The Power of a Book

My love affair with books arrived at an early age. I read early and read often. Its kind of surprising really that I was never a better student, especially considering I read everything I could lay my hands on. Books opened new worlds and new thoughts to me and my young appetite was insatiable. I remember the excitement of the visiting Bookmobile, bringing home books from school, and earning money to buy books from the school’s book service.

When our older girls were very young someone recommended a book to me. At the time I was having a crisis of faith. Having been raised in a Christian home I was trying to make sense out of some of the things I thought I believed, and my efforts seemed futile. I couldn’t make sense out of some of what I’d been taught and every question raised only seemed to raise another. A wise friend recommended a book. At the time it was a very expensive book and for a young family it would have surely been ill-advised to waste money on such extravagances. Knowing my conflicted thoughts and doubts my friend said, ‘Buy the book. It may help.’

In the days before the Internet and Amazon Prime books were much harder to find. I asked at the library and a local Christian bookstore and found myself only to be met with vacant stares. The response from the Christian bookstore was predictable. They had all kinds of ‘Christian’ trinkets, art, music and books, but this book was nowhere to be found. It so happened that there was no market for the book I was looking for in a Christian bookstore. The woman behind the counter was kind enough to look up the title on the microfiche. I’m really sounding old now, but a microfiche was a machine that magnified very small print from a sheet of Mylar and transposed it to be read upon a screen. On these Mylar sheets were printed hundreds of book titles and publishing information. The search began and as we scrolled through the titles there it was - L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 1981, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. I went home and saved my pennies and ordered a copy. After weeks of waiting it finally arrived.

Within the pages of a dry and dusty book on systematic theology God began to use an old Dutch Calvinist seminary professor to help frame my thinking. The pieces began to fit. I was able to make sense out of my Christian faith and out of the world I found myself in. Louis Berkhof became a familiar friend, mentor, and an ad hoc counselor to a young man in need. I don't think it's too strong to say, an old book written by an old man saved my life.  I can walk into my study now and see the book on my shelf, soon 35 years later, weathered and watermarked from carrying it to work in my lunch pail and dragging it along on vacation’s past. There within its pages are penciled notes, underlining, and highlights from years gone by. I’ve returned again and again to that book. Professor Berkhof has become one of several counselors of whom I make frequent inquiry. The Internet may have its advantages but it will never replace this book. This single volume, like a few others, have become faithful and trusted friends over the years.

Friends, never underestimate the power of a book.

-DJM

8/26/2016

Father’s Day as a Reminder of Weakness

It’s Father’s Day and with ample seat time on the tractor yesterday the formulation of this blog has been rolling around in my head. Today has been a big day, a day we laud fathers for their formative influences in our lives. For some this day brings sadness, you see for them to be reminded of their father is to open old wounds. Physical scars can be traced to specific physical abuses, but emotional scars, though every bit as real, can be harder to source. Some may not know their father at all, being abandoned early on.

Today I’ll have celebrated 38 Father’s Days as a father. With five children I rejoice in the profound privilege of being a father. There is nothing to be compared to it. In being dad to Sarah, Hannah, Esther, Nathanael, and Lydia I have experienced incomparable joy; five children and I am rich beyond measure. Each child has brought depth and blessing to my life, and in many ways I recognize to love them and care for them as a proper father is way beyond my natural inclination and gifting.

Each Father’s Day has also brought it’s own sorrow as well. For all of the joy each child brings there is an awareness of my own failures as a father. Age brings perspective. Painful memories abound in the recollections of the ‘what actually is v. what should have been.’ And for each of my children I can recall specific sins and failures in what I’ve thought of them, what I’ve said to them, and what I’ve done to them. Far more serious than simple shortcomings, my children have borne with a sinful father, and yet have done so quite charitably.  While my memory is long they’ve graciously kept short accounts

There are no perfect fathers. Some might be better than others, but each must own his failings. This Father’s Day I’m aware of mine. As a Christian I dare not be ashamed to name my weaknesses, failings, and sins as a father. To recount them is painful, but to declare them as so is to acknowledge my insufficiency and need, and thereby to open a channel for grace and help. For the Christian father the confession of inherent insufficiency is to declare the belief in a two-pronged remedy:  One, that God hears my cries for help in my paternal shortcomings, and, two, God exchanges my imperfections and sins for His righteousness. By faith and as a father I become the recipient of an alien (outside of myself) righteousness. An exchange takes place that allows me to be a father, with all of my sins, and yet not give up in despair. In Christ all of my fatherly shortcomings have been met. I still move forward in faith to be the dad I should be, and who God calls me to be, but I’m not lost in a death-spiral of never-ending torment of those things I should have done. In this I own my sin without being held captive by it. By faith I trust that I have been helped, I am being helped, and I will be helped in my responsibilities as a father (and now as a grandfather), because God has heard my cry in my weakness and need.

This Father’s Day I’m reminded of the rich blessing of my five children for which I’m eternally grateful, and today I’m reminded of fathering grace that God gives to those men that recognize their all-too-frequent failures and out of that acknowledgement run to God in repentance and faith. Dads, may we together rejoice in the former and abound in the latter.

-DJM

Father’s Day 2016

  

About That Christianity Thing -

There are some things that are non-negotiable, and by that I mean those things that make Christianity what it truly is. When Christians make a common confession assenting to the essentials of the Christian faith there is no room for negotiation. Christianity is particularly Trinitarian, particularly exclusive, and particularly redemptive through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no room for negotiation. Either God exists eternally in three persons, and either Jesus is the only way to God, and either Jesus provides the only access to God, and either Jesus rose from the dead, or Christianity is a lie. This is the sum and substance of the creedal Christianity that has existed for almost two millennia. This is the faith that Christians have believed and that Christians do believe. It will do no good to embrace a faith that has no substance, and to hold close that which bothers to carry no theological and biblical conviction. Christianity is substantive. Christianity is authoritative.  Words mean things and ideas have consequences. We didn’t get here all by ourselves. What this means is that to truly be Christian we align ourselves with those that have gone before us. This is the faith once and for all delivered to us.  We are not the beginning and neither are we the end. This is the faith for which men and women have died. This is not cheap easy-believe-ism.  This is the faith that transforms. This is the faith for which martyrs have died. This is the faith which may cost you your life. We may come and we may go, but this is the faith that will endure. The temptation is to negotiate. The temptation is to acquiesce. Resist the spirit of the age. Resist the enticement to compromise. Believe. Believe this:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
     

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
     

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
 and born of the virgin Mary.
     

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
     

was crucified, died, and was buried;
     

he descended to hell.
 

The third day he rose again from the dead.
     

 He ascended to heaven
     

and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
     

From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
     

the holy catholic* church,
     

the communion of saints,
     

the forgiveness of sins,
     

the resurrection of the body,
     

and the life everlasting. Amen.

- The Apostles Creed, 390 AD

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

-DJM, New Years Eve, 2015

Christ's Humiliation and My Only Hope to be a Humble Man

“Where God’s Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride.”

–John Calvin, Commentary on Habakkuk-Haggai, p. 52

‘Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."’

- 1 Peter 5:5


I am an arrogant man; just ask my wife and kids and anyone who knows me well. There is a vein of pride and arrogance that runs deeply through my heart. At times it’s as obvious to me as the nose on my face and at other times I cannot see it to save my life. When I’m blindly arrogant I can justify anything I want, say anything I want, and do anything I want. And when needed I can even sanctify my behavior with plenty of religious talk. In those times criticism masquerades as discernment, suspicion masquerades as genuine concern, and gossip and slander masquerade as words to the wise. And behind the mask indwelling sin masquerading as arrogance blinds me to the truth.

A number of years ago we had a dear friend who served us as our pastor. Over a length of time I began to question everything he would do. And soon I found it easy to talk about him disparagingly to others. I colored others’ impression of him. I second-guessed his intentions. I found suspicion in his motives, and generally bore him ill-will. I grossly violated the Ninth Commandment and had nary a twinge of conscience. My arrogance blinded me. Then one day I remember being convicted of my wicked behavior towards this man. God was merciful. The blindness lifted and I was able to see my arrogance and sin for what it really was. I was ashamed of the things I had thought and said and I knew I must make my confession known not only to God, but to this man. I called him and asked if we could talk and he graciously agreed. When we met later that day a dam burst. Confession and tears flowed freely. I confessed my sin toward him and asked for forgiveness. He was quick to forgive and thanked me for my confession. He was a humble man and I had been humbled by his humility. Finally I could see clearly again.

I want to be in the well-worn path of grace. I want to be in the path where God is pleased to bestow abundant mercy, in the frequently trod place where humility reigns supreme. I cannot arrive there, nor can I stay there, without a God-given apprehension of the Humble King, whose confounding humiliation on the Cross deals the death-blow to my arrogance. On my own and in my own strength I will ever and always be an arrogant man, but in casting my only hope upon the personification of humility, the God-man, I can be freed from the blinding bondage of arrogance and pride. I am a great sinner in need of a great Savior. Jesus, the humble servant Savior, is exactly who I need.

Desperate for grace, 

DJM

(Adapted from an original blog post 10/2007)

Vocational Proximity

This particular exchange was brief. We had already spent several days traveling together, an important manager and myself, driving and discussing, intermingling business, family, and reflections upon life. He, within the past few weeks celebrated being a first-time grandfather, and now excitedly adjusting to his new role. A few days earlier he talked of retirement, something, that for him, was only a couple of years away.  Then the comment came from deep within, evidenced by the result of agonized reflection, a regretful introspection, ‘I’ve often wondered if I’ve wasted my vocational life.’ Cold and stark, the comment was freighted with emotion. In his younger years he had considered medical school, surely a far nobler endeavor, ‘At least every day you save the world just a little bit.’ But now, after almost forty years in the tooth and nail of the corporate workplace it came down to this, ’Who really needs what I do?’

As humans we are what we do. There is profound significance attached to the work that we perform. Everyone from ‘Bob the Builder’ to ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ identifies themselves by what they do. Since we are what we do the common second question in polite conversation with strangers is usually directed at vocation. Our internal ontological collision comes when what we do is far less noble, or far less altruistic, or far less heroic than we’d hoped. We want to be known for who we are, and we want who we are to be greater than who we’ve become. In essence, for most of us, who we’ve become falls far short of whom we’d hoped we’d be.

In his wise and helpful book, Visions of Vocation[1], friend Steven Garber writes about living our lives ‘proximately.’ As an unquenchable ideologue I first chafed at Steven’s suggestion. His premise is that we presently live stretched by an inherent tension - a vocational now and not yet - what we experience and know now contrasted with what we ultimately think could be. We have the ability to see the world through an idealistic and ideological lens. We know the world is broken, but through this lens the world can be seen and made right, if we only have the right tools and enough time….  In the time since I’ve read the book I’ve given Steven his due. He’s convinced me that our lives must be lived cognizant of this tension lest we be consumed by regret. In our vocational lives we live surrounded by fallenness. We, ourselves, bear the marks of fallenness. In everything we do the mark will always be missed. In this tension and where we live now our vocation will only be proximately redemptive and we will experience only proximate fruitfulness. And while vocationally we must ‘kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight’[2] Milton was right, paradise is not found in this life.

My friend was feeling the tension. He saw the disparateness between what he had become and what he could’ve become. The specter of Thurber’s ‘Walter Mitty’ hangs in the background as a haunting reminder to those of us whose imagined lives don’t square with reality. We’ve ignored the tension and to our peril have avoided the proximate. Close isn’t good enough so in our minds everything else is wasted. Throwing ourselves headlong toward the not yet we’ve rendered the now unimportant.  We’ve unwittingly adopted the mantra of Mitty – If only.

Steven’s book paid off. I had enough sense about me to remind my friend that what he does is important. The people he interacts with as a manager and the equipment he helps sell are both serving a grander purpose. Without his managerial skills our business unit would be in chaos. Without the equipment he sells pharmaceuticals could not be made and many industries would be far less efficient. In spite of his vocational disappointment there is ‘common grace for the common good’[3] in what he does. And while it may be more difficult to see what he does is as important as what a physician does, in a very real sense he is saving and improving lives proximately. Truthfully, in a broken world everyone’s vocations are only proximate. 

This should give us hope. In our pilgrimage toward the not yet, and in the smallest of tasks, in the most mundane vocation, or in the most menial of legitimate labor we are by incremental measure proximately contributing to the common good. Our vocational lives, our callings, are important because in the proximate now we are assured of the perfect not yet. For the Christian there is a redemptive purpose behind it all. The deep-freeze of Narnian winter is over, and the persistent and proximate drip-dripping of spring has begun. We are no longer caught in an endless cycle of vocational frustration or the merciless tyranny of If only. To be faithful in the small things as we value the tasks in front of us and to be faithful in doing them is to enable us to recognize that simply by doing them we are contributing to the common good, albeit proximately, and incrementally the darkness is in retreat.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Vocation-Common-Grace-Good/dp/0830836667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448391612&sr=8-1&keywords=visions+of+vocation

http://www.washingtoninst.org/

-DJM

11/24/2015

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[1] Garber, Steven, Visions of Vocation (Downers Grove: IVP, 2014)

[2] Cockburn, Bruce, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, (Toronto: True North Records, 1984)

[3] Another of Steven Garber’s phrases and the sub-title of Visions of Vocation.