DEEP // WIDE // LIGHT

"Though he (God) slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face."                                                          -Job (from Job 13:15) If you have been a believer in Christ very long, you have been there -- that place of pain. It is perhaps most difficult to love God in that moment. You often wonder if he still loves you at all. After all, if he loved you, would he not take that pain away? As bad as your pain is, Job almost certainly had greater pain than yours. All of his belongings were taken from him. He went from rich to poor in an instant. All of his 10 children died. He went from a large family to a small one in an instant. Incredibly painful sores broke out all over his body. He went from healthy to painfully sick in an instant. All of this pain seemed to pour upon him so very quickly. He sat in anguish...

A tribute to God and to Liam Isaac Mooneyham (April 8, 2008 – June 17, 2014) I delivered this talk in a shorter form at Liam’s funeral, Monday, June 23, 2014, at First Baptist Church ofJennings, Louisiana . What you read here is an edited form. Aaron Tucker, Philadelphia, Mississippi email: rev [dot] tucker [at] gmail [dot] com Why? Why is Liam’s six year old grin no longer here? Why were we wearing bright colors at his funeral? Why? I tremble at the thought of trying to devise a simple answer that will meet our satisfaction. If I had a simple answer, it would not satisfy us in our pain. No. Our pain is too deep for simple. And in our search for an answer, we find that the answer is not, in fact, simple at all. The Mooneyham’s know why. They know why Liam is no longer here, and they know why we wore bright colors and released balloons at his service. They want you to know why. The answer is in four parts. And the answer comes straight from God’s Words to us...

My life? It is no book. My life is but a sentence. And only one, at that. The massive tome of God’s Story Will tell of some who were present During climactic actions and dramatic pauses… But you? And I? One sentence. How will it read? What is the grand narrative? My sentence began With a joyous capital letter. May it end with not the uncertainty of a question, Nor the finality of a period, But with the jubilation of an exclamation!

“It hurts, God. Please make it stop.”   Have you said those words? I know I have. If you have been thinking through theological matters for very long at all, you have probably considered the metaphor that God is chiseling away at you, an ordinary stone, until you become the work of art he sees in you. We tend not to like this metaphor. Being chiseled is an act of pain, and we do NOT like pain!  I came across a poem in the devotional book StreamsIn The Desert, on the day of September 1 . This poem is a request to God for him to not stop chiseling, but to finish his work.  In the still air the music lies unheard; In the rough marble beauty hides unseen; To make the music and the beauty needs The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. Great Master, touch us with Your skillful hands; Let not the music that is in us die! Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let,  Hidden and lost, Your form within us lie! I want to have sufficient fai...

My brother in Christ Daniel Howard preached for us recently, and God challenged me in several ways. I wanted to share about this. The main points are from Daniel. The discussion that follows is my interactions with it. Colossians 3:1-4 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. This quote begins with "If." There are some who are Christian, and some who are not. These words are for the Christian. Christians then are encouraged to look up, to make our life about God's things, not the things of this world. We need such constant reminders to make our lives about the life of Christ. We often become too bogged down in earthly things to remember the Christ who now owns our...

I am getting old. I turned 30 this year, and proceeded to injure myself several times. I sprained an ankle playing basketball with teenagers, and a month later broke a bone in my hand playing tag with kids. I find it ironic that I get injuries doing my job only after I turn 30! Well, the cast had to stay on for six weeks. It got in the way, but I made it work and pressed on. Then I finally got it taken off, and whoa! The skin underneath that cast had totally changed. I had to scrub dead skin off my hand, which was interesting. But I noticed something else. After the dead skin was gone, I noticed that the sensations were very different between my left hand with its new pink-tinged skin and my normal right hand. Cold felt colder; hot felt hotter; my unshaved chin felt rougher. It was a bit odd for all things to feel "more." For example, when I hold my phone with the new skin, I can tell more about its texture and temperature than with the "normal" hand. It is all ve...

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, from June 25, (emphasis mine): You cannot find yourself through success , because you lose your head over pride . And you cannot find yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining . The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow . Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. In John 12:27-28, Jesus said, "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." We make a really big deal about troubles and sorrows. I know why -- they are troublesome and sad! But when we feel that way, we are in no position to question God's wisdom. During those times, our judgment is clouded with anger and/or pain. Clear h...

Today's Handbook For Solving Bible Difficulties, pp. 107-108 David E. O'Brien I can't help thinking of a scene in the seventh book of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. The Last Battle pictures Narnia wracked by the evil of the Beast and his prophet, a donkey dressed in lion skins, and a chattering ape. After what seemed to be the defeat of Narnia at the hands of the armies of the false god, King Tirian was thrust into the door of a stable that ushered him and his party into an Edenic world. It was a place where the fruit was so sweet that "all the nicest things in the world would taste like medicines after that." In that wonderful world, they found a band of dwards who had shouted the time-honored cry of sinners everywhere: "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" Thrust through the same door, into the same Eden, these sinful creatures sat huddled together, cursing the darkness and filth of the stable they believed they were in. Lucy, one of the queens o...

So I found an amazing quote the other day. Here it is in its entirety. I highlighted the phrases that caught my attention. The intellectual and physical parts are in and of themselves sinless, and natural to us; but the man who has been shaped by the intellectual, or even worse, by the carnal, is not sinless. He is guilty of granting supremacy within himself to something that was not meant for supremacy , and that is supposed to be in a subordinate position. It turns out that although the intellectual is natural, for a man to be intellectual is unnatural; in the same way carnality is natural, but for a man to be carnal is unnatural. The error here is in the exclusive predominance of that which is supposed to be subordinate. When the spiritual reigns supreme in someone, then although this is his exclusive character and attitude, he does not err. This is because, in the first place, spirituality is the norm of human life , and so as a result, being spiritual, he is a real person...

i have successfully slain the dragon of temptation this weekend. it felt really, really good. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7) let me share with you something from my journal. i'm not sure it's a poem, per se, but i wrote it nonetheless. a friend of mine was struggling with an addiction at the time, and he inspired me to write this. he never read it. he never got the chance to. however, i think it applies to every person's experiences with temptation. my life motto is "Here we go." the reason for that phrase's personal significance to me is found in part in this writing. Trapped Here I am, surrounded by pain. I want out, but to where do I turn? To the left, a future impossible. To the right, my past mistakes. A hand reaches down to lift me out, But as I am raised, something grabs my ankles. I am forced to turn and fight, but I have fought too long. This is my last shot, One last chance to break free. As the dragon w...

Don't you just love God's paradoxes? Our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6) Faith without works is dead. (James 2:17) Grace is free, (it is offered to all) but not cheap. (you must give up your life) For a branch to bear fruit, it must be pruned (cut). (John 15:2) Give God a tithe, and you will have plenty. (Malachi 3:8) God loves you (John 3:16) no matter how much you hurt him. (Matthew 23:37)

The father looks over at his daughter, who is hard at work. He asks her what she is doing, while already knowing the answer. She says, "I'm doing something for you, Dad." She grins. He smiles back, but with a twinge of sadness in the creases of his smiling eyes. He gently places his hands on top of hers, stilling her movements with a firmness that belied his quiet ways. She always wondered how he could do that. How can anyone be as gentle as a snowflake and as unyielding as a mountain of stone? He was both a fuzzy, cuddly teddy bear and a fierce, powerful, towering grizzly simultaneously. In his presence, she felt both tenderly loved and fearfully small. He held her hands and turned her to face him. He asked quietly, "Did I ask you to do that?" She looked at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" He smiled and said, "Did you decide to do that, or did I ask you to do that?" Now, she was thoroughly confused. "I'm not sure....

i'm really not a guy who rants all the time. i'm actually a very light-hearted kind of guy. but something bothers me, and i'm going to get it off my chest. if i see one more TV show or movie that shows a character feeling guilty about not spending time with their kids/spouse only to receive a phone call bringing them back to the office, i'm gonna yell. not that it would do any good. they always have these bleeding-heart stories of a working man or a woman who is in serious internal conflict over missing their kid's game or not picking them up from school, but their cell phone goes off, and they say, "Daddy's got to go to work now." come on! you don't have to go back to work. i don't care if you're spiderman! take a night off to spend with your spouse and kids! take a vacation. let the world spiral towards destruction for one evening. it'll still be full of crime tomorrow. i have seen way too many pastors and/or ministers spend no t...