Choose to Give Thanks
Happy Thanksgiving to all Buzzard Blog readers! I’m thankful for how you read and interact with what I write here. It’s a great blessing and help to me.
This Thanksgiving I’m meditating on and putting into action Psalm 9:1-2
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
Note the four-fold resolve in this Psalm:
I will give thanks
I will recount
I will be glad
I will sing
Giving thanks isn’t automatic for many of us, especially if our circumstances are difficult. Here we see the Psalmist resolving, choosing, to give thanks. This Thanksgiving, follow the four “I wills” of this Psalm: give thanks to the Lord, recount his wonderful deeds, be glad in God, and sing praises to his name.
Give thanks.
Recount.
Be glad.
Sing.
Why? Because God is God and he’s treated you better than you deserve.
Even if you’re not feeling particularly thankful or glad today, follow the ancient Psalm and soon your feelings will also follow.
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Best Books of 2009
In time for Thanksgiving, here’s my Best Books of 2009 list. This isn’t a list of favorite books published in 2009. This is a list of books I read in 2009 that I found the most profit or pleasure in. Below each book is a sentence summing up what I gained from reading the book. See also: Best Books of 2008.
Add to the list, what was your favorite read in 2009?
1. Trusting God by Jerry Bridges
God is sovereign, wise, and good—he can be trusted completely.
2. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Your body was designed to run, so stop jogging and start running.
3. Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung
God’s will is clear: love God and do as you please.
4. Blink by Malcom Gladwell
Sometimes you should quit thinking so much and just trust your initial instincts.
5. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Martyn Lloyd Jones
Jesus presents an entirely new framework for living life (MLJ’s five sermons on worry from Matthew 6 are worth the price of the book).
6. Adrenaline and Stress by Archibald Hart
You need to understand how stress works and how you work in order to do your best work (Hart’s chapter on sleep is worth the price of the book).
7. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Life is a quest requiring faith and friendship.
8. Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome by Kent and Barbara Hughes
The measurements we use to gauge success in ministry are often unbiblical and enslaving, the Scriptures show us how to define true success in ministry.
9. Spark by John Ratey
Exercise may benefit your brain more than your body.
10. A Praying Life by Paul Miller
Prayer is dangerous.
11. A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
Right-brained thinkers are the ones who will make an impact in today’s world.
12. The Prodigal God by Tim Keller
Christianity is something far more freeing and wonderful, total and comprehensive, than most think.
13. Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality by Iain Duguid
Abraham’s life was lived in the gap between promise and reality, the place where faith is forged.
14. Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
The guy you think is frozen and dead tonight might surprise you by showing up tomorrow morning.
15. Feelings and Faith by Brian Borgman
Stop being enslaved by negative emotions, learn to cultivate your emotions to honor God.
16. Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite by Charles Farabee and Jim Myers
Many people have died in many different ways in Yosemite.
17. From Fear to Freedom: Living as Sons and Daughters of God by Rose Marie Miller
Hearing one pastor’s wife’s story of moving from fear to freedom inspires you to leave behind orphan-like living.
18. You Can Change by Tim Chester
What you worship and what you think about all day is the key to deep change.
19. Counsel from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson
Don’t attempt to care for and counsel people without connecting everything back to the cross.
20. Paul the Missionary by Eckhard Schnabel
Paul’s life still has everything to teach us about realities, strategies, and methods for advancing the gospel.
Add to the list, what was your favorite read in 2009?
Invented Happiness
On Sunday, in talking about what it means to be made in God’s image, I used this great quote from C.S. Lewis:
What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn…There is no other.
Curtis “Voice” Allen
My friend Curtis “Voice” Allen is visiting 20s tomorrow night to perform some of his latest rap and to preach to us. It will be a great night. Check out Curtis’ latest album, “a theist.”
20 Books to Read in Your 20s
I’ve made a few adjustments to the original 20 Books to Read in Your 20s list that I created last year for the single and married twentysomethings I work with here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thanks for the many comments and suggestions you made on this last year, here and here. Any thoughts on this revised list?
You can download this file as a bookmark: 20booksv09_web
Overcoming Worry
Earlier this year I appreciated Brian Borgman’s excellent book, Feelings and Faith: Cultivating Godly Emotions in the Christian Life. Brian has just written a helpful article on overcoming emotions of fear, anxiety, and worry. Here’s an excerpt:
Fear, anxiety and worry are definitely emotions. Worry is a feeling of uneasiness. The word “worry” comes from an old English word meaning to be seized, usually by the throat, shaken, mangled and killed. An unpleasant thought to be sure, but an apt picture of how a disturbing thought can seize us and shake us. Fear is a distressing emotion of impending danger or pain, real or perceived. Anxiety is full on mental and emotional distress caused by fear. In the range of human emotions, this trilogy seems to be most out of our control, or so we think. After all, fear, anxiety and worry are most commonly associated with circumstances beyond our control. But here is a challenging thought: the very emotions we believe to be most outside of our control are the very ones God tells us not to have. To put it another way, God tells us to control our emotions. To take this a little farther, God actually diagnoses our fear, anxiety and worry and gives us the remedy to overcome them.
What Sort of Story Am I In?
This is a quote I love and that I’m using in my sermon on Genesis 1 this Sunday:
“The same impulse that makes us want our books to have a plot makes us want our lives to have a plot. We need to feel that we are getting somewhere, making progress. There is something in us that is not satisfied with a merely psychological explanation of our lives. It doesn’t do justice to our conviction that we are on some kind of journey or quest, that there must be some deeper meaning to our lives than whether we feel good about ourselves. Only people who have lost the sense of adventure, mystery, and romance worry about their self-esteem. And at that point what they need is not a good therapist, but a good story. Or more precisely, the central question for us should not be, ‘What personality dynamics explain my behavior?’ but rather, ‘What sort of story am I in?’” -William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong
J.I. Packer: The ESV Study Bible, A Single-Volume Discipleship Resource
J.I. Packer on the ESV Study Bible:
The reason why I’m so enthusiastic about it is largely that it takes a wider view of its task than other study Bibles do. Other study Bibles provide you with information and that’s it. The ESV Study Bible goes a step further. It’s a study Bible which not only explains the texts and expounds them accurately, but it has in it a whole series of articles for the making and shaping of discipleship to Jesus Christ on the basis of the Bible. It can be, in a very significant sense, a single-volume resource for pastoral ministry, and indeed for personal life, because it’s doing the job which professional catechists have been doing ever since Christianity started—teaching people the truths that Christians live by and teaching them how to live by those truths.
Buy an ESV Study Bible.
14 Reasons Why I Love My Church
Yesterday I spent some time thanking God for my church. I decided to turn my thanks into a blog post, 14 reasons why I love my church:
1. In arguably the most unchurched region in America, CPC has maintained a faithful gospel witness for over 40 years. If you’ve ever lived on the San Francisco Peninsula, you know what a challenging (and exciting) place this is for living as a Christian and doing ministry. This place is filled with unique pressures. I may write a series of blog posts on this in the future.
2. CPC has created a culture where the preaching of God’s Word is central to all of church life, community, and mission. Sunday’s sermon on Revelation 6 by our lead pastor, Mark Mitchell, moved me to tears as the sovereignty of God was winsomely and boldly proclaimed. It’s a joy to be part of a community that’s being built on such a rich vision of God.
3. Our church is led by elders who are godly, wise, humble, grace-saturated men.
4. CPC is advancing the gospel globally, supporting many ministries across the globe that are reaching people with the good news of Christ crucified.
5. Our church is full of amazing people who are quick to serve and love others. You should see what happens around this place when a sudden need arises—it’s like crazed fans storming the football field after their team has won.
6. Since coming on staff as a young 28 year-old 3+ years ago, I’ve been given tremendous opportunity, encouragement, guidance, and freedom to be myself and use and develop my gifts to preach and lead. I wish every young pastor could have the kind of opportunity and support I’m given here. I can’t believe the church pays me money to study the Bible, preach the gospel, shepherd people, and disciple men.
7. Many CPC members are strategically placed to make an exponential impact in their workplace with the gospel. Our church is very diverse economically and socially, yet we have a high number of people working in companies where their Christian witness there can have an impact well beyond the Silicon Valley, companies like: Google, Apple, Facebook, Oracle, Visa, Yahoo, Electronic Arts, etc.
8. I’m good friends with the fellow pastors I serve alongside. “Going to work” also means hanging out with some of my closest friends: Jerome, Rob, Mark (guys, I ordered your names from worst-dressed to best-dressed).
9. CPC is building marriages and families on the gospel and a biblical view of manhood and womanhood. This is not a popular thing to do in the Bay Area.
10. CPC cares about the generation most estranged from the church: twenytsomethings. CPC hired me to go after this generation with the gospel.
11. CPC doesn’t ask my wife to be a traditional “pastor’s wife.” Because of the nature of the calling, a pastor’s wife has a unique burden to bear, one that I think only another pastor’s wife can understand. CPC minimizes this load by putting no responsibilities on my wife, recognizing that her main ministry is to be my wife and to be a mom—therein lies her greatest ministry to our church. She’s not expected to play the piano, run the children’s ministry, or bake meatloaf for the all-church potluck.
12. Our administrative staff is incredible. Especially incredible is my administrative assistant, Celia, and our 20s ministry intern, Francis—their service to me and to our church frees me up to do so much more than I could ever do without them.
13. CPC leadership gives me feedback and critique about my character, family life, leadership, and preaching. Young men like me desperately need such feedback in order to be refined and grow.
14. Peet’s Coffee is conveniently located just a mile down the street from our church building and functions as a second office for many of us on staff.
