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Eeek.. this is post # 666 on this blog… lets hope this one has some luck!

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11) Proverbs 23:12

Apply yourself, heart mind and soul, to instruction. Discipline yourself so that you may learn the ways of those before you and be a positive contribution to your world.

12) Proverbs 23:13-14

Afraid to discipline your children? They will hurt you in the end. Discipline, and yes even physical discipline when they are young, can change the course of their life. You will be saving them from the life of the foolish and an early death.

13) Proverbs 23:15-16

My dear child wisdom is such a blessing. It comes from God. It will do this fathers heart so much good to see you act and live in the truth that God has bestowed upon you. I will dance to the rhythm of the words that pour forth from your soul. I will play in the rivers of freedom and truth your lips will proclaim.

14) Proverbs 23: 17-18

Do not give a second though to the ways of the careless and those who make their living off of sin. Instead, soak yourself in the words of the Lord and learn to fear and respect him. In God and his words is where your future is. When you take the time to follow what God teaches you in your innermost being you will not be left with nothing. In fact, you will be richly blessed.

15) Proverbs 23:19-21

Listen dearest child. Take the time to invest in wisdom. It will pay dividends time and time again. It pays out better than any bank or business investment you can ever conceive of. Do not get derailed by eating and drinking yourself into the grave. Food and wine are provided for enjoyment and relaxation, but the profit the soul little in the long run. Banquets that last days are for kings, you must work to invest in wisdom and those things that profit your soul.

Or why the muse needs her tongue

I love reading good writing. I love writing good words and articulate thinking. I love speaking in such a manner that I can convey clear, concise and beautiful thoughts without fear and trembling. I guess you would call me a word snob. I genuflect to those who can use eloquent speech and persuasive verbs and nouns to create a picture with words that keeps us coming back to the thoughts and pictures they create again and again. Good words invite a reader into a place and time. Great words make us want to stay there and never come out. Incredible words leave indelible pictures in our heart and mind that we can never fully escape.

I bought a book on amazon.com on a whim called Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. It was one of the suggested books that Amazon shows you based on your buying habits. I figure a good part of my brain is on deposit with Amazon because they do a pretty darn good job suggesting books I like as of late. This is no exception. Marilyn McEntyre is a linguist and word artist extraordinaire. The entire book is a post modern critique of language and a lament for the loss of so much of the richness of language and our cultural heritage disappearing because of apathy toward the usage of language. She then goes about making the important case for Christians and why we need to step up to the challenge of preserving language and doing so by utilizing it to the full richness and variety we possibly can.

I am still working my way through the book and enjoying every sacramental statement she makes. She has profound insight into the culture of and around words and why it is not alright to just study words; we must also use them well. The book is laid out over 12 talks she gave at Princeton Theological Seminary recently and I truly hope the people who were lucky enough to be there took good notes and then inculcated them into their daily calling. Many of the best and brightest for the future of the church are coming from there.

I love the church. I love it so much in fact that I can honestly say that I believe the church, as the bride of Christ, has a bright future ahead. We may see darkness and gloom in some arenas, but God is on the move and he is not sitting idle. The church is going through some radical change and restructuring in the post modern world. In a post modern environment where so much is competing for our attention and our time we the church must be able to articulate with clarity and passion that which the church is about. If we can’t enter into the mystery that is Christ and his love and life and speak with the necessary tools to be God’s message bearing instrument we are at a disadvantage before we even begin.

6) Proverbs 23:1-3

When you have the opportunity to spend time with those who are in positions of influence and power be sure to mind your manners. The impression you make is an important one so do not stuff yourself or speak with your mouth full. You will make an ass of yourself if you do.

7) Proverbs 23:4-5

Do not neglect the things of eternal value such as family, friends and your spiritual life all in order to get rich. The money you make will disappear and leave you with nothing to show for it except poor health and even poorer relationships.

8 ) Proverbs 23:6-8

Do not break bread with anyone who is miserly and spendthrift in all they do. Saving money is one thing, but being a Scrooge all the time and in all things leads to divisiveness and pain. Even though he may look and seem generous, he is a torn up and emotionally constipated man on the inside. Eating with him will only fuel his feelings. His relationship with you is only monetary and will lead to futility.

9) Proverbs 23:9

Choose wisely whom you spend your time speaking and sharing in wisdom and knowledge with. The foolish man will mock you. Better to spend your time speaking with those who appreciate your feedback and insight then those who will not give a second thought to it.

10) Proverbs 23:10-11

Deal justly, oh so VERY justly with your neighbors and with the orphans and widows. DO NOT cheat them out of what is theirs because you think they do not have an earthly advocate. They have an advocate, and He is stronger than you think. You put your life in danger if you cheat them.

“…the act of reading itself is not only intellectually and emotionally engaging, but morally consequential. How we choose to read, how we submit to or question or resist the terms set by the writer, are choices that shape the habits of our minds and the habits of our hearts. Those habits determine the degree to which we are open to truth in it’s various guises, and capable of discerning the difference between the ring of truth and the metallic clang of lies.”

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies  pg. 69   

I try to spend a good bit of time reading the Proverbs. Not exclusively, but with enough regularity that I am familiar with them and what they mean. In them is life and health as Proverbs 1 tells us. One part of the Proverbs I have been spending a little more time meditating on is the 30 Precepts of the Sages in Proverbs 22 and 23. I have stayed away, thus far, from getting to involved in commentaries and books on the subject. Instead I read them in different translations and let the Lord take the lead lectio divina style.

When I am working on something deep I usually take the time to write them out in the words that come to me in the process. I jokingly call it the NRCV (New Revised Carl Version). Writing it out solidifies what I am seeing, and possibly missing in the writings. Here are the first five. I will post the rest as I write them out. Please tell me if you see something that I am missing or if these speak to you in some way.

~Selah~

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1) Proverbs 22:22

Do not do anything willful that oppresses the poor. Simply because they are poor is not a good reason to use your resources and life circumstances to further their pain. God is a righteous God and he hears the cry of his poverty stricken followers. He is their number 1 advocate. Mess with them and he will take from you all your worldly possessions. Guess who will own them. Yep, the poor.

2) Proverbs 22:24

Do not keep company with those who are divisive in speech, quick to get angry and who let their temper and their appetite drive their ambition. Their temperament is contagious, and it will be a snare to you and your life. Keep your life on the path of peace, God honors those who are peaceful in mind and heart.

3) Proverbs 22:26

Do not make unwise financial decisions. Seek God in all that you purchase and all that you do. Do not take unnecessary financial risk on things that are fleeting and of little eternal value. The time will come when you have to pay up on the bets you made and the wagers you placed. If you are not wise you will have to pay those debts up and have nothing to show for it but your shirt on your back. A bankruptcy based on your foolishness will be in your future.

4) Proverbs 22:28

Do not make a deal with a partner, and do not renege on the deals your father made at any point in time. Do not change the stakes; do not take them to court. Honor your word; honor your father’s word. Do your part with excellence, and expect the same from them. Together, as neighbors and business partners you will not fail. You will have a God honoring business plan that no man can plunder.

5) Proverbs 22:29

Take the time to become friends with those who are more skilled at what they do for a living. Do not be envious, but study them, learn from them. In so doing you will also become productive and an employee of high esteem, and high value to the boss. An employee of high value looks after the boss’s interests and does not take the back seat to any person.

“There is only one way to wisdom: awe. Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a marketplace for you. The loss of awe is the great block to insight…. The greatest insights happen to us in moments of awe.”

It May seem as of late on this blog that I have spent a lot of time asking the question “Who am I” And doing a lot of navel gazing. If that bothers you I apologize. Here is one more post on the topic, and then I probably will move on. The reason though has a lot to do with the situations I have been in the last few months. Mentoring and sharing with several individuals at a level that I am not used to has caused me to realize so many of the problems that people have come down to one basic thing; Identity. Specifically what our identity in Christ is.

I love getting deep with people. In fact, getting inside their situation with them and freely sharing if my struggles along the way really helps me to grow, and teaches me how to push my limits more and more and go into the depths of my soul and my life with Christ. As I process more and more with them and dig into my soul I realize that I have a hard time looking at God and saying “Father”. Instead I say God, holy one, God most high, whatever seems right at the time. However I hardly ever say “Father God”.

Some of the reasons we do not say Father to God a lot of times seem to be because;

1. We view God as an angry God. We do not imagine our worldly fathers being that way, so we do not see God in the lens of love, but of anger. Many of us grew up in churches that emphasized the angry side of God, not the righteous anger meant in love.
   
2. We have absent or totally nonexistent fathers in our lives. No matter what the pop culture research says about the role of Fathers they are essential to our development as men and women.
   
3. We do not wish to acknowledge that someone higher than us has power over us.
   

I fail on so many levels and for so many reasons related to the above.

I challenge you to ask yourself today how do I view God? Can I say Father? What are the barriers to saying that to him in your own life or soul? Ask God what things are in your path that needs to be obliterated. Remember though, after asking God be still for a time. Let him talk and take the lead.

“A healthy spirit conquers adversity…

(Prov 18:14 Msg)

Stress makes a mess out of things, and stress teaches us things. It reflects back to us what our priorities are and humbles us. I hate stress; I hate it because it causes me to navel gaze and ask myself the tough questions. Questions like; who am I? Who am I in Christ? What are my priorities in life? Why do I feel that to get ahead in life I have to chop block the guy ahead of me?

Over the last two weeks or so I have been becoming more nauseous, light headed and starting to feel much of the symptoms that having my brain renovated in 08 cured. It scared me to death because I was afraid I would have to have the surgery again, or that a complication to my recovery was coming. I was not very happy.

Tuesday morning I had a MRI of the brain and a follow up with the neurologist office. The good news is everything is working as it should. I still have space for my brain to move around and do the things it is supposed to do. No tumors, no tethered chord, nothing that they could note. So why the symptoms?

Stress!

Part of the reason this writing space has been more silent is because of the amount of things going on. After the Haiti earthquake and losing a friend from Compassion, after counting heads and seeing we lost children, after speaking with constituents who are in tears worried about their children day in and day out it started to wear me down. Add to that some issues with family members, every day issues with banks and insurance stuff, and pastoral duties to top it all off. I was overly stressed and did not even know it. It took an expensive MRI and a doctor to tell me that. And that I have 60 pounds to lose. I am going to miss my sugar I can tell already! But all these things became a bigger issue then they needed to be because I neglected a few basic things.

PRAYER- I just did not want to pray. Honestly, the questions we all grapple with as Christians were so fore front in my mind, that instead of running to God and asking the questions, I turned my head for a time and decided to just grapple with it on my own. I do not suggest this approach, the mental attack alone will kick-your-butt.

MEDITATION- On the Word of God. Not doing the things I preach to others so much. Not taking some me time in the morning to read the word, wake up to His presence and just listen. It is in the still of the morning that I can hear God the best. Learning to “be still and know” is a constant struggle.

CONFESSION-to Amy, to God, to my Pastor. I believe that one of the biggest missing pieces in our spiritual lives today is confession. Confession means owning up to our weaknesses, just flat out saying “I sinned” or “I am confused” or “why did you do this God?” We often think that to ask God questions is to admit we do not believe he has all the answers. Many pastors and friends have just told me “pray and submit Carl, His will is going to be done”. Part of that answer is right, but part of it is not. Pray and His will is going to be done, and we must submit, but that does not mean we need to wander in the darkness of not understanding. Ask questions, but remember to be still when God says “Quiet!”

One of the most misunderstood things about church is that we think we have it all figured out. So many pastors, teachers, evangelists and lay people rely on their orthodoxy or their theology for answers and just assume that they have it all right. This creates a conundrum for the believer because if we confess that we don’t know the answers we are afraid we will get Grudem’s 800 page book of Theology thrown at us and told to go study. I have a degree in Theology, and all I can tell you is that for just as many questions you answer, more questions avail themselves to you. It is incumbent on every believer to work through their salvation with “fear and trembling” remembering that the God we serve is deeper and wider than any doctrine, any belief, any knowledge that we proclaim to have. His ways are much higher than our ways. What we need to rest on the knowledge of is that God is always motivated by love.

I confess, here and now to you my readers that I have sinned. I have relied upon myself and not God, I have fought the good fight and lost in a massive way. I have asked the questions, and looked for answers in all the wrong places. In short, I have not lived up to some of the things I speak on this blog about. Can you forgive me? Can you allow me room to grow in this space? Can I ask for your grace?

Psalms 108 1-6

This is my version personalized to fit me today. I strongly encourage you when your heart is down, your mind is overthrown and you can’t seem to see straight to spend some time in the Psalms. Ask God for a Psalm to speak to you. Then, take some time after reading it and personalize it. I wrote this loosely based on The Message version. Any version works. This is not heresy I assure you. The Psalms are a collection of men calling out to God. Are we not to also call out to God? Have fun with it. Share it here if you like.

I, Carl, am so ready for you my God. Oh so very very ready.

I am ready to sing your song, the song you gave in my heart. From my

head unto my toes

I am ready God, so very very ready to sing your God song.

Awaken soul of Carl. Awaken to the music of the spheres, the melodious

music

Of God and his divine love.

Awaken sun; spread the word on this new Day. God loves Carl, and in him

is HIS delight.

I am thanking you God, MY God, I am out in the streets of your love.

I am singing your song, our God song, in town and country and

everywhere in between.

The depth of your love for me, the height of your love for me are all shown

in The highest clouds and beyond. All the way to the farthest Star oh God.

All nature declares your faithfulness to me.

Soar like an eagle into the skies Oh God. Cover the whole of this universe

with your glory, with your

Loving kindness. Do not delay oh God, My God.

For the sake of me, your servant and faithful friend in whom YOU delight

oh God.

Reach down, reach into the depths of my soul and answer me. Answer the

cry of  My heart and soul. Do not delay.

Who am I? A teacher, a leader, an advocate or friend? Yes I am all of these and none of these as well.

Who am I? A segment of the market? A niche to be explored? Yes I am all of these and none of these as well.

Who am I? A Husband, a Father, a provider for my family? Yes I am all of these and none of these as well.

Who am I? A worker bee, a drone in the cubicle army looking out for my skin? Yes, I am all of these and none of these as well.

Who am I? A gyrovague, a provocateur, a holy man or a louse? Yes, I am all of these and none of these as well.

Who am I? I am Carl, the one God created me to be. I am Him, the one that is in me. The divine image, stamped with his seal.

I am me, and I am his, and in this I am perfectly content.

~Selah~