Bearing Witness I

Looking at iGoogle’s literary quote of the day for today has give me some cause for ponderation.  It’s from William Faulkner, and says “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”  So true, that is.  I’m speaking of articulating where I stand on things and where I need clarification through journaling.  Not just any type of journaling, but prayer journaling.  It really clears some things up when you simply write about them, and then look back.  And it preserves records of insights for the family that (hopefully) will become your legacy, your gift to the world.

It’s really a big thing, starting and raising a family.  So many times, people just give up and get a divorce or, even worse, never marry at all but simply drift through life without ever having to bear responsibility for others.  I was challenged on this point just the other day by one of my good friends.  He launched into a half-joking commentary on the woman that will never get married and the children that will never be brought up in the knowledge and truth of the Lord because I’m a wuss.

Sad thing is, he’s right.  And it doesn’t just apply to me.  The Bible offers perspectives on both the married and the single life, and hundreds of points of wisdom on family, but so many are simply casting aside this great gift because of selfish desires.  And it is a great gift, to have a family on both sides of you:  Parents to raise you, to teach and direct you and to shape who you are to the world; and children, to look up to and learn from you.

Every minute of every day, we teach someone something.  We do this through our actions and through our character.  Most of the time we don’t even acknowledge this truth, but it is essential that we recognize the fact that we bear witness to things in every aspect of our lives.  I think I might riff from this a bit tomorrow, but that’senough for tonight, I would say.

Call for Responses

To my faithful few readers, whoever and wherever you are;

I’ve decided to begin grouping these posts into essays, and maybe looking into publication. My call here is for you to indicate via comment to this post what, if any, I should put together, polish up and perhaps formalize. Go back through my archives, drop me a line here, and suggest away. I’ll also be searching for topics that I might make into series on here, because I find it’s getting a bit too numbing, and very much a narrowly-focused forum, lamenting the church’s decline rather than edifying by its truths.

Secondly, tell me which entries are the most accessible and the most relevant to you, and I’ll try to make the newer entries more like them, as I write. This is, as I believe, a ministry opportunity if not a ministry, and I need to know if it’s actually a valuable one.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Return – Fathers and Sons VI

I’ve been threatening to post this, so here it is. Walk with me in these verses over the next few days as I look at some of the rich meat of the passage as it relates to fathers and sons, as it relates to the gift of grace to we undeserving sons and daughters, and as it relates to right mindedness in our days. I’d rather start this on a clean slate with a new post, so stay tuned to see the mining.

Luke 15:11-32

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Legacy 2 – Character

I mentioned last time that part of my concern was going to be the form that posterity takes, and part of it was going to be about generational sin, the inheritance of sinful man. I’m going to take up those threads tonight, and start weaving the tapestry that I want to weave.

The most important thing that our fathers pass on to their sons is character…the ability to be the man that one needs to be, so that Christ is truly reflected in us. Sadly, many in this generation are both fatherless and Fatherless. They do not know how to be men, nor how to be fathers. Worse, they live in patterns of sin that destroy their sons and their daughters. They cannot offer the truth of what it means to be a child of God because they do not understand it themselves.

The lives, too, of fathers prepare their sons for later in life…what happens if a man lives a life poorly? And what happens, too, when fathers lose sight of what it is that they are meant to do, Who it is that they are meant to resemble? The importance of this cannot be underscored enough. The pain of a fatherless life is not an easily understood pain. I can’t comprehend it because I have been spared it, in some ways. But I know a few friends who suffer that pain, and I can’t help but think of the directions that they have gone because of it.

But in the end, the cry of a father for his son outweighs it; the love of a Father for his Son fulfills it. By looking into Jesus as the Son of God, blessed with a voice from heaven and affirmed in his life’s ministry, we are able to comprehend more clearly the love of the Father for His children.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Legacy I – Inheritance

As Esau did, so too do we. We have sold our birthrights for a poor and humble meal.

Genesis 25 : 29-34 convicts us

I want to look first at legacy; what we have been left, what form we see posterity take, the sins of the fathers and the grandfathers visited on the sons.

I look around me, and I see a culture in which fathers are alienated from their sons, and sons from their fathers.

I imagine feeble hands reaching out in hope and being turned away by careless gestures, fathers abandoning their children because they cannot bear the responsibility of family and sons cursing the names of their fathers because they have not been given the gift of integrity.

I bless and I praise the Lord that I have been spared this, but the pain it holds is not something I can ignore. I can think of times where to approach Daddy has been a difficult thing at best, and times when it’s the thing I want most to do. There is a great ambivalence in the lives of sons when they think of their fathers, for the most part, and that ambivalence corrupts the understanding of “Our Father” that we possess.

In short, the legacy a father leaves his son is made of memories just as much as it is made of material. What we have seen our fathers do, so to do we do.

But that’s not the inheritance that we’ve been promised. No, that is so much more:

John 14:13 – Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 15:16 – You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

John 16:23 – In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

We are the inheritors of promise, as sons adopted of God. But we mustn’t let such promise get to be too heady, and so we must remember Matthew 21:22 – And whatever you ask in prayer you will receive, if you have faith. To ask of the Father is to have faith in His provision. It’s what we do with it that matters. The prodigal son is a life study on this, and I’ll post it in its entirety, so that we can deal with it in some of its larger and more revolutionary meanings, a few posts down the road. In the meantime, tomorrow will take up the threads left dangling here.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.