Thanksgiving

OK, maybe I'm a few days late, but it took a while for the tryptophan to wear off.

Anyway, I can't embed the video here, but I'm linking to a video I think is worth watching or at least listening to while you surf the web.

It comes from Topeka Bible Church in Kansas. The first section is about six or seven minutes of a woman sharing her testimony from church to teen pregnancy to bulimia to drug use and, finally, back to Jesus.

The second section is another five minutes or so featuring Kerry and Vicki Livgren. You might recall Kerry from a post I put on here a few months back as he talked about his search for God as a member of the rock band Kansas. Well, he and his wife have a new testimony. Just about three months ago, Kerry suffered a stroke that nearly killed him. But this video can't help but move you as you see he and his wife talk about their thankfulness to God. And if you've ever known a stroke victim, you realize that his ability to move and speak as clearly as he does is remarkable, even if as he says, he never plays music again.

The third section is the testimony of another fellow who has battled lifelong physical ailments, literally from the moment he was born.

And it concludes with about a nine-minute message from the Pastor on Thanksgiving.

Don't feel obligated to sit down and watch it all at once, but I really do recommend you check out at least the first couple of segments to remind us all to give thanks.

Humbled

If you're a sports fan, and even if you're not, you are aware of the topic of the week: The decision by New England football coach Bill Belichick to go for it on fourth down at his own 28 with a six-point lead against Indianapolis. His team didn't make it and they lost the game.

I heard a sports radio host describe it this way. Belichick had no one to humble him. He's divorced, so no one to humble him at home. No veterans on his defense to humble him on the field. If you aren't humbled by someone, then you get pretty arrogant. And so that left only his own mistake in judgment to do the humbling.

It seems a pretty apt description of each of us. If there is no to humble us -- to say there's a better option or a better way -- we will eventually make an error in judgment out of our arrogance.

So the question is: Who's humbling you? Don't wait to do it yourself, humble pie doesn't taste very good. Just ask Belichick.

Veterans Day

In honor of Veterans Day, I've posted this video story from ESPN. It's the story of how soldiers in the DMZ of Korea find refuge in sports.

But there's a great section a minute and a half in where they talk about how the two sides are still at war since no peace treaty was ever signed. One soldier says, "We're always prepared, we're always ready to deter North Korean aggression."

And so should our approach be spiritually. Though to the outer eye all is quiet between God and Satan, no peace treaty has been signed and good & evil remain at war. We must be always prepared and ready to deter the devil's aggression.

Resplendent

From time to time, I have posted music videos on this blog. Some of you might wish for a few less of those, but I'll tell you why I do it: Music is perhaps the most powerful and influential tool ever.

Songs take the best of the written word, then put a sound to it. It is the reason movies have soundtracks, the reason TV shows play music as scenes build to a climax, the reason the Bible has angels singing around God's throne. Music allows us to convey emotions and feelings in ways simply speaking or writing words cannot.

Today's featured video comes courtesy of one of the best, Bill Mallonee. Some of you reading this will say, "Bill who?" But if I tell you he is the driving force and vocalist of Vigilantes of Love, you'll know who I mean.

This song (lyrics below) is entitled, "Resplendent", from the excellent Audible Sigh album circa 2000. It features country superstar Emmylou Harris on vocals, and captures the best of Bill's work. In the story of a Dust Bowl-era family, he contrasts the creation of God with the fallen world resulting from sin, and the existence of that same contrast in ourselves. We are made in the image of God, but our selfish nature is quick to compromise and betray.

I remember the dark clouds raining dust for days on end
Blew all the Earth out to California
Just left us here with the wind
Desperate times, you know everybody's part
It's your own lines you'd like to forget
Till what you were meets what you've now become
And grins and says Hey, haven't we met

Lost my first born that Winter
My wife on the first day of Spring
So I poured my sweat to the Earth
to see what that harvest would bring
And I remember how the fury
just like a plague of locusts
Egypt's punishment for sins of pride
Is that now what has come over us

How much of this was meant to be
How much the work of the Devil
How far can one man's eyes really see
In these days of toil and trouble

Honey, we're all resplendent,
Yeah honey, we are all thrift store
Like a wine-o with a $20 bill
Yeah, forever and eternally yours

And I can make you promises
If you don't expect too much,
Yes, and I will run the distance
If you'll please, please excuse my crutch

How much of this was meant to be
How much the work of the Devil
How far can one man's eyes really see
In these days of toil and trouble
How much of this is failing flesh
How much a course of retribution
My, my, how loudly we plead our innocence
Long after we made our contribution

Book Preview

OK, I'm going at this a bit backward. You usually wait until after you read a book to talk about it. But there I was at Barnes and Noble, just killing time. (And without more than a dime in my pocket which is the best way to make sure I don't buy a CD or book or DVD or something).


Lo and behold, this book catches my eye. It is called, "Biblical Literacy" by Timothy Beal. The book has been out about a month and here's how it sells itself:

Whether watching political candidates quote Jesus or tracking court cases on how the stories of Adam and Eve should be taught in schools, we are surrounded by the legacy of the Bible in our contemporary world. Every person needs to know the core Bible stories — those biblical stories that have cultural, historical, or literary significance — that lie at the foundation of Western civilization. Professor Timothy Beal argues that without knowing these core stories, we cannot fully participate in the popular, political, and especially spiritual worlds that surround us.

Have you ever been told that you are the apple of someone's eye? Have you ever described a disastrous situation as the blind leading the blind or easily predicted the future by reading the writing on the wall? Unbeknownst to most of us, all these common expressions have biblical roots.

In Biblical Literacy, Beal showcases the Bible stories that have most shaped history and our world and provides the key information we need to know for how to understand these profound stories.

What a novel idea, reminding people just how much of our culture and our world is shaped by the Bible. It's on my to-read list. If you get to it first let me know how it goes.