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 
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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.