May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Westminster Books has a deal on a new systematic theology.
Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of noteworthy titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Gap Between Our Greatest Grief and Our Greatest Joy)
What Are Atheism and Secularism?
Ligonier has a helpful and quite extensive introduction to the twin philosophical worldviews of atheism and secularism.
Gospel Mourning
“Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those that mourn.’ It is in this gospel mourning God comes to his people. The Spirit gives comfort as we mourn for sin and the effects of sin on a hurting world. We look to the Christ which came down in search of all those who would mourn by faith.”
3 Reasons I’m Glad That God is Sovereign Over Tragedy
Jacob offers three reasons that he is grateful that God is sovereign over even tragedies.
Overlooked Details of the Red Sea Crossing
The crossing of the Red Sea is one of the Bible’s most familiar stories. “So if we were asked to recount this story, we could probably list many of the highlights without consulting Scripture. However, because the episode is so famous, and depictions of the event are so numerous, we will inevitably miss some details. The story is perhaps too familiar.” Indeed.
17 Dates Along the Old Testament Storyline
Mitch has been sharing some really interesting writing about the Old Testament. Here he shares a series of dates that help explain the OT storyline.
Can Satan Put Thoughts into Our Heads?
He sure can, as John Piper explains here.
Flashback: Her Weakness Is Her Strength
It is to the weakest that we owe the greatest honor, to the frailest that we owe the greatest allegiance, to the ones most likely to be overlooked that we owe the greatest attention.

Do you want to make your Christianity attractive and beautiful to others? Then acquire the grace of patience now, before you experience illness. Then, if you become ill, your illness will be for the glory of God. —J.C. Ryle

If only I was wealthy, then I could really make a difference in the world,” he told me. “I want to be rich so I can better serve God’s cause, so I can give even more to his work.” But does it really take a lot of money to serve the Lord? In the New Testament, the character who most stands out for obedience and generosity is the one whose wealth was just two pennies—two pennies that she surrendered to the Lord. While the people of extraordinary wealth fade into the background, the one whose legacy has survived is the most impoverished, for she proves that God loves to work out of our lack more than out of our abundance.
“If only I had the gifting of this preacher or the skill of that author. If only I had their talents, then I could really be on mission for the Lord.” I understand why you think that way, but hasn’t the Lord often proven that he delights to display divine strength through human weakness? It was to timid Gideon that the angel said, “God is with you, mighty man of valor.” It was to stammering Moses that God gave the call to stand before Pharaoh. It was to ineloquent Paul that he gave the call to be the church’s foremost theologian. He magnifies himself more through those who are naturally weak than those who are naturally gifted and strong.
“If only I was more intelligent and had received a better education.” We all sometimes wonder what we might have been if only our circumstances had been different. We all sometimes wonder what potential lies undiscovered and untapped within. But God delights to use the weak and the simple. He saved Naaman through the words of a mere child and used a donkey to redirect Balaam. Then, of course, he called ordinary men to be his Apostles—mere fishermen and laborers. Yet these men turned the world upside down, not through their raw talent or towering intellect, but through their obedience and zeal. What set them apart was not their IQ, but the fact that they had been with Jesus, they had received his Commission, and they lived in obedience to it.
“If only I had more of a platform. If only God would give me more followers, I’d be able to serve him so much better.” I often think of the Garasene demoniac who had been miraculously delivered from a whole legion of demons. He begged to be able to go with Jesus and serve him, to be one of his disciples. Yet Jesus told him to return to his obscure hometown and to labor there. His calling was to be faithful in his own little patch, to make the most of a small mission field rather than a large one. His submission pleased and honored God.
If you cannot be satisfied with little, you will not be satisfied with much.Share
The fact is, the God who used spit and dust to cure a man of his blindness can most certainly make use of you. And I assure you that if you had great talents, you would simply compare yourself to those who have more still. If through greater gifting you had greater opportunity, you would still not be satisfied. If you cannot be satisfied with little, you will not be satisfied with much. The man who climbs Kilimanjaro immediately becomes envious of the man who has scaled Everest and the man who has scaled Everest immediately becomes dissatisfied that there is not some higher mountain to climb. We need to be content with what we have—content with what God has given.
Contentment comes when we accept what God has given us and commit it to his cause, no matter how great or how small it seems to our eyes. For in God’s eyes, it is all very dear, all very precious, all very meaningful. That’s true if it’s billions or pennies, health or weakness, the intellect of a genius, or the intellect of a child. God is the giver of every gift and the gifts he gives to his people are only ever good. Our task is to receive them from his hand, whether one talent or ten, and unleash them all for the good of others and the glory of his name.

Like so many Canadian boys of his era, Nick went through a pretty significant Nerf Gun phase when he was 8 or 10 years old. Between several birthdays and Christmases he built up quite an arsenal and, for a time, most of his play would in some way involve these guns. There was one game he especially enjoyed. When he found out that guests were on their way over, he would hide outside and watch for their approach. When they walked down the pathway leading to our home, he would pop out of his hiding spot and unleash a fusillade of foam bullets. He loved nothing more than a successful ambush. And though his guns are no longer in his hands and he is no longer in our home, he still sets ambushes, though only inadvertently.

The unbearably sharp pain of those earliest days and months has over time given way to something that is perhaps closer to a dull ache. The loss still hurts, but not quite as badly as it once did. I still cry, but not every day. The path is still hard, but not as hard as it was months or even weeks ago. If time does not heal all wounds, it does, at least, soothe them.
One of the ways the pain has become more bearable is simply by having Nick less on my mind now than in the early days. As I get on with a life that has begun to feel like a new kind of normal, I associate him more with the past than with the present or immediate future. My love for him is undiminished, of course, as is my longing to see him. But he is not as constant a presence in my mind now as he was before. I still think about him every day, but no longer every moment.
But there are still times when he ambushes me, when a situation arises in which I’m once again forced to confront my loss head-on. And this, as it happens, is one of them. We are in Louisville, Kentucky this weekend for two significant events. Today we will attend the ceremony in which Nick’s fiancée Ryn and a number of his friends will graduate. On Sunday we will celebrate Abby’s wedding. We anticipate that it will be a weekend of great rejoicing.
Yet behind the joy we know there will also be some sorrow. After all, this would have been Nick’s graduation as well. Though he had enrolled in a program in which he would complete both his undergraduate degree and his Masters of Divinity in five years, he was scary smart and very hard-working and was on track to complete it all in only four. And so this is the day he would have graduated twice over, once from Boyce College and once from Southern Seminary. This is the day he would have finished up one phase of his life to begin another—to finish up his studies and begin his ministry. Yet, in God’s providence, his name will go uncalled in the long roll of young men and women who step up to receive their diplomas, who throw their caps into the air to celebrate the end of one phase of their lives and the beginning of another.
As soon as the graduation ceremony is over, we will change our focus to Abby and Nathan’s big day. We know, of course, that Nick will be conspicuous by his absence in the wedding party, in the family photographs, and in the speeches. He, after all, was Abby’s close confidant and dear friend and would have had a prominent place at the wedding. He, after all, was immeasurably precious to each of us. Yet, in God’s providence, he has joined into a different kind of celebration and has taken his place at a different kind of feast.
But whether in graduation ceremonies or wedding celebrations, we intend to rejoice rather than weep, to celebrate rather than lament, to look forward rather than back. We believe that God calls us to enjoy his good gifts, even when our hearts have been broken. And we can do this, for one of the paradoxes of life in this world is that in our deepest sorrows we are never without joy and in our highest joys we are never without sorrows. We learn that there are times to rejoice with those who rejoice and times to weep with those who weep—and that we have no right to demand that the rejoicing weep or that the weeping rejoice. There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
And so this a weekend of laughing, not weeping, of dancing, not mourning. There may be some ambushes along the way and the tears that come with them, and that’s just fine. But we are certain that the joy of these days will be far more prominent than the sorrow. We are certain that God means for us to embrace and enjoy the pleasures he has provided, to celebrate what actually is rather than to lament what could have been. For each of these celebrations in its own way points us forward to a future in which there will be no pain left to lament. Each of life’s pleasures in its own way gestures us toward a time in which there will be no sorrow left to grieve. Each of God’s blessings calls us to rejoice. And by his grace we will.
(Here’s a precious picture that was taken just a couple of days before Nick died. Nick and Ryn had recently gotten engaged while Abby and Nate had recently begun dating. It was Abby’s birthday, so they all went out for dinner together. I’m so thankful they thought to ask the waiter to snap a photo.)