Bear Down, Universe
“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
The Prophet Jeremiah
Happy Friday,
Our assignment involves neither flexing our muscle nor lording our power. We are expected to do something much harder — to faithfully, lovingly and sacrificially participate in the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the midst of harsh headwinds and spiritual opposition. Specific next steps are hard to name, but meditating on the Sermon on the Mount is a good place to start. Its message remains a disruptive, revolutionary, original and unthinkable path forward.
Speaking Of
My recent re-reading of Christ’s manifesto – Matthew 5-7 - has me noticing the word when. When you give… when you pray… when you fast. When not if.
An Opportunity
I grieve the shooting of Charlie Kirk and its dampening effect on free speech. I’m also staggered by those who claim his views justified his assassination. (I expect unsettled people to do unsettling things. I’m less prepared for large numbers to not only set aside Judeo-Christian ethics but also Enlightenment assumptions to endorse violence to silence someone they disagree with.) That said, I am not without hope. I not only rest in the promises of God, I believe there are clear voices helping us understand this moment and inviting us forward. May we listen and respond.
Bear Down, Universe
I don't understand much of the physics in Stephen Barr's book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, but I like the attention he brings to the teleological argument for God’s existence, specifically about how the cosmological constant argues for divine intelligence. He notes that “the speed at which our universe expands sits in a range that has roughly a 1 in 10 to the 120th power chance of occurring randomly." FYI, Vegas currently lists the Bears’ odds of winning the Super Bowl at 180 to 1, meaning the probability of a randomly-tuned — i.e., not God-made — universe is 10¹¹⁸ times more unlikely than a Bears Super Bowl this year. Who's ready to make a new Super Bowl Shuffle?
Quotes Worth Requoting
1) "This is the land of wolves now,” — the Benicio del Toro character in the 2015 movie Sicario
2) "Leadership involves the stewardship of clarity." — Crawford Loritts during Monday’s Lakelight Lecture
3) "I wanted to fall in love. I was looking for someone who was smart enough to condense ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ into a paragraph and also explain quark-gluon plasma; who was available for texting when I was in the mood for company and get the message when I wasn’t; someone who was uninterested in ‘working on our relationship’ and fine about making it a hundred percent about me; and who had no parents I’d have to pretend to like and no desire to cohabitate. To wit: a chatbot." — Patricia Marx
A Canal or a Reservoir?
My admiration for Bernard of Clairvaux is pretty qualified, but I think he was spot on, suggesting we strive to be a reservoir, not a canal. The latter immediately spreads the water it receives. The former waits until it’s filled before it starts to overflow, “thus without loss to itself communicates its superabundant water.”
Overheard
1) If you like 80% of your job, you’ve won the job-lottery.
2) Death is coming to us all. Heaven is not. Yet many live as if the opposite is true – i.e., that no one will die, yet everyone will go to heaven.
3) Too much patience can be a form of lying.
4) If you are doing more to help someone than they are doing to help themselves, you may be in a co-dependent relationship.
5) It’s hard to be a student of both human nature and current events. Pastors should lean into the first.
Question of the Week
Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Augustine echoed him, praying, “Grant, Lord, that I may know Thee and help me to know myself, that’s all.” And Calvin sang from the same sheet music when he wrote, “nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists of these two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves.” These three (and others) are suggesting that we all have blind spots. Do you know yours? What have you learned about yourself recently?
WOTW
Honorable mention goes to glass cannon (something that packs a punch but is very fragile), the veto of violence (one of the many memorable ways Charlie Kirk’s death has been described) and asteroid economics (the practice of those spending with abandon because they believe destruction is coming). I’m giving full honors to Lifequake (a disruption in a person's life that leads to a prolonged period of upheaval, transition and renewal).
Without Comment
1) Uber now offers rides via helicopters.
2) The UN now claims the world has more obese children than malnourished ones.
3) The rat population in the US has exploded, according to a new study.
4) 100 years ago, Babe Ruth’s $52K salary (900K in today’s dollars) made him the highest-paid baseball player.
6) The average life is 4,000 wks long.
7) One in six US parents now rejects vaccine recommendations.
8) 1 in 3 college students say some level of violence is acceptable to stop campus speech they disapprove of, according to a recent poll.
More Questions
1) What can I do today that won't bear fruit for years, but will eventually bear fruit for thousands?
2) When did it stop being okay to like someone you disagreed with?
3) Why do some 500-year-old hymns seem up-to-date when some five-month-old worship songs seem dated?
Resources
1) You can click here to hear the second sermon in the Revelation series. (It also contains some of my initial thoughts about how to process Charlie Kirk’s assassination).
2) You can click here to hear Dr. Crawford Loritts’s Lakelight Lecture, where he shares the four marks of a leader who walks faithfully with God.
Closing Prayer
“God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy — increase and multiply on us your mercy; that you being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord” (Book of Common Prayer, 1552)
Referral Rewards System: P.S. If you look below, our referral rewards system is up and running. Please consider sharing TFU with your friends, and you will get free resources.
Lakelight Monthly
Curated resources, delivered on the last Saturday of the month.
By subscribing you agree to with our Privacy Policy and provide consent to receive updates from our company.
