Sunday---Proverbs On Friendship, 4, with Dr. Tim Keller

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)

COUNSEL. The fourth mark of a true friend is counsel. Friends give 'heartfelt advice' (27:9). Friends sharpen and challenge one another, being vulnerable and sensitive to one another but also making proposals for how the other should change. Friends regularly have constructive clashes that sharpen each party's understanding of the world and of themselves.

Therapists give you advice, but you don't do it back.  A supervisor may offer criticism, but it would not be appropriate to give equal criticism back.  The mutuality of the deep counsel that friends can give is rare (!) yet something everybody needs.  Sometimes it is sweet and pleasant and sometimes sharp and perhaps painful.  True friendship is both reassuring and bracing.  If you can have this kind of exchange and growth in a romantic relationship or in a family relationship, it is because you have incorporated this aspect of friendship into those connections.  But you're never going to become the person you need to be, or that you can be, without it. It sharpens you the way nothing else can.

With how many people do you share a relationship in which there is mutual counsel and critique?

PRAYER:  Lord, today to 'friend' someone is to 'like' rather than dislike.  I have not been conditioned to have friends who dislike things about me and tell me so!  But my heart knows---and your Word says----that I need them.  Lead them to me and give me the willingness to be open to them.  Amen

Dr.  Tim Keller,  A Year of Daily Devotions In the Book of Psalms

Tucker Carlson Special, July 4, 2019, He Doesn't Mince Words---Absolutely Must See

INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT OF ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM.  From our trade agreements to our tax codes,  economics across the board favor multinational corporations and big banks that have less and less allegiance to America and middle class workers in the USA. Middle America and its problems are ignored by Congressional elites in both parties.

Did You Hear the News About Nike?

Thankful, Blessed 4th of July from Food City In East Tennessee, Deep Red Country

UPDATE: ROGER L. SIMON---HATE IN THE TIME OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY
THE NEW NEO: ON LIBERTY
DON SURBER ON THOSE WHO HATE AMERICA
 

ALMOST ZERO CONNECTIVITY FROM WHERE WE ARE ON THE South Holston River.  So in between fishing,  I run into Food City to catch up and pick up.  This is one of, if not my very, favorite holidays.  So, very much to be thankful for!

Yet, so much utter nonsense to guard against in our country in the years ahead, as many of the left of liberal---far, far left of sanity--- candidates want to wreck our Constitution, the Electoral College, our brave history and traditions and our families. They would do more for illegals than our own American citizens. They want to do it against our will, rob our pocketbooks for many dark, nefarious reasons.

We can't let them.  Ever. God Bless America! And may God keep watch and keep blessing America. We have to stand up to this, whatever it takes.

Above,  Jackson,  Patriot Cat,  guards our flag,  keeps the faith back in Burns.

Sunday----Proverbs on Friendship, Part 3 with Dr. Tim Keller

If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. (Proverbs 27:14)

SENSITIVITY.  A third mark of friendship is sensitivity and tact.  Why does someone show inappropriate heartiness when others are just waking up?  Why do they use humor inappropriately or speak lightheartedly to grieving people with a heavy heart? It is because they are emotionally disconnected and therefore clumsy.  They don't know the other person's inner topography well enough to know what hurts or helps, what inspires or bores,  what stimulates or irritates.

If I can be content when you are sad, I'm not your friend. Friends voluntarily tie their hearts to one another.  They put their happiness into their friends happiness, so they can't emotionally flourish unless their friends are flourishing too.  Jesus  tied his heart to us so that even in his suffering he know joy because of the salvation he was bringing to us (Hebrews 12:2; cf. Isaiah 53:11).  The friendship connection may not be as emotionally intense as that which comes in romance, nor always as enduring as family ties, all the more reason friendship is so valuable, because such a link is both deliberate and voluntary.

Are you putting in the effort to be a friend?

Prayer:  Lord, our sin causes you pain (Genesis 6:6)  and our broken hearts draw you to our side (Psalm 34:18)  You love us more tenderly and sensitively than a nursing mother does her child (Isaiah 49:15)  Let me be so moved by your love for me that it makes me highly sensitive to the needs of those around me.  Amen

Congratulations To Vanderbilt Baseball Winner of College World Series Tonight!

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT,  Vandy baseball Coach Tim Corbin is one of the finest---if not THE finest coach of any sport in the nation. Way to go Vandy boys!   So well done as the Vandy team takes down Michigan 8-2 in game 3.

Sunday---Proverbs on Friendship, Part 2 with Dr. Tim Keller

@ DESIRING GOD: WHAT IS THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiples kisses.  (Proverbs 27:5-6)

TRANSPARENCY.  A second requirement for friendship is transparency. The King James Version renders the first part of Proverbs 27:6 as "faithful are the wounds of a friend."  What are "faithful wounds"? The phrase means that real friends do open rebuke, they tell each other things they need to hear even if they are painful. If you are too afraid to say what needs to be said, you are really of your friend's soul.

Have you ever listened to a recording of yourself and thought, "I don't sound like that."  But yes,  you do---you can't hear from within your body what your voice really sounds like outside.  And without the perspective of others we will never know our strengths and weaknesses. If you have a measure of status in the world, or if you have chosen friends poorly,  you may just be surrounded by flatterers. (29:5)  Transparency is scary, but we need it.  And to get courage,  look to the one who became so vulnerable for you that he died on the cross.  How faithful were the wounds of this friend for you!

How many real friends do you have----friends who will speak the truth in love to you?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you became a vulnerable human being to show us the truth about ourselves. You were faithful and constant even to death on the cross. Now, Lord, reproduce in me that same character and let me be a friend to others as you have been a friend to me. Amen.

The Greatest Show On Earth---Trump Dazzles In Orlando

TRUMP WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS ONE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST PRESIDENTS.  I cannot imagine him not winning a second term.

Proverbs On Friendship, With Dr. Tim Keller

IN HIS BOOK OF DAILY DEVOTIONALS ON THE BOOK OF PROVERBS,  God's Wisdom For Navigating Life,   Dr. Tim Keller does a series on friendship  which occurs in his book during the month of June.  It is wise and well worth pondering.  I believe real friendship takes in person contact and proximity to grow and deepen.  E-mails, texts and social media contact just doesn't get it for very long.  So old fashioned friendship today, as opposed to fast friendship, needs more than ever to be disciplined and intentional because of myriad distractions in today's hectic world. Real friendship is reciprocal though at times one person carries more of the load.

The best marriages are at their core deep friendship.

I'll be posting for the next few Sundays on some of the traits of real, long-term friendship from Proverbs.  Hope it's inspirational to you, as it is for me:

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.---Proverb 18:24

INTENTIONALITY. This says that a friend can be better than a sibling---quite a statement in a culture that was far more family oriented than ours. But how so? Your family may be there for you but they may not really like you or understand you. And there can be long stretches of life in which you have no romantic partner or spouse. A friend, however, may stick with you over the years closer than a brother.

In the early stage of your life, you were shaped most by your family.  But for the rest of your life you will be shaped largely by your friends. You become like the people with whom you spend the most time.  As we will see, you can't live without friendship.  But remember how deliberate friendship must be. Erotic attraction and family relationships push themselves on you in various ways, but friendship will not. It must be carefully, intentionally cultivated through face-to-face time spent together.  And in a busy culture like ours, it is one thing that is often squeezed out.

How have your best friends over the years shaped and influenced you? Who are your best friends now?

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, you befriended a handful of disciples and through those friendships you changed the world. Help me choose my friends wisely, cultivate them carefully, and learn all I should learn from them so I can grow into the person you've called me to be,  Amen.

Fathers Day Sunday

FATHERS AND GOOD MEN ARE THE GLUE THAT HOLD CIVILIZATION TOGETHER.

Sunday, Why Heresy Often Starts With Getting the Doctrine of the Trinity Wrong

Sunday, Monday: The Enticing Sin of Empathy---How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion

UPDATE: PRESIDENT TRUMP GOES TO MY CHURCH, MCLEAN BIBLE CHURCH IN TYSONS CORNER


THE TEMPTATION OF FEELINGS-BASED LIVING

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL DAYS WHEN YOU DID EVERYTHING MOTIVATED BY FEELINGS AND EMPATHY?  I sure do.  Feelings-based decisions are a national epidemic and regressing society, our culture and our families.  Here,  Joe Rigney shows how too much  empathy can twist and warp the best of intentions and cause more problems than  it sought to solve.  Please don't get me wrong:  feelings are important and can sometimes guide us. Yet when they become the ultimate force for living, rather than critical and principled thinking and acting,  feelings can take us down many  painful dead-ends.

Article by

Joe Rigney @ Desiring God and C.S Lewis,  The Screwtape Letters

Professor, Bethlehem College & Seminary

Really, Wormwood, I would have thought that a young and ambitious tempter would pay attention to the annual updates posted by the Infernal Philological Society. The fact that you had never heard the idea that empathy was a sin is enough to turn me into a centipede. 

Your confusion in this case, however, is somewhat understandable. I’ve always said you were a gullible devil. It seems the Department of Propaganda has been too successful. Even our tempters have been taken in. As a result, it falls to me to explain again some of the elementary doctrines of our Father Below.

When humans are suffering, they tend to make two demands that are impossible to fulfill simultaneously. On the one hand, they want people to notice the depth of their pain and sorrow — how deep they are in the pit, how unique and tragic their circumstances. At the same time, they don’t want to be made to feel that they really need the assistance of others. In one breath, they say, “Help me! Can’t you see I’m suffering?” and in the next they say, “How dare you act as though I needed you and your help?” The sufferer doesn’t want to be alone, and demands not to be pitied. This makes their emotional turmoil in suffering not only delicious to our taste, but also highly combustible and unpredictable.

Now, sufferers have been placing such impossible demands on others from time immemorial. In response, our armies have fought for decades to twist the Enemy’s virtue of compassion into its counterfeit, empathy. Since we introduced the term a century ago, we’ve steadily taught the humans to regard empathy as an improvement upon compassion or sympathy
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Compassion only suffers with another person; empathy suffers in them. It’s a total immersion into the pain, sorrow, and suffering of the afflicted. Under our influence, we’ve taught the humans to think, “Only a heartless and unfeeling beast could oppose such a total immersion, such a generous act of ‘love.’” Our recent success in this conceptual migration has given us ample opportunity for mayhem.

Separate Truth and Feeling

Think of it this way: the Enemy’s virtue of compassion attempts to suffer with the hurting while maintaining an allegiance to the Enemy. In fact, it suffers with the hurting precisely because of this allegiance. In doing so, the Christians are to follow the example of their pathetic and repulsive Master. Just as the Enemy joined the humans in their misery in that detestable act of incarnation, so also his followers are to join those who are hurting in their misery.

However, just as the Enemy became like them in every way but sin, so also his followers are not permitted to sin in their attempts to comfort the afflicted. Thus, his compassion always reserves the right not to blaspheme. It seeks the sufferer’s good and subordinates itself to the Enemy’s abominable standard of Truth 
.
Our alternative, empathy, shifts the focus from the sufferer’s good to the sufferer’s feelings, making them the measure of whether a person is truly “loved.” We teach the humans that unless they subordinate their feelings entirely to the misery, pain, sorrow, and even sin and unbelief of the afflicted, they are not loving them.

Love’s Ransom Demands

This begins, of course, with the sufferers themselves. Our policy has been to teach sufferers to resent all resistance to their feelings. Any holding back, any perceived emotional distance — especially a distance that is driven by a desire to discover what would actually be good for them — must be regarded as a direct assault on their dignity and an affront to the depth of their suffering. As I said before, this is not difficult. A human in pain is practically primed to say, “You don’t love me if . . .” and then to place entirely unreasonable demands on others.

Our task is to give this impulse a little push. We want their unreasonable demands to become ungodly demands. Not only must comforters refuse to actually offer words of comfort (which even their sniveling shepherds suggest is sometimes a prudent policy in the immediate aftermath of some calamity), but we want sufferers to subtly but forcefully demand that their comforters not even feel hope or joy or faith themselves. Total immersion must be granted, or “You don’t love me.” Anyone who refuses to jump through the hoops isn’t being empathetic.


However, he also knows that he’ll only be able to help if he’s tethered to something strong and sturdy outside of the pit. And so he enters the pit with one foot, while keeping the other on the solid ground. He reaches for the hurting with one hand, while holding onto a firmly rooted tree with the other. This is where your patient is now, looking at the various instances of suffering and affliction around him and desiring to help, comfort, and encourage those in the pit.

Make Them Steerable

Your task is to compel him to jump in with both feet. As I’ve said, the sufferer will naturally be demanding it. You must increase the pressure by fostering in him a sensitivity to accusations of heartlessness. This is where our philological efforts have made your job much easier than you deserve.
By elevating empathy over compassion as the superior virtue, there is now an entire culture devoted to the total immersion of empathy. Books, articles, and social media all trumpet the importance of checking one’s own beliefs, values, judgments, and reason at the door of empathy.

To refuse to fully endorse the feelings of the hurting, however blasphemous and false, is to revictimize them. Maintaining the emotional independence necessary to rationally consider someone’s good is “unhelpful,” “heartless,” “contrary to the spirit of Jesus.” These terms can be used to browbeat your man into submission so that he never pauses to consider the true and lasting good of the one in pain, or the truthfulness and accuracy of their felt reality.

Once untethered from the truth, you’ll find that your man is eminently steerable. Things that he would have regarded as foolish, sinful, and ungodly under normal circumstances will sail right along under the banner of empathy. Rightly used, empathy is a power tool in the hands of the weak and suffering. By it, we can so weaponize victims that they (and those who hide behind them) are indulged at every turn, without regard for whether such indulgence is wise or prudent or good for them. 

When you can move your man from the bland but true belief that “feelings are important” to the false but potent impression that “feelings are all that’s important,” then you know that you have him. Properly conditioned and trained in this way, you will be able to steer him in any direction you choose.

Tyranny of Fusion

As in many things, we must always keep in mind the Enemy’s goals and ours. The Enemy aims to produce a fellowship of sufferings, with his Accursed Son at the center of it. But fellowship requires fellows; that is, it requires distinctness. Fellows say, “We are together, and yet I am still I and you are still you.” This is a kind of union, where one thing is united to another thing while still being itself.

In fact, if the Enemy is to be believed, creatures become more themselves when thus united. Of course, it is all lies, and in stoking empathy we are simply cutting with the grain of reality. Empathy goes beyond union to the more potent and dynamic truth of fusion, the melting together of persons so that one personality is lost in the other. Empathy demands, “Feel what I feel. In fact, lose yourself in my feelings.”

In my last letter, I told you that compassion, when untethered from patience and wisdom, becomes tyrannical and attempts to force the sufferer out of their sorrow against their will. Such impatient compassion attempts to seize the wheel of the sufferer’s emotional vehicle. 

In the present case, the seizing happens the other way. The sufferer demands to steer the emotional car of the one trying to help them. We are happy with either. It matters not which person is exercising the tyranny, so long as there is, in the end, only one car. What we want to avoid at all costs is a caravan, that fellowship of sufferings in which the hurting, the suffering, and the afflicted are all permanently tethered to the Enemy, and therefore drawn inexorably toward each other and toward the blazing and damnable light that marks his comforting presence. 

Excuse me, Wormwood. That last image has left me feeling ill. I think I’d better lie down.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

Joe Rigney (@joe_rigney) is assistant professor of theology and literature at Bethlehem College & Seminary and author of The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts. He is a pastor at Cities Church.

Memorial Day 2019

OF ALL THE PLACES I'VE BEEN IN EUROPE AND THE BRITISH HOMELAND,  THIS CEMETERY AT NORMANY, France is the most compelling and beautiful of them all.

It is truly a memorial to the men and women who fought and won the victory of good over horrific evil.

Sunday: Strength To Wait With Patience

UPDATE:  THE FBI'S SHOCKING MLK TAPES OF AFFAIRS AND SEXUAL DEPRAVITY 
 ***************************

LISTEN HERE TO PASTOR JOHN PIPER

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. (Colossians 1:11)

“STRENGTHENED” IS THE RIGHT WORD. The apostle Paul prayed for the church at Colossae, that they would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience”

(Colossians 1:11). Patience is the evidence of an inner strength.

Impatient people are weak, and therefore dependent on external supports — like schedules that go just right and circumstances that support their fragile hearts. Their outbursts of oaths and threats and harsh criticisms of the culprits who crossed their plans do not sound weak. But that noise is all a camouflage of weakness. Patience demands tremendous inner strength.

For the Christian, this strength comes from God. That is why Paul is praying for the Colossians. He is asking God to empower them for the patient endurance that the Christian life requires. But when he says that the strength of patience is “according to [God’s] glorious might” he doesn’t just mean that it takes divine power to make a person patient. He means that faith in this “glorious might” is the channel through which the power for patience comes.

Patience is indeed a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), but the Holy Spirit empowers (with all his fruit) through “hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5). Therefore Paul is praying that God would connect us with the “glorious might” that empowers patience. And that connection is faith.

Memorial Day 2019---It's My Job

A TERRIFIC GUIDE,  the right dry fly, the perfect stretch of river and viola!  a amazing day on the SoHo...I have been told by a good man friend, and former ad exec, never to put up a photo with my mouth open.  It's the height of unattractiveness for a woman.  Well tough.  Occasionally I make an exception!  Too much fun was had by all.

The Coolest Rooftop Bar in America

WITH DAVE EGGER FROM NEW YORK CITY on the supernatural cello.  But he loves it here where Tennessee and Virginia come together o Main Street.

Sunday John Piper: Summer---Seek the Light Beyond the Light

LISTEN HERE: THE LIGHT BEYOND THE LIGHT:

IT'S GOOD TO REMEMBER THAT SUMMER IS A FORETASTE OF HEAVEN:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1–2)


Jesus Christ is refreshing. So, seek the things that are above. Don’t replace Christ this summer with trifles. Flight from Christ into Christless leisure makes the soul parched.

At first it may feel like freedom and fun to skimp on prayer and neglect the word. But then we pay: shallowness, powerlessness, vulnerability to sin, preoccupation with trifles, superficial relationships, and a frightening loss of interest in worship and the things of the Spirit.

Don’t let the coming of summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute.

If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. Don’t fall in love with the video preview and find yourself unable to love the coming reality.

Jesus Christ is the refreshing center of summer. He is preeminent in all things (Colossians 1:18), including vacations and picnics and softball and long walks and cookouts. He invites us this summer, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
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Do we want it? That is the question. Christ gives himself to us in proportion to how much we want his refreshment. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Peter’s word to us about this is, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19–20). Repentance is not just turning away from sin, but also turning toward the Lord with hearts open and expectant and submissive.

What sort of summer mindset is this? It is the mindset of Colossians 3:1–2, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

It is God’s earth! It is a video preview to the reality of what the eternal summer will be like when “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23).

The summer sun is a mere pointer to the sun that will be: the glory of God. Summer is for seeing and showing that. Do you want to have eyes to see? Lord, let us see the light beyond the light.
 

Please Do NOT Buy Stocks Right Now....Not Nearly Enough Blood In the Streets

UPDATE: JUDY SHELTON, TRUMP'S NEXT FED CHOICE FAVORS THE GOLD STANDARD AND FREE TRADE


  
WE'RE JUST NOW GETTING STARTED IN CORRECTION TERRITORY,  so don't jump the gun and buy anything at this point,  thinking we've hit bottom. We haven't and have a  good way to go.

Sunday, Pastor Austin Gohn: The One Thing I Tell Mothers of Wayward Children

WHY WE SHOULD LOVE OUR ENEMIES

HAVING A DISTANT CHILD, WHETHER TEMPORARILY OR LONG-TERM, IS ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT THINGS A MOTHER, AND FATHER, EVER HAS TO FACE. Here is the best advice any of us could ever get.. St. Monica of Hippo, Augustine's mother is a wonderful role model.

By Pastor Gohn @ The Gospel Coalition

MY CHURCH INBOX  is normally nothing more than threads I’ve been copied on, an email asking our church’s position on an issue, and the weekly update message I keep meaning to unsubscribe from. About a year ago, though, I noticed an email from a concerned dad about his wandering young adult.
His son had moved from somewhere in Canada to Pittsburgh, and he was living with his girlfriend in an apartment near the church I pastor. He wanted nothing to do with the Christianity his parents had spent nearly two decades instilling in him. Uncertain of what to do, his father found my email and threw a Hail Mary. He asked if I would give his son a call and try to meet with him.

All this reminded me of Monica, the mother of Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430). I was reading Augustine’s Confessions at the time of this email, trying to make sense of the young adults in my church. At one point, Monica reached out to a priest about her wandering son. She was worried about him, and she didn’t know what else to do. He had left his childhood religion, “swooped recklessly into love” (3.1), and begun exploring a cult called Manicheanism. Near the end of Book 3 of his Confessions, describing the conversation between his mom and the priest, Augustine wrote, “This woman asked him to be so good as to speak with me and refute any mistaken notions, to teach the bad things out of me and the good things into me” (3.21).

If Monica had lived in the 21st century, it would’ve been an email.

Worried Parents Should Pray

It’s a common story. As a young-adults pastor, I’ve had many conversations with parents of wandering children—with dads like the one who emailed me a few months ago and moms like Monica who contacted the priest 1,600 years ago. And, admittedly, it’s hard to know exactly what to tell them. Try too hard and you’ll probably push your kids farther away. Do nothing and it feels like you’re abandoning them.

Confessions, at its heart, is the story of a mom who wouldn’t quit praying.

Monica, for her part, often leaned closer to the “trying too hard” end of the spectrum. Imagine a mom who would move into the dorm at her son’s college. That’s Monica. She followed Augustine as he moved around the Roman Empire, and sure enough, Augustine was often looking for ways to run away from her. Yet even as she nearly became the patron saint of helicopter parents, she did something I wish every parent of young adults would do.
She prayed for him.

Augustine spent his 20s messing around with a cult and chasing sexual experiences, but Monica spent the duration of that decade on her knees in prayer. He reflected to God:

Around eight years followed during which I rolled around in the mud of that deep pit and in the darkness of that lie, often trying to rise out of it but always taking a more forceful plunge back in. She, meanwhile a chaste, pious, and sober widow, such as you love, was already more lighthearted with hope, but she didn’t slack in weeping and groaning; she didn’t cease in all the hours of her prayers, to beat her breast before you, and her pleas were granted an audience with you; and yet you left me to wallow and be swallowed in that darkness. (3.20) 

At another point, Augustine described his mother’s prayers as “rivers she addressed to you daily for my sake, irrigating the ground under her face” (5.15). She believed that God would eventually turn Augustine to himself, even as she felt he was walking farther away.

When Monica reached out to the priest, he told her to keep praying. He was unwilling to meet with Augustine because, as Augustine writes, “I was still unteachable, as I was full of hot air due to the heresy’s exciting novelty.” When Monica persisted, sending request after request begging him to have a conversation with her son, he became “sick of it, and rather annoyed” and told her, “Get out of here. . . . Just go on living this way. It’s impossible that the son of these tears of yours will perish” (3.21). If any one historical figure illustrated the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1–8), it was Monica.

Wandering Young Adults Need Prayers

I told the dad who emailed me something similar. I told him it was unlikely his son would have any interest in a conversation with me, especially after finding out his dad had already told me everything about his life. I told him that for many young adults, there’s a period of wandering, as they’re searching for what they believe, when they won’t listen to anyone’s advice—no matter how insistently or eloquently it is given. And I told him that the best thing he can for his son is pray for him and be there for him when he runs out of options. He never replied to my email.

Wandering young adults, more than anything else, need moms like Monica, who will drench the ground with tears on their behalf. They need moms who will let them wander, believing—as Evelyn Waugh wrote in Brideshead Revisited—that God has already caught them with an “unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let them wander to the end of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.” I believe that behind many of the lives I’ve seen transformed in my years of young-adult ministry are moms who refused to quit praying even when it felt hopeless, pleading with the same kind of adrenaline-filled intensity of moms who have been to known to lift cars to save their kids.

Don’t Stop Praying

In his early 30s, when Augustine finally does convert to Christianity, the first person he told was his mother. He prayed, “She was thrilled and exultant and blessed you, who in your power do more than we ask or understand. She saw that you had granted her so much more, in me, than she had been used to asking for in her wretched, tearful groaning. You had turned me to you” (8.30). She died at 55, shortly after his baptism. Augustine spendt a large portion of Book 9 of his Confessions eulogizing her and praying for her, “so that all of them who read my account remember at your altar your servant Monica” (9.37). Confessions, at its heart, is the story of a mom who wouldn’t quit praying.

I can’t promise that your young adult will convert to Christianity and write enough theological pages to fill three shelves of a seminary library if you just pray hard enough. What I can promise is that God is watching over your young adults, listening to your prayers, and working behind the scenes in ways you can’t see. Irrigate the ground with your tears. Often, it’s the prayers of moms like Monica that will open up the hearts of their young adults to hear the preaching of pastors like me.

Austin Gohn is one of the pastors of Bellevue Christian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he has been working with young adults since 2012. He is author of A Restless Age: How Saint Augustine Helps You Make Sense of Your Twenties from GCD Books, and he has written for Fathom Mag, Gospel-Centered Discipleship, and The Living Church (Covenant).

Kacey Musgraves Is A World Class Stunner

UPDATE: CELEBS WHO SKIPPED THIS YEAR

I REMEMBER years ago first seeing Kacey singing with George Strait and thought she was adorable and talented. She had the IT factor and lots of stage presence to go with it. Today she's morphed into a global success and sophisticated woman-of-the world. I just hope all this Met Gala stuff (I did not particularly like her Barbie get-up and long blond wig) and too much success doesn't ruin her life and marriage. Keep your feet  squarely on the ground, my dear.

You got IT!

It's a helluva long distance from George Strait to Anna Wintour. Watch your steps.

I Agree With Steve Bannon: Monday Was the Most Important Day in President Trump's Presidency

STEVE BANNON ON LOU DOBBS EXPLAINS EXACTLY WHY MONDAY WAS A GREAT DAY IN U.S. ECONOMIC HISTORY AND FOR MIDDLE CLASS WORKERS.

Even though it's bringing a stock market correction and some temporary pain for Wall Street elites. Most people don't take time to understand the trade imbalances that have been plaguing our country for decades.

President Trump does and is keep his campaign promises under incredible duress.  Good for him. I completely support him in staying the course, even if my stock portfolio is suffering right now.

Sunday Sermon @ Redeemer Presbyterian Eastside, Manhattan

RECENT  SERMON by Pastor Aaron Bjerke in Manhattan which I can't embed.  Well worth a listen.  You can watch the recent video by clicking, then scrolling down.

From Exodus 13:17-22 New International Version (NIV)

Crossing the Sea

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.[a] The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle. 19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.”[b] 20 After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. FROM EXODUS 13:17-22

Saturday, For the Longest Time

Thanks, Neo.  Terrific find.

Sunday, Pastor Mike Atkins--- Do Not Be Afraid

 FROM LUKE 5

JESUS CALLS HIS FIRST DISCIPLES

5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.:

A Blessed Easter From Jackson and Me at the Hitching Post

JACKSON IS SIMPLY WILD ABOUT THE SCENT OF AZALEAS! So at this time of year, he and I have double reasons to be joyful: First, Christ is risen from the dead and has finished his work of salvation offered to the world and anyone who takes this incredible free gift of eternal life. Second spring and azaleas are here in full, fragrant bloom to celebrate with us in living technicolor. Plus, the sun is finally shining!
    

Good Friday, Who Put Jesus On the Cross?

 SATAN IS NOT THE EXPLANATION FOR CALVARY.

 DIVINE LOVE BETWEEN THE SON AND THE FATHER IS THE REASON FOR THE CRUCIFIXION. AND THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION THAT FOLLOWS.

Holy Week, Iconic Symbols Still Standing

UPDATE: NOTRE DAME'S DESTRUCTION WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN AFTER YEARS OF NEGLECT AND LACK OF UPKEEP

THE GREAT NOTRE DAME FIRE OF PARIS, 2019. SAVED FROM THE WORST BY FIREFIGHTERS.

Symbols of antiquity and Christianity, but only symbols of the real thing:  The salvation of the world by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ for anyone who accepts His free gift of Grace.

Meanwhile on a more mundane level, is this horrific fire symbolic of  the continuing downward spiral of a once great country?

Pastor John Piper: Will There Be A Rapture? From 1 Thessalonians 4

From Desiring God.

Good Life Advice From the Stream

Sunday With Piper: Should Christians Celebrate Interracial Marriage?

PASTOR JOHN PIPER preaches on interracial marriage from a Bible perspective. Listen and learn. READ IT.