Ziklag F5.3 - The Flow

SOS, Making Decisions, and Old Crow Tricks

SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader

There is nothing you have that you did not receive. cf Pr. 29:12

Worth is inherent. cf Mt. 7.19

Mastery of the unseen aligns with the flow. cf Sun Tzu 5.6

From the Archive

from Broken

Are You Famished?

This is nothing new. It has happened before, and it will happen again. But every time it happens, every time Christianity declines in a society, it happens for the same reason: because genuine believers tried laying a foundation on something other than on God’s Word. Like the people of Israel in the days of the prophet Amos, they might still be saying, “God surely lives!” and “I know the Way!” But their stomachs still rumble. There is no wheat growing in the fields to harvest. The seed has been stolen away, and suddenly even pastors of the Church struggle to give a satisfying answer for the hope within them.

Our world has always been insane. Previous ages were tough. There is nothing new under the sun, and the heart of man is always only continually evil from youth. But there is something doubly gnarly about our wild western civilization of the twenty-first (and a half) century. A cultural perfect storm shreds the spiritual landscape of the United States. It blows on the winds of a growing ignorance of history and the Bible. It drips with the dew of an insatiable appetite for entertainment and leisure. It billows on the clouds of a mounting desperation for success even as civilization slips into streamlined decline. Into this chaos the remnant of the Church of Jesus Christ stumbles.

What is her (the Church’s) status at this party? Theoretically the “modern era” of the last century was supposed to show her the door. (That’s what all the well-paid scholars thought, at least.) “Soon,” they taught, “that pretentious old nun will be gone.” But then, she didn’t go away. She stuck around. She tried really hard. She bought some new clothes. She learned a few dance moves. But is she attracting a crowd because she’s really the life of the party, or is she just drunk? It’s hard to tell.

She’s got buildings and storefronts, radio stations and cable channels. But at the same time, she seems a little strung out. She’s the girl that tries so hard to be cool and convince everyone she belongs, that she ends up making everyone who talks to her feel uncomfortable. Her lipstick is too red and the low-cut bodice doesn’t flatter her body type. Even her friends are kind of embarrassed by the way she dances when she’s left alone with the wrong sort of guys. Sure, the Church hasn’t died and gone away like the twentieth century atheists predicted, but neither has she achieved wild success the way so many of her own leaders prophesied. Evangelism didn’t explode. Each one didn’t reach one. Mission wasn’t multiplied. New technology did not complete the Great Commission.

The Church didn’t change the world. Worse, the world appears to be growing daily more content to keep going on its merry way, ignoring her best dancing. To make matters worse, the world appears to have changed her, and not for the better. The expensive new hair style looks downright forced, and her refusal to face the music is beginning to appear manic. Meanwhile, good Christian people like Punk Rock John find themselves over-tired, frustrated, and confused. The clothes have been changed so many times, the next step taken so many times, the future predicted so many times, that they’re no longer sure why they came to the party as a Christian at all. Didn’t it have something to do with Jesus?

The DJ plays a dirge, but the Church dances. Then he plays the flute, but she weeps. She stumbles through the steps. Her body is anemic. Her breath is growing short. Did she survive the Enlightenment after all? How do we know this is even the real Church? Maybe you’re not even a real Christian. Maybe Christianity isn’t real to begin with. . . .

The old serpent is up to his same old tactic. He’s a talented pony, but he’s only got the one trick.

From Today’s Stack

from upcoming That’s All It Takes

Making Decisions

Everyone has an internal decision-making Framework, a mindset or algorithm of assumptions by which you bypass information overload and get to the tasks that you believe are yours to do. But if you have never contemplated your Framework, then it is all but certain that your primary decisions are made for you by someone else.

This is not always bad, and it is certainly not a moral evil to be helped.

Your Framework is made up of:

• What you (and others) believe that you will die for.

• What you would refuse to die for.

• What you remember.

• What you say to yourself.

• Emotions beneath self-control.

Your answers to these are stories that make up the force of the internal you, the linguistics of your soul. Your decision to study any of the above challenges you to defend your answers, to risk a change to them. But you do not have to change. One only must grow. That begins with a pathway to decision, a set of possibilities, a “logic gate.”

What’s your answer? Yes, or No?