopefully to come out in the next week) will include Cascaded Themes. A “theme” controlls the look and feel of a user interface – they are also referred to more generically as “skins”. Often times on blogs or other sites the skins are controlled simply by changing out the CSS. A good example of this are the skins on Thinklings. While this is easy to do, it is limiting.
Themes are a somewhat WordPressy concept and are more full-featured than just finagling with the CSS. Themes can alter every aspect of a page if they so desire. WordPress accomplishes this by allowing you to place your page templates in a theme directory and select the theme. There are a specified number of templates you can place there, and they have to be named a certain way.
The Cascading Themes coming in Bloo 0.16 take this a bit further. No longer are you limited in what you can control – a Theme can include not just templates but new SnapOns (what’s a SnapOn? Um, I’m working on the docs for that – so I’ll ‘splain later 🙂 and you can have as many package files as you want to control as many aspects of the blog’s look and feel as desired. And – here’s the cool part – a theme can “cascade” from another theme. In other words, say that you have a certain number of elements that every theme for your blog will include (such as the blogroll, About message, etc). You can place these elements in a base theme and then cascade the other themes off of that, as many levels as you want.
I’ve got this working in my development blog – it was actually not much work because of how Phoo and Bloo are already structured. I’ve been very pleased, if I do say so meself, with the way the structure of this software lends itself to enhancement.
I have a few more details to work out, such as whether or not to cascade the CSS specs – in other words, whether to combine the CSS for the base theme with the CSS for the cascaded theme. I’m thinking through that issue now and leaning “yes”
But bottom line, I’m doing a major engineer’s victory dance at the stokedness of this all. It will make more sense when I release it with the look you’re seeing now (this theme is called “Blue”) along with the older “Classic” theme and a new theme I’ve designed called “Bloo’s Riff”. I’ll also include the ThemeSelector SnapOn so that you can choose the look that best fits your mood when looking at Out of the Bloo.
And if I do this right I’ll actually, for the first time, publish the spec for how to create a theme and open it up for any of you who have an artistic bent and want to submit a new theme for the blog. That will be very cool if I get any takers on that.
Hopefully 0.16 comes out in a week or so. Watch me for the changes . . .
“. . . I will have mercy on No Mercy”
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
– Hosea 1:2 (ESV)
This is the first thing the Lord said to the prophet Hosea. The first thing. Not to make light of this, but I would love to have seen the look on Hosea’s face.
There was worse to come . . .
So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy [Lo-ruhama], for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”
When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People [Lo-ammi], for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
This seems like a breathtaking rejection, does it not? A few things strike me. First, the word of the Lord to Hosea truly changed the course of his life, affecting who he married, how his kids were named, everything. Consider Hosea; the messages he’s received from the Lord have caused him to marry a hooker named Gomer and now they are raising little Jezreel, No Mercy and Not My People.
Hosea was faithful. The prophetic message that was delivered through him was harsh, and he suffered for it. His family became a living picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness and of God’s rejection of her.
Yet God’s rejection was not final. It’s late, I’m sleepy, and I have no words of wisdom to add to what you are about to read. I only ask you to drink it in, because it’s blowing me away. This is the ending of chapter 2:
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
“And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'”
– Hosea 2:14-23
God you are my God! The priviledge of even uttering those words is beyond me. I am undone at the thought of it.
Thank you.
Cool!
Well, not “literally” cool.
Our air conditioner has gone out (compressor).
I’m at home waiting for the repairman to bring out our new unit. We’ll see how this goes. Good thing it’s not summer and we live in a temperate zone.
Ha ha ha – I crack me up. I just checked – we live in Houston and it’s a million degrees outside! And now inside too! 🙂
But it’s all good. We can afford this. God provides.
And that’s what’s cool.
The need for confession
From Matt at Gad(d)about:
. . . something amazing happened at one of our friends’ church on Sunday. An assistant pastor was welcomed back into the fold after leaving and falling into sin. The pastor preached on sin, on redemption in Christ, on restoration in the Body. Then the man got up and apologized to the church, confessed his sin, and asked to be restored as a member. He just wants to attend church and sit at the foot of the Cross. He was broken and contrite.
The pastor then took the mic as the man broke down and sat in a pew. People were expecting some kind of ceremonial “we love you and we welcome you back.” Instead, the pastor looked intently into the audience and said, “OK, I know some of you out there are going through the same thing, the same kind of sin. You need to come forward and repent.”
After a few seconds a 20-year-old man from the back row that people barely knew came to the front. He started the grab the mic and was prepared to confess as well, but the pastor just spoke to him quietly and prayed for him as he sought forgiveness. Then others started to come.
It didn’t take long for half the church, about 100 people, to come forward. It was a full-blown church renewal. God has used the brokeness of this man to speak conviction into these people’s hearts.
That night one of the more prominent members of the church called the pastor. This man told the pastor he had scheduled to commit suicide that night, that he had been despondent for months, and had been thinking about death ever since. That act of contrition changed his heart, and the Holy Spirit renewed him. He said he has been dramatically changed and has a new desire to live to honor God.
Confession. It appears to be one of the main vehicles that God uses to bring revival and restoration to his church. In the case described above it touched over 100 people, including one who was planning on committing suicide.
Confession is scary. When you confess your failings and sins to someone you are opening yourself up to rejection and judgement. And yet the Bible has this to say:
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
– James 5:16a (ESV)
The context of this verse has to do with physical healing, but I believe it is appropriately applied to emotional and spiritual healing too. And notice the balance – confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. We are to unburden ourselves of the weight of our failings as we carry the burdens of others in prayer to our Father. That is fellowship. That is beauty. And it’s what we’re called to do.
I find confession hard. I don’t have anything spectacular to confess; I mean I don’t drink, smoke or chew or hang with women who do. But there are plenty of those internal sins that tend to take root in my life. Petty jealousies. Greed. Pride. Sloth. Envy. These are the biggies. It’s the ongoing and frightening battle between my love and desire for God, and my love of self and desire to be my own god and to chase after the gods of this world. Part of me is with Moses atop mount Sinai, with unveiled face, communing with the Lord. But another part is down in the valley dancing before the golden calf (I think I’m doing the “frug”). Wholeness is elusive.
Yet wholeness and healing can come – they are coming. Through confession and repentance. Through the work of the Spirit. To revisit a passage I blogged on yesterday:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV
This all brought to mind something Jared at Thinklings recently wrote:
1. The churches are broken.
There are lots of reasons for this, and they’re not all broken in the same way, but the things the churches are currently doing aren’t helping and most of the things the churches are doing to fix themselves don’t work
Yes, many churches and people are broken and are in need of healing. I am beginning to think that what we in the church need is confession.
[hat tip: The Broken Messenger]
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?”
I’m feeling just a bit low tonight. But this helps . . .
or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?
The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
or can you guide the Bear with its children?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?
“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go
and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
or given understanding to the mind?
Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
when the dust runs into a mass
and the clods stick fast together?
– Job 38:28-38 (ESV)
This is just a snippet of the monologue of the Lord to poor, grieving, hurting Job at the end of the book of the same name. There’s something about these words that bring me great comfort.
The answer I would give is, of course, the same as Job. No, Lord, I can’t do anything described above. I can’t bind the chains of the constellations, or tip the waterskins of heaven. I can’t send forth lightnings. I don’t know the ordinances of the heavens. Half the time I can’t even find my socks.
I just love this passage. Because He can do all of these things. And what a comfort that is! our God is amazing, ahd He reigns in power!
Amazing!