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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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email
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| Be Quick To Hear And Slow To Speak. |
I can't think of any scenario where this biblical command is more applicable than on the Internet, where every word written will be archived until Christ returns.
Twenty years ago, I was living with five other men in a rented house. Three of my room mates were dear friends, one of the remaining room-mates was an acquaintance, and the last room-mate a stranger to me. There were enough of us living there that some tensions arose concerning our various opinions of how we ought to divide our labors, our bills, and especially our groceries. On one particular occasion, the fellow whom I have described as my acquaintance expressed some opinion that ran contrary to my own, and I quickly piped up some clever phrase that at once cut him to the core by laying bare the idiocy of his remark, and more than this, I refused to hear another word he had to say in the matter, lest he embarrass hismelf further by opening his mouth again.
I remember him sputtering, unable to reply, and I remember that as he sat there nailed to the spot by weight of my wit, and his own lack, I turned my back and leaving him in the company of everyone else, to choke on his own embarassment - I felt a certain smug pride in having put him so soundly into his place.
Of course, my recollection of events is probably a little skewed and off. I wasn't walking with the Lord at the time, and frankly, I think I have told the story enough times that I have likely embellished it to the point that the original story would need to be mined out of all that has embellished it. But I do remember that I did put him in his place, and that I felt rather smug in doing so.
There is something about this sort of double-whammy that pleases the flesh immensely. First, I look clever and second, he looks the fool; I look the master, and he the hapless student. I am exalted in the sight of my friends, and in the same sight he is laid low.
But whatever glee I felt in that moment only strikes me as shameful now. Would that I had known the Lord, I would perhaps have extended grace rather than build myself up at his expense. Better to suffer the arrows of a fool, and commit my way to God, than to take it into my own hands. Better to answer with charity and grace than to embarass and ridicule someone whom God made in His own image - a person whom God crafted to have strengths in areas where I am weak, and weaknesses in areas where I am strong.
What did God think of my especially awesome way of putting this man in his place? Did God rejoice that I took a gift he have me, and used it to ridicule the work of His hands?
I guess I marvel at grace. The older I get, the longer I know the Lord, the more inclined I am to both overlook an offense, and again to respond in kind. It is not something I have ever tried to foster in myself, but comes to me, as it were, by surprise. I marvel to find this growing within me.
Is not my God a gracious and amazing God?
He is.
I write to you who are new in your faith, who may wonder what kind of work God does in a man - is there anything that God does apart from the work you yourself do in obeying him? Talk to believers who have been in the faith for some while, and you will find that what amazes us, is not the work that came immediately on the wings of some momentary obedience - but rather the work that goes unnoticed; not the hammer strike that breaks the concrete, for anyone can do that; but rather the tender shoot that has grown up beneath the stony slab, and slowly and patiently punches through it somehow, though it is tender and itself easily destroyed. How can a weak and tender blade of grass smash a stone? So is the work of God in the life of a believer sometimes marveled at. How did God do this work in me, asks the believer, when I never noticed it until it was accomplished?
I love God more and more, each and every day, and am learning to be slow to speak, and quick to hear. It is a work that has been going on silently these many years, but I marvel at it nonetheless, as the fruit of it begins to poke through the pavement of my life.Labels: the soft tongue |
posted by Daniel @
11:24 AM
 
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| 8 Comments: |
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Just what I needed: another spanking.
Love you, man.
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I hope it was a gentle one :p
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Daniel,
Four days, four posts -- what gives?
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I post almost every day. It is just that most of the posts don't get published.
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I post almost every day. It is just that most of the posts don't get published.
---Someday someone will discover the "unpublished works of the infamous 21st century Blogger, Daniel of Doulogos".
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Almost all of my unpublished stuff is convoluted that I lost what I was trying to say to begin with. A collection of aborted and half finished thoughts. My hope is that they never see the light of day.
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You let convoluted thoughts stop you from posting??
Now I know my problem....
LOL
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Many bloggers would do well to follow your example. Me, I don't even bother to write down most of my thoughts.
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Just what I needed: another spanking.
Love you, man.