Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

We did see today the worst storm of the winter in London with high winds, lots of rain, and even a “eye” that passed over the city at lunchtime. 

But later in the day I am watching Fox News and the implosion of Eliot Spitzer.  How does a guy who has everything get himself in the position of losing it all by getting caught up in a prostitution ring?  The Governor of the Empire State no less!  Crusader against Wall Street abuses and friend of the small share holder.  How does it happen?  What else can you say but he is a sinner, a man like all of us, who is broken inside and not how he should be.

Overall people just don’t understand how deep our sinfulness goes.  They think it is what we do, but it is who we are.  Even Christians misunderstand how deep the problem goes and somehow overlook the startlingly obvious fact that this thing that envelopes us meant Jesus had to die for us to be rid of it.  Seems to me that must be a pretty big problem.  St. Paul throughout his letters understands that he is not what he was created to be and when he says in Romans 7:24 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” it’s because he knows what he should do but just simply can’t.  That’s sin, which as a good (actually probably not that good) Calvinist I know this touches every part of who we are.  Maybe we should wonder that anyone does the right thing.

And then there is sex, the thing specifically that got Governor Spitzer into hot water.  I like sex and, like the rest of the created order, it was given to me (and humanity) to enjoy.   But it is also not a coincidence that there is much guidance in the scriptures about how to keep this God given gift in its proper context.  Take that gift outside of its proper context in marriage and you have a recipe for sadness and disappointment at best.  Like with Eliot Spitzer. 

I worry for my children.   They are now surrounded by a storm of images and insinuations that push them towards sexual experience too young and outside of marriage.  It is up to us as a Christian Community to offer our children a calm “eye” in the middle of that storm that affirms their choice to wait and encourages the exercise of the gift of sex in marriages that will nurture the next generation of believers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
For the past 20 years Kim and I have sent out a Christmas Letter, which we always called the XPmas Letter. In 2007 we were not able to get it done in time. We tried a couple of times, but suddenly Christmas had come and gone with no letter. So, happy New Year, happy Valentines Day, and well … almost Easter!
Every year seems to pass more quickly than the year before, and I believe this is actually mathematically quantifiable (but then again, I wouldn’t trust me with math). Look at it this way; when we were one year old a year was 100% of our life, by the time we were ten years old a year was merely 10% of our life and when we are 50 (in the not too distant future) a year will be a meager 2% of our total life. It is this wider perspective that makes each year seem to be a smaller amount of time. I’m not sure if that is encouraging or depressing.

OVERVIEW
Are any of you still reading after that last bit of nonsense? Good, I thought I might have lost some of you at “mathematically quantifiable.” 2007 was a pretty awesome year for the Houston Hart clan.
We had lived in the same little barrio house since 1997, and we had been trying to sell it for about a year. We were hoping to buy a house in the Katy area where our church, CrossPoint (the one where Frank works) is located. It was becoming more and more difficult to sell our house because of some new neighbors that had moved in next door. They trashed the place, parked wrecked cars in the front yard, raised roosters and chickens and dogs in the backyard, and felt compelled to hang out in the front of their house and share their music with us. Did you know that roosters don’t actually wait for the sunrise to begin crowing? They actually start sometime around 4:30 AM and continue until about 11 AM. That’s when the dogs start barking. (more…)

So this is my first post in the world of blogging. Let’s start out with a few observations on what you are likely to read here and what in my view blogging is all about. I will make three observations about blogging and why blog.

First, there is an inevitable narcissism in blogging - let’s face it I am writing making the wild assumption that you are interested in what I say. Anyone who has ever listened to me talk knows that at best there is one word in ten worth hearing. Maybe my blogs will be better and perhaps if you add a few thoughts you can help me with that. (more…)