All Rain and No Sunshine Make a Desert

This was a wonderful devotional I was reading this morning. Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m not getting what I want - kinda like a child who’s being corrected. I don’t like the idea, but Proverbs 3:11-12 help: “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be wary of his correction: for whom the Lord loves, he corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights.” At least God isn’t hiding - he’s clearly working in a lot of things I’m going through (he got me through a semester of graduate school without filing for bankruptcy). But I’m definitely not being spoon-fed the ‘desires of my heart’ like I’m expecting. Anyway, the devotion is taken from RBC Ministries, Our Daily Bread: http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2008/04/07/devotion.aspx.

“April 7, 2008

Why? Why? Oh, Why?

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. —Hebrews 12:7

Why must I suffer disappointment, sorrow, and tribulation? What have I done that God should send me trials? Is He displeased with me? These questions are constantly asked by God’s dear children.

Much of this fear and questioning is due to our misunderstanding of God’s dealings with His own. He has His good reasons. And one of those reasons is for our spiritual discipline. We should be far more afraid of being left alone than of God’s chastening, for He wastes no time on worthless objects that give no promise of fruitfulness.

On the shores of Lake Michigan are great barren sand dunes that have never felt the point of a plow. But in the rich lowlands beyond them, the farmer is constantly cultivating the soil. The farmer knows what he is doing, so he keeps on breaking up the soil. The deeper the plow works and the more the sharp harrow, the more precious the crop will be when harvest time comes.

God’s plow goes deep, but it is only that in the end we may forget the plowing and rejoice in the blessing of bearing much fruit for Him. “No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).  — M.R. De Haan

When blades of distress cut deep in the soul,
Breaking up ground that was untouched before,
The Lord is preparing soil to bear fruit
Fit for the harvest to feed many more. —Hess

All sunshine and no rain make a desert.”

Isn’t it Ironic

It’s like rain on your wedding day. A free ride when you’ve already paid. I was pretty tired of school and a little uninterested in turning in a reaction paper that was due with just about 4 classes left, so I didn’t get around to it. I got to class to find that the paper - which I thought was due today - was actually due last week, and I’m now a week plus a day behind and 3 chapters late in reading. On top of that, the class topic happened to be on achievement motivation. I sat in class and took notes on motivation factors for academic success. Brilliant.

Book Review: Lies that Go Unchallenged

In Charles Colson’s Lies that Go Unchallenged in Popular Culture (2005, Tyndale) family, media, church, and postmodernism are all analyzed with a conservative biblical perspective in light of contemporary American culture. I recommend the book although it’s extensive in subject matter - it gives brief articles with points to consider making it a thoughtful read. I found this piece taken from ‘Undergraduates without Chests’ very interesting:

“When Vigen Guroian began teaching a class on children’s literature to his undergraduate students at Loyola College in Maryland, he invited his daughter’s fourth-grade class in for some discussion. After talking about Pinocchio, the undergrads were shocked and embarrassed to find that the fourth graders had understood the book better than they had. Why was that?

The answer, Guroian says, is that we have neglected the development of the moral imagination. The college students literally were less capable of understanding the moral themes in the story of Pinocchio than the kids were.

As Guroian writes in his book Tending the Heart of Virtue, the undergrads noticed that the fourth graders were better at grasping ‘the nature and source of Pinocchio’s temptations and backsliding, and they were less ready to excuse him for the behavior that got him into so much trouble and caused his father such grief.’

His students even began to suspect that ‘maybe they had lost something in growing up - a sense of wonder that might have been better tended and retained’ if they had been brought up reading books such as Pinocchio.’”

( pages 367-368 )

That’s pretty crazy. But I’ve tried starting a discussion on a short story by John Steinbeck with a couple of 7th graders and I can sympathize. Little kids get things better than we do sometimes. Lines aren’t as blurred, other factors matter less than the simple thrill of the story, the turns and consequences, and the suspension of disbelief. Oh sweet childhood! =)