May you know the Lord’s blessings as you honor and serve him this weekend.

I am wondering if I have any readers who live in Zurich or Malta. If so, would you mind getting in touch?
As Saturdays go, this is an exceptional one when it comes to Kindle deals.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Christian Case for Bitcoin and Blockchain)
Can You Hear the Congregation Singing?
“Congregational singing — which includes the one who sings like it’s an American Idol audition and the one who can’t find the right key — is the most heavenly sound you’ll hear on earth. Because of this, it’s important to find a church that has congregational singing. It ought to be a priority when looking for a church home.”
No Flock, No Shepherd
This article coincided well with my devotions yesterday (which took me to John 10): “Sheep stink and they stand really close to each other. They don’t all look the same, but they all have similar inclinations. All sheep lack an ability to lead themselves anywhere safe. That’s why they need a shepherd, so they don’t go astray and get picked off by a wolf.”
Billions of Unnoticed Gifts
“Why the extravagance? Why does God give us billions of gifts every second (even the chance to marvel at a myriad of strange insects) when most of us won’t end up seeing the majority of them? Why is God so spendthrift?”
The Value of a Secure Identity
There are some helpful reflections here on the matter of identity.
Beware of Stoical Dangers
Christians are sometimes called to “do what we have to do and get through it. However, “gritted teeth Christianity is not Christianity, for mere external obedience has never been the Christian’s obligation.”
Beauty in the Eye
“The whole discussion of beauty in art was much simpler before technology. ” That’s an interesting notion…
Flashback: How Many Children Should We Have?
The decision I make ought to be right for my family, but I have no business making a decision on behalf of someone else and then despising or condemning them.

It is the students of the Bible, and they alone, who will find it a weapon ready in hand in the day of battle. —J.C. Ryle

The Challies family is not what it used to be. It is not what it used to be because we have experienced some profound changes over the past few years. Most of these changes have been normal and good—children going to college, children getting engaged, children moving out—, while one has been unexpected and grievous—a child going to heaven. Between them, these changes have left life and family very different than it was before.

I don’t know what aging parents tend to think of when they ponder the halcyon days of yore. I don’t know what period of life they remember, what memories come to their minds, as they consider “the good old days.” Do they remember the times when their children were tiny? Do they remember the times when their children had children of their own? What memory brings them the greatest joy, the sweetest delight? Whatever it is, I am certain it must be a memory in which the entire family is intact, all gathered and present together.
My family has by no means finished making memories. I have every confidence that we will continue to make good memories well into the future. I have every confidence I will soon have many new memories to recount and enjoy. Yet I also know the only memories of the whole family are ones set in the past, ones from before November 2020.
I often find my mind drifting back to grab hold of some of these memories, and have found a number of candidates for the best of them all. I love some we made during family vacations, when we explored other provinces and traveled through foreign countries—walking the red-sand beaches of Prince Edward Island, ascending the towering mountains of British Columbia, navigating the cobbled streets of Edinburgh. I love some we made during holidays, when we sat around the Christmas tree and watched the kids laugh and squeal with excitement. I love some we made on quiet winter evenings, gathered around the fire to read wonderful books—The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Anne of Green Gables, The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, Little House on the Prairie.
But there is one I love more than any other. It’s one I navigate almost like a 3-D rendering, zooming closer and farther, approaching from this angle and that, watching every movement and listening to every word. We are seated around the table, each of us in our usual place. Aileen is beside me and the three kids across from me—Michaela to the left, Abby in the middle, Nick to the right. We have just finished dinner and the table is cluttered with plates, glasses, and cutlery. I have cleared a space where I have opened our big leather-bound ESV Study Bible. And together we are doing the simplest and normalest of things—we are reading and praying.
Many of my best memories are of events that happened one time or perhaps a few times. But my favorite of all is an event that happened day after day and year after year. A skilled artist can take a thousand photographs and collate them to make a single image, and in much that way, I see a single memory that is probably a collage of a thousand. I have no sweeter memory than the family gathered before the Lord, the family gathered to hear from him and speak to him together. I have no sweeter memory than of our family devotions.
In my memory I read a few verses of one of those narrative passages of the Bible that were our focus over the years and that we came back to again and again. Then I pause to ask a couple of questions and offer some brief commentary that helps apply what we’ve heard. I ask the kids how I can pray for them, and then pray briefly but sincerely. And then we are done—done for another day, done for another iteration.
I think this must be my favorite memory because it represents our most established family tradition and most repeated family ritual. We committed to it when the children were young and stuck with it all the way through raising them. We continue to emphasize it to this day. It’s a symbol of our shared commitment to the Lord, of what we count as the highest priority.
But I think it’s also my favorite because I am certain the Lord used our family devotions as one of the means through which he drew our children to himself. I can think of no single evening that was particularly significant in this regard or one that stands far above the others. The significance was in the repetition, in the commitment, in the way it demonstrated that the deepest way we could be bound together was not through a common surname or through common DNA, but through a common Savior.
And God, by his grace, called each of our kids to himself. He opened their eyes to see him, he opened their minds to know him, he opened their hearts to love him. He may not have done this precisely through family devotions, but I’m certain he didn’t do it apart from it, either. And in that way, this memory points forward—forward to the day when we will be reunited and whole, forward to the day when we will begin to make new memories, forward to the day when we will once again gather to worship the God who saved us, the God who made us not only part of our family, but part of his.

We are nothing if not rash—nothing if not prone to making vows that are impulsive, promises we cannot keep. Sometimes we deliver on them only partially and at other times we fail altogether. “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay,” says the Sage. But too often we do exactly that—we fail utterly to pay what we owe, to come through as we have promised. This is true of our greatest vows and our smallest, our most significant and least consequential.

Jesus once told a tiny parable about being rash and about properly counting the cost before making a commitment. “Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” He followed it with another: “What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?”
He was calling upon his followers—and potential followers—to consider the cost of discipleship, to understand that to follow him would exact a toll in suffering, pain, and persecution. To say “yes” to him was to say “yes” to bearing his cross. And so he wanted them to think, to consider, to understand what they were committing to. He wanted to protect them from hasty declarations of faith, from promises they would not keep.
What is true of our promise to follow God is true of every other promise we make—we must count the cost, for it is a sin to be rash. It is our sin and weakness that causes us to promise and not pay, to vow and then not come through. And this is no small thing, for failure is associated with folly. “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow.” It is a fool who promises what is beyond his capacity to deliver and a fool who promises and then simply shrugs off his commitment.
Yet there is no rashness in the greatest of all promise-makers. God has made the most promises and the promises that are of the greatest magnitude. He has promised to take away our sin so that we are every bit as pure and holy as his Son; he has promised to be present with us through our deepest trials and most trying circumstances; he has promised to never leave us nor forsake us; he has promised that he is working all things for good; he has promised that at the end of our days we will find that to die is merely to sleep and that to close our eyes here is to open them in heaven; he has promised to destroy the enemy, to cleanse the world, and to raise his people to life eternal.
And we can have complete confidence that the Promise-Maker will prove to be the Promise-Keeper, for before he made the least of these promises, he counted the cost. He promised nothing that was beyond his capacity to deliver, nothing that could be thwarted by time, enemy, or circumstance, nothing that was rash, impossible, or in the least bit doubtful. That is true even when he made promises and declarations as substantive, as total, as these: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done. … My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. … I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
And so we can have every confidence in him. God will no more fulfill half a promise than build half a tower and no more come through on half a vow than fight half a battle. For he has considered his abilities, he has reviewed his resources, he has pondered the impediments, and having done all of that, he has spoken with the greatest care and declared with the highest certainty. He will be true to his every word and he is worthy of our highest confidence.

Inspired in part by F.B. Meyer