I want to write a post about what I’m reading this summer even if just for me to look back on. Since it’s so short and boring I’ll combine it with what’s going on with surgery.

I’ve mentioned that I’m concentrating on the Old Testament this year. It’s been great. God is showing me a lot of things about how much He hates sin, what He’s willing to do for His people, how much He’s on our side and how He takes it upon Himself to bring us [back] to Him.

My extra reading and working on Greek has been pathetic. I’m sleeping worse and worse and sleeping a lot during the day. I’ve also had a renewed interest in photography and have been spending too much time on that, possibly to get my mind off of things. But I should be reading to do that.

Right now I’m reading Ryken’s Bible Handbook which is excellent. The chapter on Job is worth the whole book. I will be reviewing that and Unburdened, a book about worry, both from Tyndale, sometime this summer, God willing. (Is that a record for number of commas in a sentence?)

However, I will be having surgery on my back this Wednesday the 30th. It’s a double fusion L4 to S1 with laminectomy and removing scar tissue from my last surgery. This is much more major than my previous surgery which was a microdiscectomy. If you’d like to pray for me even just once I’d appreciate it. Please pray for the spiritual stuff as much or more than the physical as I mentioned in the previous post.

I know from last time it’s difficult to read anything that required much concentration when taking pain killers and being in pain, partly because I’m in a state of half sleep most of the time anyway. Being as tired as I normally am, adding medication will make it that much worse.

I’d also like to read and review a small commentary on Haggai Zechariah Malachi from EP Press and read Handbook on the Pentateuch, Creation and Blessing, a commentary on Genesis, Finding Jesus in the Old Testament and a few articles. I probably won’t get all that done this year.

As far as learning Greek, I’d like to get back up to speed on that too. I’ve been keeping up with the vocabulary and I went through the workbook up to this point, but lately I haven’t been moving ahead very much in the Black book.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Joni Eareckson Tada to Undergo Surgery for Breast Cancer

Warning: This is one of those not well written and not very coherent posts.

This reminds me of my seemingly morose motto, “Things can always get worse.”

We tend to think that when something really bad happens to someone, that means something good is around the corner or nothing else really bad will happen. I have been told this many times by individuals, read it in devotionals, etc. etc. I’ve also heard that the Bible says that God will never give us more than we can handle.

Regarding the first point–this isn’t Biblical at all unless one is talking about God working in the trial, which is indeed eternally valuable, comforting, encouraging and edifying. But life isn’t always about finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbows and everything working out fine and living happily ever after.

On the second point, 1 Corinthians 10:13 is talking about temptation, not about anything we ever go through. When we are tempted by Satan or our own sinful desires, God provides a way out. We can run from it (Genesis 39:11-12). But I believe that to say that Job or Paul went through things they could handle is incorrect. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:8, “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure”. Being suicidal is beyond our ability to handle. (This happens to Christians too.) Starving to death isn’t something I could handle. However, God does give us the grace to endure to the end without losing our faith.

One of the things I think about with this is to be as prepared as possible. Part of this is praying as Paul did: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (Colossians 1:11-12 NRSV) That’s a subject of another post.

In addition to writing about what 1 Corinthians 10:13 means and being prepared for suffering, I’d like to talk about how to pray for those suffering.

I’ve mentioned this before–if we only pray for healing, we are doing people a great disservice. God uses these situations for His glory and our good in one way or another. Healing of a physical ailment when we will eventually die anyway (I’m getting morose again aren’t I) is temporary albeit important. Praying for the spiritual is eternal and can affect others eternally also (as can healing). Using Paul’s prayers as a model, we know that what we pray for is God’s will. Physical healing may or may not be His will for who we are praying for but growing in knowledge, strength, working for our good, glorifying God–we can know that all those things are His will for those who love God.

In the last few years I’ve gotten one bad diagnosis after another. The latest is needing a lumbar double fusion with laminectomy/decompression with hardware. It’s been one thing after another for me on many fronts. I would hope that people praying for me aren’t just praying for healing. God has brought me closer to Him than ever before even though my conditions have gotten worse after being prayed over many times. In this rambling post, that’s what I’d like to leave you with.

Ecclesiastes 6:9 
Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless–like chasing the wind.

Truth necessitates application.

–Eric Carpenter, Ligonier 2010: A Review

In his excellent review of the conference, Carpenter laments the fact that speakers spent little time on application. The only thing I can say in their defense is that John MacArthur has spoken at length about how he exposits Scripture and let’s the listener apply it. He doesn’t know everyone’s individual situation and there could be 100 ways of applying something either in insight or in practice.

I think preachers could give a personal application as an example. This helps people to know their pastor better and gives them an idea of how something written in an ancient text still applies to us. (Like the same powerful God who created the earth in six literal days abides in us. Ha.)

But the quote stands on its own and is clear in meaning.

This is what I’ve believed for a long time and it’s nice to see someone put it into words. The is Tim Challies summarizing what Al Mohler said at Ligonier Ministries’ annual conference.

When it comes to the confrontation of evolutionary theory and the gospel we have a head-on collision. It is our responsibility to give an answer to this question of why the universe looks old, but the most natural understanding comes to this: the universe looks old because the Creator made it whole. When he made Adam, Adam was not a fetus but a man. By our understanding this would have required time. But for God it did not. He put Adam in the garden, which was not merely seeds, but a fertile, mature garden. God creates and makes things whole.

Read the whole article.

Isaiah 22:5
Oh, what a day of crushing defeat! What a day of confusion and terror brought by the Lord, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, upon the Valley of Vision! The walls of Jerusalem have been broken, and cries of death echo from the mountainsides.

Isaiah 22:11
Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the old pool. But you never ask for help from the One who did all this. You never considered the One who planned this long ago.

People of Judah are killed by famine and disease. The same One who caused it can bring them out of it, but they never thought to ask for His help. Those people never learn do they! And we can’t say we’re a whole lot different, forgetting to go to the Lord right away until we’ve trained ourselves with the help and strength of the Holy Spirit.

I really don’t understand Open Theism when reading verses like these.

Genesis 50:20
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

2 Kings 19:25
But have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen. I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.

Psalm 40:5
O LORD my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.

Isaiah 25:1
O LORD, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them.

Galatians 1:4
Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge is to love Him and imitate Him.

–John Milton, from PuritanQuotes on Twitter

I’m very upset with myself for not blogging as I read through the Old Testament. Nancy, a commenter here, writes a blog called Day by Day and blogged as she read through the whole Bible! (Take a look at her blog. She has written some great comments here lately.)

So I’m going to jump in and post short things in all the wrong order and probably not spend a lot of time on it. But I want to write down some things that strike me as I read so I can look back on it.

Last night I was reading Psalms 135 and 136 and noticed that people praised God for slaughtering people. That isn’t very nice is it!? He slaughtered kings and the firstborn of Egypt. That’s what lengths he goes to defend and protect His people and that’s how much He hates evil.

Psalm 136:10
Give thanks to him who killed the firstborn of Egypt.
His faithful love endures forever.

Wouldn’t that make a nice plaque? (I’m still going to make one of those with a photo.)

Instead of wringing my hands over this I praise God that He’s a God of justice and we will be praising God as He is glorified in the end by completely defeating evil forever.

Just passing it along
I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution
which is the name of a book he reviews.