Sports Illustrated

Dear Editor,

Today I gathered copies of your magazine from the racks at the grocery store and took them to the managers' desk, protesting the pornographic sight of them in what is supposed to be a family-friendly place. I will continue to do so. Please note that this citizen is offended at indiscreet use of a woman's body to sell your stuff.

Sincerely,
Deborah Beisner

The abundance of our daily bread

And now, though it is almost ten in the a.m. and I should get over to the pool to do some laps, I shall record God's unending daily blessings to me and to my family.

We had a wonderful Good Friday evening service and enjoyed the Lord's Supper for the first time in many weeks. And how fitting that this was the first service that we instituted wine instead of grape juice! Yay for Dr. Reymond's leadership!

Saturday morning when we woke late we lay in bed and prayed many prayers. Amongst them were confessions of believing God for His daily provisions. And God gave me grace to put aside all my busyness of Easter preps to fit my life into Cal's. I went to the pool with him. (I have not been going to the pool and indeed, I am weaker physically; but there is always so much to do!) We enjoyed a slow and restful morning, and I determined to believe that God would provide all we needed in the way of time and energy to accomplish all that needed to be done in time.

Kilby got home mid-day from her job and it was after noon. Thoughts of figuring out and preparing our mid-day meal made my body feel my fatigue. I suggested to Cal the extravagance of taking the family out to a yet untried local Italian carry-out/dine-in restaurant. So after family worship we went for a riotous and relaxing time with the kids. There's Cal sitting across the table between Becky and Kilby listening to Rhett and Link on Kilby's ipod! And when the kids asked what they could have, I just invited them to have whatever they liked as this would be their only meal. Two baskets of garlic rolls and all the kids had sodas in addition to their entrees. Those of us with no salads helped Peter and AJ and Grace with theirs. It was nearly three before we left the restaurant. Becky begged to drive the van home even though it was raining, which brought all sorts of razzing about the end of Peter's life.

Kilby went for a nap and Peter and Cal returned to their work. I took Becky, Grace, and AJ for a major everything Wal-mart trip. (On Saturday before Easter in the middle of the day?! Was I nuts?! I don't shop on Saturdays!) But driving west through the rain I was surprised at how light was the traffic. Perhaps by mid-afternoon on Saturdays, folks are getting ready for their evenings. More extravagance: I bought a new suit for AJ. The jacket, being large enough to grow into, I bought a second pair of slacks that should fit him next year. (And my husband lost his job?!) But he needs it and God will provide. And God did, sooner than I expected, maybe just to make the point in my head. For as I tallied up the restaurant and the major everything Wal-mart trip in my head I realized that we'd just blown $400. And said as much to Cal though from his perch before his office computer I doubt he paid attention. The next day a dear friend quietly put a check in Cal's hand for the same amount!

But I get ahead of my story.

As the kids unloaded our purchases, I went to wake Sleeping Beauty. She startled out of her deep and needful sleep and was surprised so much time had passed. Now, I need to tell you that because we hadn't had Bible study on Friday, and because the girls had been quilting in the dining room on Thursday, the downstairs was a major everything mess. And now it was 5:30 p.m. Saturday. And there were the groceries to put away and the cake to frost and the frozen lamb leg to marinate and the fruit and vegetables to wash and the communion supplies to get ready and the iced tea to make and the floor to clean and the hymns to practice. But all hands on deck and by 7:30 we were all sitting in a circle on the family room floor playing Apples to Apples (which I won) and listening to John Mayer and Louis Armstrong. "Hey, when are we going to return this game to the Rabes?"

What I learned in all of this was a more solid and intense application of what I know: that God's provision of daily bread includes the supply of physical energy for the tasks He blesses as we try to bring beauty and order out of chaos as well as an abundant supply of joy. One of our bedly prayers that morning had been for a blessed day for the whole family, peace amongst the children. And at the end of the day I had to breathe awed thanksgiving.

A footnote to all this was that late in our two hours of cleaning, perhaps as I prepared the communion dishes and thought about the rich delights God has been giving us through our pastor Reymond, I remembered the two passages that are now splashmarked and grimy, hanging on my kitchen wall under my "who cares?" clock; passages I taped up there after our first dismaying, disappointing, and discouraging years in South Florida vis a vis true Church life. I post them here. Surely God is letting us build a vineyard and plant a garden. Surely He is letting us enjoy the fruits of it. Blessed be His Holy Name.

Ezekiel 34:25-31 “I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause wild beasts to cease from the land; and they will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing. Then the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase. They shall be safe in their land; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. And they shall no longer be a prey for the nations, nor shall beasts of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and no one shall make them afraid. I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger in the land, nor bear the shame of the Gentiles anymore. Thus they shall know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, are My people,” says the Lord GOD.’” “You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God,” says the Lord GOD.

Amos 9:11-15

"On that day I will raise up
The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down,
And repair its damages;
I will raise up its ruins,
And rebuild it as in the days of old;
That they may possess the remnant of Edom,
And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,"
Says the LORD who does this thing.
"Behold, the days are coming," says the LORD,
"When the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
And the treader of grapes him who sows seed;
The mountains shall drip with sweet wine,
And all the hills shall flow with it.
I will bring back the captives of My people Israel;
They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them;
They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them.
I will plant them in their land,
And no longer shall they be pulled up
From the land I have given them,"
Says the LORD your God.

For Susan (and all my children) on discerning false christs and our responsibility to seek the true Christ

Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah: and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said unto them, But who say you that I am?

John Calvin writes on Matthew 16:14, 15:"This does not refer to the professed enemies of Christ or to heathenish despisers but to the more healthy and sound part of the people and as it were the choice flower of the Church. For the disciples mention only those who speak well of Christ; and yet, although the truth was set before them, none of them reached towards that mark, but they all melted away into their dreams. From this we can see how weak is the human spirit, which not only can conceive of itself nothing right and true but even fabricates errors out of true principles. . . . error often begets error. . . . But although the Jews were divided in this way by Christ's coming, yet such a variety of opinions should not hinder the godly from desiring the pure knowledge of Him. For if anyone used this as an excuse to give himself up to sloth and neglected to seek Christ, even by our judgment there would be no excuse for him. Much less would he escape God's judgment if he shrank from Christ because of the sects or made the false opinions of men a reason for contempt and not deigning to give himself to Christ.
Here Christ distinguishes His disciples from the rest of the crowd. And this makes it all the more absurd, however much others may reject it, that we should be distracted from the unity of faith. For whoever give themselves simply to Christ and do not try to mix anything from their own head with the Gospel, shall never lack sure light. But we have to be careful and vigilant in keeping firmly to Christ while the whole world slips away into its inventions. As Satan could not take from the Jews the conviction they held from the Law and the prophets about the coming of the Christ, he transfigured Him in all sorts of ways, and , so to say, cut Him into pieces. Then he put forward many fictitious Christs, that the true Redeemer might be lost. Afterwards with the same tricks he did not cease either to tear Christ asunder or to give Him a different appearance. Therefore, among the confused and discordant voices of the world we must always let sound in our ears this voice of Christ which separates us from wandering and erratic men, so that we many not go with the multitude and our faith may not be tossed about among the contrary waves of opinions."

for Jason and Cal and Willie Joe

". . . it is asked why [Paul and Silas] were cast into prison, since punishment had already been inflicted on them; for prison has been set up as a place of confinement. Obviously they made use of this kind of correction until they might make further inquiries. And so we see that the servants of Christ are treated more inhumanly than adulterers, robbers and all sorts of other criminals. That makes us see more clearly that power of Satan's in moving the minds of men to have no respect for any semblance of a judicial investigation in the persecution of the Gospel. But even if the circumstances of the godly in the defence of the truth of Christ are harder than those of the ungodly in their crimes, yet it goes well with them, because in all the injuries which they suffer, they triumph gloriously in the sight of God and the angels. They endure insults and ignominies, but because they know that the marks of Christ have more value and merit in heaven than the empty and fading show of earth, the more unjustly and abusively the world torments them, the richer grounds they have for glorifying. . . . Therefore even if the Lord allowed injuries to be inflicted on Paul and Silas by unjust judges, yet He did not allow them to be branded with any disgrace which would not result in greater glory. For since all the persecutions that we must suffer for the testimony of the Gospel are what is left of the sufferings of Christ (cf. Col. 1.24), just as our Head turned the cross, accursed as it was, into a triumphal chariot, so He will also honor the prisons and gibbets of His own, so that they may triumph over Satan and all the ungodly." From John Calvin's commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (16:22)

John Calvin this a.m.

(From commentary on Matthew 16): . . . "when obstinate men are driven to the last ditch they will, to avoid being forced to assent to the truth, cover up with something irrelevant."

and

"And now we must see whose teaching the Lord bids them beware of. At that time the ordinary power in the Church was in the hands of the scribes and priests, and the Pharisees were in the chief position. Since Christ warns His disciples off their teaching in particular it follows that all those are to be rejected who mix inventions with the Word of God or impart something alien, however honorable a rank or title they may boast."