Recently Mollie Ziegler Hemingway authored an article for Christianity today entitled, “‘Honor Thy Father’ for Grownups.”  Some good thoughts.  Here are a few highlights.

Why is it that we heap scorn on “deadbeat” parents who fail to take care of underage children, but excuse adult children who don’t take care of their feeble parents?

Perhaps it’s because caring for children—no matter how many diapers and scrapes must be tended to—is a joyful experience, while aging involves untold sadness and indignity.

The generations handling care for dying parents are facing something their ancestors never did. They’re part of smaller and less-stable extended families. They’re less likely to live near their parents—sometimes they are thousands of miles away. And the amount of time spent caring for elderly family members can extend from a few tough years to many difficult decades. Even the strongest families will be stretched to the limit when attempting to fulfill the commandment to honor one’s parents. So what do you do?

You take care of your parents.

Ultimately, caring for parents reminds us that the commandment to honor and love our elders never expires, giving us an opportunity to love others as Christ has loved us.

One friend recalled having to bathe his grandfather. “Being a typical self-absorbed college student, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect,” he said. But he quickly became mindful of Christ’s humility and service toward us.

“This was nothing compared to what Jesus had done for me—this was nothing compared to what my parents and grandparents had done for me. This was my vocation as son and grandson,” he said.

Recently, on the Washington Post religion blog published a post entitled, “Church: Love It, Don’t Leave It,” by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.  These two men have just released a book entitled, “Why We Love the Church”. It looks like a good read.  You can read the post below.

Here are some recent quotes I’ve enjoyed from over at the Of First Importance blog.

“Forgiven souls are humble. They cannot forget that they owe all they have and hope for to free grace, and this keeps them lowly. They are brands plucked from the fire – debtors who could not pay for themselves – captives who must have remained in prison for ever, but for underserved mercy – wandering sheep who were ready to perish when the Shepherd found them; and what right then have they to be proud? I do not deny that they are proud saints. But this I do say – they are of all God’s creatures the most inconsistent, and of all God’s children the most likely to stumble and pierce themselves with many sorrows.”

- J.C. Ryle

“Justified believers enjoy a blessing far greater than a periodic approach to God or an occasional audience with the king. We are privileged to live in the temple and in the palace. Our relationship with God, into which justification has brought us, is not sporadic but continuous, not precarious but secure. We do not fall in and out of grace like courtiers who may find themselves in and out of favour with their sovereign, or politicians with the public. No, we stand in it, for that is the nature of grace. Nothing can separate us from God’s love.”

—John Stott, The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press,  1994), 140

“Everything that is coming to us from God comes through Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus has won our pardon; he has reconciled us to God; he has canceled our sin; he has secured the gift of the Spirit for us; he has granted eternal life to us and promises us the life of the consummation; he has made us children of the new covenant; his righteousness has been accounted as ours; he has risen from the dead, and all of God’s sovereignty is mediated through him and directed to our good and to God’s glory.”

- D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Book House, 1992), 189.

This week I had the opportunity to write an article for the Auburn Journal.  You can view the article here.

I found the following reflection on God’s purposes in the often difficult, painful, and mysterious path God takes us down in life (HT: Justin Taylor).

From N.D. Wilson’s Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World, pp. 84-86:

Fewer people could die. Death could be banished. Hunger slaked. Thirst quenched.

Evil, that which displeases God, should be gone.

So it should. But how? When? What is it that you are assessing? Would Pride and Prejudice be improved by throwing away every page prior to the resolution, by erasing every character flaw, every misunderstanding and dispute?

Ansel Adams once took a photograph he titled “Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome.” It is beautiful. He stood where it did, he saw what ist saw, and he was able to catch it, fitting it into a small frame with only two dimensions and nothing but blends of black and white. The sky is there, the rock, the Jeffrey Pine.

The tree grows on the left, but it is gnarled, bending even now, spreading across the picture in its struggle against the wind. Its muscled branches are frozen in their strain, unquivering; its roots claw into stone, matching granite strength. There is a mountain watching from a distance, wondering who will win. The tree has fought for this life, fought in this permanent unretreating retreat.

The wind will win in the end, but this uncomplaining tree is noble. I see no bitterness, no resentment. We may forget, but this tree knows that the world is spinning, and it has hung on to the globe through decades. I see pride in those roots, gratitude where the light sits.

Could we improve this picture? How can we make it not better but best? Remove the tension and contrast. Remove the black. All of it. Remove the struggle and the inevitable end.

Leave the white. Only white. And now it is perfect. Perfectly blank.

If we live in art, struggling in the boundary between the shadow and the light, unable to see the whole, how can we begin to judge? How can we presume to talk about a better painting, a better novel, when we see only a single line, a single page, an it brings us grief?

Any single needle can complain. There is death in those branches. Surely I could be full and green, surely I need not be in the wind, connected to the struggle? There is a shadow sprawling across me. I am cold. Can we bring in more light? The contrast could be softer.

And so we all speak. Each of us wanting our own position a bit more comfortable. Each of us wanting to see a little more happiness, a little less contrast, wanting to skip the struggle, throw away the novel and save only the final page, the FINISH. A world of tombstones would have no wars, no hardships, and no complaints. So would a world without births or loves or creeping, crawling, or growing things. A better artist would have made this world more like the moon, only without the black space behind it, without the contrast of edges. A sprawling, near-infinite moon. Erase the craters.