Writer's Block
I have a bad case of writers block. I haven't been able to make any progress on my opinion pieces that need to be written for OfB. I can't get any of my ideas onto paper for Sakamuyo. It's frustrating for someone who normally can do this kind of stuff.
To make the compound the situation, I had the need to write approximately 52 researched, documented pages for courses as well. Perhaps fortunately, business has been slow the last few weeks, so I've been able to pretty much dedicate myself to the writing of those pages. As it stands, I've written 53 pages in the last few weeks, although some of those are cases where I took more than the required amount of pages, which means I still have about four to five pages to go to meet the requirements for one topic that I lumped in that grouping of pages.
At any rate, even if those pages had flowed, none of them actually provide anything I can put on OfB — which is, bad news. One of my biggest flaws is that I need to be “inspired” to write even technical reviews, probably because I'm not really a technically minded person despite the fact that I can make people's eyes glaze over with technical facts at times. It might sound silly, but that's why I call it a “flaw.”
I guess my Muse decided to take a trip off Mt. Helicon to go see some “sights.” Maybe that will mean better inspiration in the long run… but, alas, for now, it may mean continued struggles.
Writer's Blo
With the start of seminary, I've fallen pitifully behind on Open for Business. My big problem is that it is a small operation: there are only four writers on the masthead. While Ed carries a lot of the load of keeping fresh content on the site, I really need (and want) to keep posting my voice on OFB's esteemed pages as well.
The problem is that I seem to have a case of writers blo. Not writers block, but writers blo. Now, you might ask, “what in the world is writers blo?” So, let me tell you: it is hitting the equivalent of writers block about half way through each article. I have a whole bunch of stubs of articles, where I get a really good idea, but seem to lose momentum and cannot seem to come up with the supporting themes to make the piece work. As I write this, I have two partial articles sitting on my desk, yearning to be finished. One of them hopefully will be done for a Monday publication. But, right now it sits there, just taunting me.
Hey, maybe I should have written an article on writer's blo!
Wretched Man that I Am
I always find myself drawn back to the following passage. Paul has razor sharp clarity and insight that is amazing throughout his letters, and leaves little wonder why his letters were unquestionably canonical. Though I am hardly preacher material, I cannot help by lapsing into something like a preaching mode when talking about the Pauline Epistles. Nevertheless, this passage offers such a sense that I know exactly what Paul is talking about that it really stands out; I am thankful for it… what a marvelous reminder of the grace of our Lord.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
-Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)
Wrestling with God
I was reminded of Jacob's nighttime wrestling with God this week (Genesis 32.21-32). On Monday, I felt like I had one of the clearest experiences of God leading me that I've ever felt. I spent the rest of the week puzzling over the details of exactly what that meant. Why was God telling me these particulars? What should I do with them? Jacob struggled with God for a blessing; I was struggling for an understanding of how these details fit together. Being in the mostly uninterrupted quiet of the Ozarks was just where I needed to be for this.
A lot of what I would like to know remains a mystery to me. I started to doubt if I had really heard the Holy Spirit. Could it be I was just reading too much into things? No. I prayed that God would show me a sign if I was really hearing Him and not just myself. Unexpectedly, this morning's sermon was on taking the leadings of the Spirit; the topic had been picked a few weeks ago (although I had not noticed that), but our pastor had scrapped the original sermon and written a different one yesterday that hit even closer. It really seemed like a confirmation to me. As usher captain for the month of May, I was alone in the Narthex during the sermon, which was just as well, for I was overcome by what I was hearing.
Other things have stood out in the last few days. Having finished a few novels (the Da Vinci Code, Silenced, the Remnant and Armageddon) in the last few weeks, I decided to return to a non-fiction piece I had barely started last year and had never made it back to: Philip Yancey's Rumors of Another World. Yancey always has something good to say, but today I was taken aback by what I found on the pages directly following where I had stopped so many months ago. It all fit into the pattern of what I thought God was telling me. A few sentences were eerily almost word-for-word what I had planned to jot down as I organized all of my thoughts while in the Ozarks this week.
I still don't know what to do with this information, but I know I need to keep listening.
Wow.
I went to the rally for President Bush today. It was amazing. I have lots of photos, I'll post some tomorrow.
Wow
I knew the National Council of Churches was an extremely liberal group that has been promoting ecumenism with non-Christian religions to the point of minimizing the necessity of Christ, but I still was surprised to see just who one of their member groups is. I thought all of their members were the (fading) mainline denominations like the UCC (my old denomination, ABC and PCUSA… but they have the Amercian Swedenborgians in there too! Mary Baker Eddy would probably be hurt that they didn't want a few scientists to go along with the mystics.
Nothing like adding a weird sect/cult to your group to help in the credibility department! Yes sir! That's sort of like the other thing the NCC seems to be up to: spamming my e-mail box. They subscribed my webadmin address from my church to their daily newsletter without my requesting it.
World Prayer Team Request
The World Prayer Center is calling all Christians worldwide to a Worldwide Day of Prayer on Monday, March 3, 2003.
Ted Haggard, President of The World Prayer Team, says his office has been flooded with messages from people all over the world saying that God is impressing upon them to prepare to pray on 03-03-03. “These believers do not know one another, nor are they connected to one another. They do not know that the others are saying the same thing. Clearly, the Holy Spirit is speaking to His church, and He is calling His people to pray,” says Haggard.
“As these reports began to come in, we sensed in our hearts that God wants us to promote a huge outpouring of prayer on this special date. Many believe there is significance to this date because of its numerical sequence (03-03-03) which reminds many Christians of the Trinity. Moreover, the Holy Spirit has highlighted Jeremiah 33:3 (again, three 3's) as our call to action, 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know,'” says Haggard.
The magnitude of this date is not lost on the non-Christian world as well. The Global Consciousness movement (New Age) has for years been planning a worldwide “Largest ever experiment into global consciousness” to take place on 03-03-03. Their effort is slated to begin at 3:33am (Fiji local time), on the 3rd day of the 3rd month of the 3rd millennium. It has gained widespread notoriety in New Age circles.
Should this not be enough to cause Christians to pray, the significance of 03-03-03 becomes even more pressing as America could launch a war with Iraq at about that very hour, against a leader, Saddam Hussein, who has only recently embraced Islam as a way of gaining support from the Islamic world. Such was not the case with the first Gulf War. According to the Islamic calendar, March 3, 2003 is the eve of the Islamic New Year (Islamic year 1424 begins March 4, 2003). It is also the last day of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, when pilgrims are encouraged to make a sacrifice (The Festival of Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha). The key verse in the Qu' Ran about this festival to take place this year on March 3, 2003 is, “Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life or my death, are all of Allah?” This date therefore holds great significance to the Islamic world.
While all of this is beneath the radars of the secular news media, it is clear to many Christian leaders that the world is on the brink of a spiritual battle of monumental proportions. The epicenter of this struggle is the Middle East-a battle is going on for Jerusalem and Babylon (Iraq), biblical centers of spiritual light and darkness.
The World Prayer Team therefore calls on all Christian churches and individuals to set aside at least 3 minutes to pray at 3:33 PM in their time zone on 03/03/03.
PRAYER FOCUS: Pray that the armies of heaven will push back the powers of darkness in the Middle East. Pray that Saddam Hussein will leave the country before war is required to remove him from power. Pray that a spiritual shield will contain hostilities within the Iraqi borders (if war cannot be avoided), such that it doesn't spill over to the entire Islamic world. Pray that weapons of mass destruction, if they are deployed on any side of the battle, will be powerless. Pray that this date, rather than being a focal point of darkness, will be overwhelmed by the Light of God through the worldwide prayers of His people.
World on Fire
For some reason, Sarah McLachlan's “World on Fire” is stuck in my head at the moment — actually, it has been for the last day. What's stuck in yours?
The world's on fire and
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
(I try to pull my ship)
I try to bring more
More than I can handle
(Bring it to the table)
Bring what I am ableI watch the heavens and I find a calling
Something I can do to change this moment
Stay close to me while the sky is falling
Don't wanna be left alone, don't wanna be alone
World English Bible
I've known about it for awhile, but it deserves mention anyway. The World English Bible (WEB) is a Free, public domain version of the Bible based on the American Standard Version of 1907. Unlike the ASV and the KJV that proceeded it, the WEB Bible attempts to use modern English, and astonishingly, many of the books of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament are already converted to modern language.
If you are like me and are tired of supporting the liberal interests of the International Bible Society and Zondervan or if you just want a Bible translation you can freely distribute to whomever needs a copy, try this one on for size. The SWORD Project has WEB Bible support so Windows, Mac, Linux, Zaurus, and WinCE users can enjoy this Bible (as can anyone with web access via the online version of the Bible).
World English Bible
A friend of mine did not know where he could find WEB on the web, so I here are a few good sources for him:
- World English Bible Official Site — This is where you'll find the latest version of WEB. Most of WEB has now been human edited to bring it up to the latest English, and the rest has been edited by computer. You can read it online here.
- CrossWire Bible Society — You can download the free SWORD Bible Study tool for your type of computer and enjoy the WEB and dozens of other translations, commentaries and resources here. I personally use MacSword, but I can attest to the quality of the Windows and GNU/Linux SWORD variants as well. I have 91 different modules in MacSword in three languages (English, Greek and Hebrew — but those aren't the only ones available)!
SWORD (including WEB) also is available online from this site, thanks to the cooperation of CrossWire, the American BIble Society and the Society for Bible Literature.
What's your favorite translation? Do you access it online? On your computer (offline)? In print? I switch between each of these, but I still use a paper Bible the most, I suppose. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
