Good day

We've had a really good day. David Sliker gave a tremendous teaching this morning. The guy is loaded, when does he put out another book? We will be back in Ft. Mill tomorrow evening, keep praying (please!)... this time has been very significant on many levels.

Rolled in

Just got in to the Atlanta IHOP a few minutes ago; I'm using Ryan Harmeno's sweet Dell® laptop to post this. The ride down was fun, uneventful other than telling stories on the drive down/over. There's an opening session tonight with dinner at 7 (!), then manana David Sliker is speaking at 9AM, Billy Humphrey at 2PM and Kirk Bennett at 7PM. Pray for us, I do believe these relationships are huge in regards to continued strength for the prayer movement in the southeast region of the nation.

We are getting one of these put in to the prayer room as the cel phone signal is pitifully weak. It should boost the signal and prolong the battery life of the phones in the room as well. Interestingly enough, the manufacturer name is Zboost (I kid you not).

Comparing Wright with Lewis

Internetmonk has a recent post comparing Mere Christianity (CS Lewis) with NT Wright's Simply Christian as a presentation of the Christian faith. Its an intriguing read, find it here.

Word

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Psalm 139:3

Life goals and more

AdamMc came and taught in the internship class last night. He did a terrific job explaining how small decisions made today can affect our future, thus without goals and a commitment to what we want to pursue we can sell ourselves short... not having used our time well because of the absense of such goals and commitment. It was well stated, way to go Adam!

Job's counsel

In his affliction, not all of the counsel Job received was bad. Saturday I was reading and these words jumped out at me in a life-giving way (chapter 22, verses 21 through 30):

“Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.
Receive, please, instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart.

If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents.

Then you will lay your gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.
Yes, the Almighty will be your gold and your precious silver;
For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, and lift up your face to God.

You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, and you will pay your vows.
You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; So light will shine on your ways.

When they cast you down, and you say, ‘Exaltation will come!’ Then He will save the humble person.
He will even deliver one who is not innocent; Yes, he will be delivered by the purity of your hands.”

This is good counsel because its an exhortation to pursue:
- The knowledge of God: perceiving His attributes (i.e. character and nature) and His thoughts and feelings
- A whole-hearted life, one given to pleasing Him (i.e. not earning His love, but responding to the reality that we can love Him because He first loved us)
- Treasuring God, rightly considering Him the best and highest pursuit available to the human experience
- A prophetic spirit with intercession, seeing things which are not good (when God's will is not being done on the earth as it is in heaven) yet praying that they might be and in time gaining assurance and utterance for what God will yet establish
- Meekness, confidence in God's faithfulness in adversity
- Prayer for others in their weakness and brokenness, that even the rebellious against God might turn back to Him and love Him first and love Him most

Internship update

We're starting the second week of our internship. It appears to be going well, early breakdowns in communication have been resolved I believe.

We handed out the Jan Johnson book yesterday titled Savoring God's Word, adding another voice giving insight to the practice of scripture meditation to supplement Kirk Bennett's method. I like Jan's writings; I think she's both well-read and an enthusiastic practitioner of what she writes.

Part of the writing assignment for the interns this week is to reflect upon reading for formation rather than reading for information. Its a much different approach to reading the bible - not bible study. Its a listening posture, positioning oneself to learn and be examined and taught by God in the process. I think its powerful, it will be interesting to see how the interns react.