Hmmm...

I've not at all forgotten about the blog. I have had a few people ask me about the lack of updates. So, I am currently updating. But, I've searched through recent pics, and do not have really any monumental events to display. This last weekend, we had a fun baby shower at my house. But not one of those pics turned out. Anyway, lots of events have come and gone, but we have not been doing a good job of cataloging them on the camera. We'll work on doing a better job of that.

So, here are some recent quotes from books I've been reading and subsequent thoughts.

From Herman Bavinck in The Doctrine of God:

"When you wish to do something evil, you retire from the public into your house where no enemy may see you; from those places of your house which are open and visible to the eyes of men you remove yourself into your room; even in your room you fear some witness from another quarter; you retire into your heart, there you meditate: he is more inward than your heart. Wherever, therefore, you shall have fled, there he is. From yourself, whither will you flee? Will you not follow yourself wherever you shall flee? But since there is One more inward even than yourself, there is no place where you may flee from God angry but to God reconciled. There is no place at all whither you may flee. Will you flee from him? Flee unto him."

I like this quote because it is about God's omnipresence. I rarely meditate on things I don't understand because it seems so futile. To consider eternity and its accouterments, for instance, is too mind-boggling, and I don't really wish to dwell on such. It takes too much brain energy. But then as I was reading Systematic Theology, and it was talking about the omnipresence of God, I was hit with that same brain-sapping dread and decided just to scan the words. But even as I was doing that, I realized how wrong I was and that it is worth trying to figure God out. This is not to indicate that I had any hope of achieving success in such efforts. I was thinking instead, that the mental acrobats that trying to understand God might bring, would be enough to make me not only give up trying to understand the infinite through a finite lens, but it would renew my awe for Him. And so I considered the omnipresence of God, somewhat childishly, as I realized that His being everywhere does not mean that somehow He is spatially bigger than everything and able to be everywhere. But it does mean that He is "present in every part of space with his whole being, yet God acts differently in different places" (Grudem 177). So, here's to meditating on the omnis of God, and everything else!

And an interesting C.J. Mahaney quote from a book I just finished:

"I pray I'm able to be there for my son as he grows older; I pray I'm able to be there for my son when and if he marries. I pray I will be able to be a grandpa to his children. But as I think about the future, I have no guarantee I will live through this day. Even in the best-case scenario, my days are numbered. So I work back from my death and ask, 'What is the purpose of my life?' The purpose of my life is to prepare my son for his death...The most important task is to prepare my son for that day when he stands alone before God and answers to God."

Not sure if this quote encompasses the entire purpose of the life. But still, it is an essential mission that I pray Mark and I will not falter in.

Speaking of the little man, I can't resist:

Saturday, after I found him eating dirt from a plant, he tried to make a quick getaway under the table. He knows...