Titus

Titus lied to my wife the other day.

He’s six. He’s going through that stage where he thinks he can get away with whatever it is that he did by lying about it. He doesn’t realize that his lies are obvious.

And so he tried it the other day. He was supposed to brush his teeth before bed. Heather asked him if he had done that simple task. He said yes. However, his toothbrush was dry and he still had food in his mouth.

He lied.

After his punishment, he and I had a good talk about honesty. I think I kept it down on his level… mainly.

We discussed lying and telling the truth. We talked about honesty. We mentioned that Jesus is, after all, the truth. And we talked about how to live lives that reflected God’s ways.

Titus is only six, but he’s all boy. By this point in the conversation, he was feeling pretty contrite. His eyes were swimming with tears, but he wasn’t crying. Not yet. I guess it’s some pre-programmed macho instinct us guys have wired into us. We just have to be tough. Tears aren’t tough.

Titus’ eyes are brimming with moisture, but there’s no drippage yet, so he’s not crying. He looked at me and said, “But God’s ways are hard!”

For the past few weeks, I’ve been really thinking and praying about what I need to soak into my life over the next several months in my reading schedule. I’ve actually been adding books to a stack tha has become my “To-Be-Read-Next-Year-Stack.” I’ve gathered, prayed over and sorted my list down to a manageable size. And by “manageable,” I mean I’ve narrowed it down to about thirty-five books that I feel like God will use to teach me this year. Thirty-five! Out of dozens more that looked like I would /could gain from reading them.

I know that this is possible for me, because I’ve read over sixty books over the past year, for 2009-2010. But it just seems so overwhelming…

And I know there will be several other books that will make it onto my shelf to be read this year as well. For instance, anything new that Ted Dekker releases will probably take immediate priority. I just can’t help it. Dekker gets my top priority whenever he releases a new book. Regardlss of what I might be in the middle of. It’s just that simple.

And so, after browsing in bookstores, and Amazon, and my own personal library for the past few months… And after praying over the books that I’ve pulled from the shelves or purchased… I feel like God has identified these books to meet needs in my life and in the lives of my family, and eventually in the life of our congregation.

The impact these authors could have in my life is potentially enormous. I pray that I’m big enough to take it all in, and process it, and grow from it…

I plan to post my reading list here in a few days. If you have read any of the books I list, and want to make a comment about them, I would love to hear it. And thank you for it. Or if you have any suggestions that you think I need to add to my reading list for the year, or in the future, feel free to do so. Please give me your input.

Stay tuned for the list…

Sometimes the Bible confuses me.

In my daily Bible reading, I recently covered Matthew 22. This parable of the marriage feast has always left me with questions. So I decided to dig into the meaning of it and figure out just what Jesus was trying to say.

Here’s the passage; Matthew 22:1-14:

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This has always raised several questions in my mind. Why did the king get so angry? What caused the people to refuse his request? Why such destruction?

I came across this in my reading of the Psalms today. It’s found in Psalm 19:14.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

What an incredible idea to keep before myself daily.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites prayed often that their sacrifices would be acceptable to God. This Psalm uses similar language, and this verse uses a term that is often associated with God’s acceptace of properly offered, literal sacrifice. But here, David uses it, refering not to bulls and lambs, but to “lip and life” sacrifices.

This needs to be something I pray daily, and strive for daily. That my life, the things I do, and the things I say, are acceptable before God.