Only wise.

When speaking of George Carey (the former archbishop of Canterbury), my dad used to say that he had once, when he was much younger, met him and given him a ride home and en route Carey had called him a wise man. We children always felt sure that he must have intended to call him a wise guy.

Wisdom is a quality that it seems everyone reveres and sees as undoubtedly beneficial. And surely that's true. Proverbs is the wisdom of Solomon, right?

Some lyrics:

The more you open up our eyes, the more we learn to love our savior.
-Spirit Come by George Romanacce and Todd Twining

The message of the cross is such foolishness to some,
but the mercy of your grace is hidden there.
-you opened up my eyes by Martyn Layzell

It's that 'Greater Love has no man,'
It's that 'I will give you rest,'
If you could see what I have seen,
If you could know what I have known,
If you could learn what I have learned.
It'll set you free, It'll give you hope.
-answers by Grant Macaskill

A few nights ago I was reading Tozer on The Wisdom of God. He got me to thinking, as he will.

It comes down to this:
Christ is our wisdom.

I often think about the energy that goes into all sorts of philosophical systems as a method of explaining the world. In one instance, in His perfect wisdom (possibly more aptly, His infinite wisdom) God has caused not just an explanation, but a resolution.

"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
1 Cor 1:20-25

Tozer talks a lot about God's secrets of His wise ways. His ways are higher and we can't perceive them.

We need to have faith in what God is, not what (we hope) He will do. In God's goodness and wisdom there is a resolution to our distrust of His good nature as we look around and see suffering.

Surely that has to be the basis of any mature relationship, that given a basic understanding of someone's character, they are to be trusted, not based on their historical record but on their disposition to act well. (Of course, the only trustworthy standard is a godly one, etc, etc...)

from Tozer:

     But there is hope in all our tears. When the hour

     of Christ's triumph arrives, the suffering world will

     be brought out into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

     For men of the new creation the golden age is not past

     but future, and when it is ushered in, a wondering universe

     will see that God has indeed abounded toward us.

     in all wisdom and prudence. (emphasis mine)

I suppose in the end loving God is about putting away self-reliance and self-importance. Pride.

Thomas Watson (go check him out right now), in Godly Man's Picture, writes about godly knowledge; In #6 of his 8 applications of knowledge he writes of a self-emptying knowledge. "True knowledge brings a man out of love with himself." 

also:

...we know that "all of us possess knowledge." This "knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

1 Cor. 8:1+2

The natural man's normative behavior is to be prideful about his knowledge. The more we see of God's higher wisdom, the more we know the greatness and real wisdom of God - thus Psalm 73:22

After re-reading this I don't suppose I've really said anything, but it's some (with recent occurrences a very small amount) of what I've been thinking anyway.

More later.

Why is it...

that the time stamps on my posts bear no relation to reality whatsoever?

The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friends

...like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.

Yesterday the weather turned nasty again. I've been really fortunate to have clear skies and relatively warm weather the whole time I've been here. There were some who were not enjoying the change in the weather.

This guy:


This guy:


I, however, loved it.

I have no idea why, but it was so great to stand on the beach and watch huge waves breaking and feeling the sea spray soak you.

I had a fantastic meeting today with some representatives of an organization called The Warehouse.

It was so good to walk in and discover that they are already familiar with The Falls Church and so many of the people with whom I feel privileged to associate all the time. Robert Watkin, Bill Haley, etc...

We talked about the practical realities of doing effective work in contexts to which you are not accustomed and the work they are doing in Western Cape.

More after I process, but I walked away so thankful for the connections God put in place (and continues to put in place) and the insight that has been provided to me on this trip.

Not much today

Things were pretty slow around here today because it's Saturday. I'm planning on visiting a church in Khayelitsha tomorrow (if I get up the nerve) and going to evensong at the cathedral. Given these two churches' heavy involvement with the work I am interested in I think I should be able to make some good contacts.

I was getting pretty stressed today about finishing everything I was hoping to have done. Early on Patrick Ware told me that I would be far better off taking an afternoon or two off rather than burning myself out.

And thats true, but how many of you know me to get so absorbed and intense that I lose my head?

I realized that much more to the point is that my purpose in coming here is NOT to develop ministry contacts or to go through with one of these projects to completion. My purpose in being here and throwing myself into Cape Town is to gain understanding of HOW this works on the ground and HOW it will be best to send people out in the future. That I am gaining in spades.

So, on my way back to write pages and pages of notes.

Please be praying for me for wisdom and understanding as i am figuring these things out.

-Jon

This one's a stretch

Here's a pretty random thought process:

I was sitting eating lunch today and I was making a list.

I don't like lists or that I need to make them to be organized. Seems to me my brain should just hold all of these things in their place and that should be that.

Well, it doesn't and consequently I act a whole lot like my mom at times. That doesn't scream awesome. There's a but...

...but, as I thought about this list, it occured to me that it is alot like the law (God's) if you will indulge me.

God instituted the law because in his gracious knowledge of us he understands that we are wayward creatures and need reminders. And so much of the law is exactly that.

So, if I can take this a bit farther it's not the list that God wants it's the devotion brought about by the "list" acting as a reminder to us.

Wearing Tsitsis didn't make God happy. (Hos. 6:6) The love that fingering those tassles brought about in Israel's hearts is what God was searching for.

Just as the law helped the Hebrew's to focus on God and live for Him, so a list can help me to live well.

So, if lists can serve as a helper to me in life but even more to serve as a reminder (because I made this random connection) of God's law and thereby His devotion to helping me to see His glory and to love Him that's OK by me.

Table Mountain

They say it looks like a table. And in the drawings it does, and it is sort of a plataeu, but I don't know. I don't see it. Actually, I just googled it and it really does look like a table. Just not from where I'm standing I guess.

I think the top of Table Mountain, after the cable car ride through the cloud, and after the cloud cleared a bit is one of the most amazing places I have been.

Some Pictures:






I'm not sure what it was. I have been some pretty cool places. Even some places people consider pretty ordinary get up on the list, but there is something about the huge granite walls, looking down on the clouds, looking out onto a city, being above detail level, not seeing crime and brokenness...

I was doing a lot of thinking about redemption and restoration as I was up there.

If now we only see in a mirror dimly, we only see everything in a mirror dimly. The most glorious, beautiful creation is not worth mentioning next to the restored world. I love C.S. Lewis' picture in The Great Divorce. The grass is so real it is painful, to the point that it cannot be walked on by the "uninitiated".

Today I read about Khayelitsha. It's a community whose roots go back to the apartheid when black africans were not allowed to live in cities (yeah, I know, what?) So, Khayelitsha is the poorest in Western Cape and has a pre-natal HIV rate of over 33%. That boggles my mind. There are untold numbers of orphans and abandoned children.

So, given that HIV, parentlessness and loss of true hope (thank you Sven) are, I think, so much at the root of many of SA's problems I will be concentrating my efforts on work being done in that community - trying to make as many contacts as possible and trying to capture the image, and document the stories of those people who are working to brighten the darkest image until Christ comes and sheds his perfect light.

I'll let you know how it goes.

p.s. After re-reading the entry I wanted to point out that Sven did not cause the loss of hope, but that he and I had a good discussion about it.