Grounded

The following blog post was written a few days ago by a man named Dave Williams.  I don’t know anything about him except what I read on his blog.  Click on his name to read more of his thoughtful posts.  I liked this post so much that I wanted to share it.

GROUNDED—BY DAVE WILLIAMS

“I've gotten a couple of notes from people asking where I've been this past month or more. They naturally suspect I've spent all of August seeing the wonders of North America in my Sea Breeze. Alas, that is far from the fact.

The fact is, I'm grounded. My beloved motor home sits in my backyard, lonely, tethered to a 30 amp outlet. I visit nearly daily. I step inside and enjoy the smell of paneling and glue and whatever it is in motor home construction that gives me the unique thrill that says, "Packing and going!"

I sit in my captain's chair and run my hands over the wheel. Every couple of weeks I crank her up and exercise the generator. A quick trip around a few blocks keeps the moving parts movable but then she goes back into her pen. I reattach the power line, lock the door and go back into the house.

I swear I can hear her whimper as I leave.
It can't be helped. I am grounded.

You see, I am not yet of retirement age and, more to the point, I am not of retirement funding. I have not feathered my nest. I have squandered a great deal of income over the years and now find myself in a job that barely covers the anticipated monthly expenses. The unanticipated ones cause trouble. And nowhere in what I laughingly refer to as my monthly budget is there room for 75 gallons of gas. Or, insurance. The registration is coming due in a couple of weeks and $800 might as well be eight million.

I don't tell you all of this to whine or beg for sympathy. I have no regrets in my life. It was my money and I spent it happily. I'm just a little short right now, that's all.
No, I tell you all of this because I suspect some of you are in similar straits and I think we can help each other hang on.

I've also very much missed writing my weekly account of what I lovingly refer to as my "Postcards from the road and mind trips of a restless gadabout." The thing is -- when you're grounded you run out of things to say.

But I have come  up with this...

We who are feeling the squeeze of lean times still have every reason in the world to get out of bed each morning. I have my loving family, a good roof over our heads, food in the pantry and surprisingly good health for a fat man pushing 60. I can't begin to count my blessings here without sounding like a braggart.

Every morning I open my eyes around 5 a.m. in a good, warm bed, next to the wonderful sleeping woman who has been my heart and anchor for the past 22 years. Every single morning my first thought is, "Thank you, God, for the blessing of another day on your good Earth."
I make my coffee, feed the dogs and together we sit down and watch TV with one eye on the sunrise over the San Gabriel Mountains. It always makes me long to fire up the Sea Breeze and wake up on the other side of those hills tomorrow.

I'll get there. I won't always be grounded. And, neither will you.

We have hope and new opportunity given to us before each sunrise. They are waiting for us like unopened gifts on Christmas morning. They are dreams that become reality by merely opening our eyes.”

Posted by Dave Williams at 9/09/2010 10:54:00 AM

Nine Words of Wisdom

“See yourself and weep. See your God and rejoice.”

- Paul David Tripp

 

Red Canyon, Utah

Sad but Happy?

Our friend, Jeff, is dying.  He is at a hospice house right now.  But I am strangely at peace because Jeff is a believer.  His family is suffering and will miss him terribly, and I feel so sad for them.  But Jeff is the lucky one, the one who is about to meet Jesus in person.  That makes it a glorious day even though it’s a sad day. 

Jeff, Tracey and two of their three children during one of his brain tumor treatments at Stanford Hospital.

I would like to share a few more quotes from Of First Importance:

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“Christians don’t think God will love us because we’re good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

--C.S. Lewis, Daily Quote on Twitter

______________________________________      “You must indeed, O believer, grapple with death, and shall get the first fall – but you shall rise again, and come off victorious at last. You must go down to the grave; but, though it be your long home, it will not be your everlasting home.

You will not hear the voice of your friends there; but you shall hear the voice of Christ there. You may be carried there with mourning, but you shall come up from it rejoicing. Your friends, indeed, will leave you there, but your God will not. What God said to Jacob, concerning his going down to Egypt (Gen. 46:3, 4), he says to you, on your going down to the grave, ‘Fear not to go down – I will go down with you – and I will also surely bring you up again.’

O solid comfort! O glorious hopes! ‘Therefore comfort’ yourselves, and ‘one another with these words’ (1 Thess. 4:18).”

—Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State

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“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

- Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

God’s Gifts

Oregon Coast at Yaquina Head Natural Area north of Newport.Sometimes I am amazed by God’s creation.  I truly take it for granted most of the time.  Then I see a setting like the one above and just can’t absorb it all.   God’s gift of creation got me thinking about God’s most precious gift to us, His Son, Jesus Christ.

Today I am going to share some quotes from Of First Importance. 

The first quote is from Timothy Keller, one of my favorite authors.  His latest book is Counterfeit Gods, a book well worth your time and attention:

“You don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.”

--Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009), 19.

“The Lord Jesus came into this world not primarily to say something, not even to be something, but to do something; He came not merely to lead men through His example out into a ‘larger life,’ but to give life, through His death and resurrection, to those who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

—J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 113

“‘Come unto me,’ he says, ‘and I will give you.’  You say, ‘Lord, I cannot give you anything.’  He does not want anything.  Come to Jesus, and he says, ‘I will give you.’  Not what you give to God, but what he gives to you, will be your salvation.  ‘I will give you‘ — that is the gospel in four words.

Will you come and have it?  It lies open before you.”

--C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), I:175.  (HT: Ray Ortlund)

And finally…

“Will you trust the grace of the Gospel and quit frantically seeking what you have already been given in Christ?”

--Paul David Tripp, Twitter post

C.S. Lewis Quote

I admire the writings of C.S. Lewis.  Here is a pithy but powerful quote from him:

“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Chapter 27

More Quotes from Of First Importance

More good quotes from Of First Importance: Living each day in the good of the gospel:

“Everything that a man leans upon but God—will be a dart which will certainly pierce his heart through and through. He who leans only upon Christ—lives the highest, choicest, safest and sweetest life.”

- Thomas Brooks

“When we are trusting Christ most authentically, we are not thinking about trusting, but about Christ. When we step out of the moment to examine it, we cease what we were doing, and therefore cannot see it. My counsel for strugglers therefore is relentlessly: Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus in his word. And pray for eyes to see.”


- John Piper, Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul

The Father cannot resist fellowship with His own dear children when they embrace Christ in all His offices as prophet, priest, and king.”


- C. John Miller, Repentance and 21st Century Man (Fort Washington, Pa.: CLC publications, 2003), 51.

“In order for the Christian gospel to be good news it must provide an all-satisfying and eternal gift that undeserving sinners can receive and enjoy. For that to be true, the gift must be three things. First, the gift must be purchased by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Our sins must be covered, and the wrath of God against us must be removed, and Christ’s righteousness must be imputed to us. Second, the gift must be free and not earned. There would be no good news if we had to merit the gift of the gospel. Third, the gift must be God himself, above all his other gifts.”


- John Piper, God is the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005), 14.