In a nutshell, it’s theological. We both embrace a unifying principle that smoothes the bumps and calms the raging seas. It gives us compassion for one another. It is a 24/7 factory of patience. This principle helps us to understand everything. Let me explain. I have always been grateful for Deborah’s father and mother for a particular deposit they made in her life. They taught her that God was absolutely sovereign over all things. As a result, she believes that “no one can restrain His hand” (Daniel 4:35). The world was not spinning out of control. Everything is on course. Every human being is being governed by Almighty God. She grew up believing that everything was a gift of God. The sunny day, the hurricane, and even the preoccupied husband are gifts from heaven to fulfill the “good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5).
I am not the kind of person who is looking for an emotional high. I don’t think of it. But there are two days of my life that stand out against all others. They loom in my memory as days of happiness. The first was the day when I realized that Christ was my Savior. The sky was bluer, the grass was greener, the ocean was fresher and my smile was broader than ever before. The prophesy was fulfilled, “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). The second day, was my wedding day. It was a day of extreme happiness. I savored every moment of that day. And the happiness of that day turned out to be a prophesy for the days ahead. We have had such a happy marriage these thirty years.
Being away this week has given us some time to reflect on thirty years of marriage. Our marriage has been a comfortable union of souls. I have always marveled at the deep and abiding sense of “shalom” that has existed in our marriage. I am especially reminded of this as we fall into bed each night. It seems so natural to simply walk through the normal things of life. Our marriage has never been fueled by surges of new exciting things. There are no chivalrous feats or phenomenal heights of ecstasy or romance. It has been very normal. And, we have loved the normal. I don’t sweep Deborah off her feet everyday. I don’t wow her with flowers. We live day to day, raising children, having meals, going to church, receiving guests, and simply being together. I often feel embarrassed when people come to stay in our home because I know that they will quickly find out the truth. They soon realize that if they came expecting to see some amazing, jaw-dropping life, they have come to the wrong place. They come to a quiet place, where we are content to live life day by day. For us, that is what undergirds what has been such comfortable union.
Deborah’s great-grandmother writes in her diary, “my Father, Robert Thomas Lanahan Gibson (Linnie), born March 14th, 1838 in Barbados, West Indies, Below the Cliff. He married Anna Lorinthia Edwards, born Jan 21st, 1843 in Barbados, West Indies, Below the Cliff. They married Oct 11th, 1863 at St Margarets Chapel, Below the Cliff. They had 10 children.”
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Robert and Anna (Deborah’s
great-great-grandparents) |
Tom and Carol
(Deborah’s parents) |
This past Sunday, we considered Matthew 13:24-43, where Jesus is teaching about the kingdom of heaven. In this passage, Jesus gives three parables: 1) the wheat and the tares, 2) the grain of mustard seed, and 3) the leaven. He explains through these what the kingdom of heaven is like and what those who hear should know about it.
You can listen the sermon through this audio player:
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My friend Craig Houston wrote this to me regarding our celebration of the gospel coming to Deborah’s family:
“The Grace of God is truly amazing in that He moves in the hearts of His people to bring the gospel to the regions beyond, and people there are impacted by the good news, and then they take that glorious truth of the gospel to yet another country and people. Fast forward to the two centuries, and a descendent of those converts is a preacher’s wife in NC. Praise God!”
Brethren missionaries came here and encountered Deborah’s family near the end of the 19th century. They preached the gospel to Deborah’s great, great grandparents. According to the diary of their daughter, Lorinthia, they brought the message of salvation by grace alone, eternal security, and the final judgment. God’s kingdom was expanding as Jesus promised His disciples in the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven in Matthew 13. The gospel came to Deborah’s family through ordinary people. They had the leaven of the gospel in their souls, giving them urgings to leave their homelands to sow the seeds of the kingdom of heaven in other places. I am so grateful for these missionaries.
Today, January 23, 2012, is our 30th wedding anniversary. As an anniversary present, I am taking Deborah to the place where the gospel first came to her mother’s side of the family. We are scheduled to arrive this afternoon. We are going to celebrate the power of the gospel. We will be visiting the place they lived when they were married and converted, and the places they evangelized and lived. This is a gospel-celebrating wedding anniversary.
Amazingly, 46% Chinese women have cesarean section. Not only is an increasingly radical anti-child culture driving this but also the profit motive – hospitals get twice as much money for a C-Section compared to a vaginal birth.
The Indiana DMV is promoting debauchery among young Indianans by raising money for it and facilitating connections through advertising. This year there were ten new organizations that have been granted the privilege of raising funds through specialty license plates in Indiana. Now, the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth group, “The Indiana Youth Group” has become one of those ten.
Here is the opening statement of the report:
INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana’s first specialty license plate that benefits gay causes is now available for purchase.
Bureau of Motor Vehicles spokesman Graig Lubsen said the Indiana Youth Group plate has been available since Dec. 28. The plate bears a logo with hands in rainbow colors reaching up.
Some $25 from sales of each $40 plate goes to the group serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The Indianapolis-based organization operates an activity center, helps develop Gay Straight Alliances in high schools and assists communities in forming youth services. The group serves about 1,400 youths and young adults ages 12 to 21, The Indianapolis Star reported in a Wednesday story.
“All the money will go directly for services to these young people,” Youth Group Director Mary Byrne said.
I have often warned young people to prioritize their reading in favor of biography, history, and theology and generally keep away from fiction—not absolutely, but generally. Here Charles Spurgeon takes an even more radical stance:
How many young people there are whose hearts are just a road along which thoughts of levity and desires for amusement are continually going! How many precious hours are wasted over the novels of the day! I think that one of the worst enemies of the Gospel of Christ, at the present time, is to be found in the fiction of the day. People get these worthless books and sit, and sit—forgetful of the duties of this world and of all that relates to the world to come—just losing themselves in the story of the hero or heroine. I have seen them shedding tears over things that never happened, as if there were not enough real sorrows in the world for us to grieve over! So these feet of fictitious personages, these feet of foolish frivolities, these feet of mere nonsense, or worse, keep traversing the hearts of men and making them hard so that the Gospel cannot enter.
from THE SEED BY THE WAYSIDE, NO. 2843, a sermon, DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 13, 1888. “As he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.” Luke 8:5.
The Coast Guard Authorities ordered the captain to get back on the ship to document the women and children on board and rescue them.
The Baptist Standard recently released an article about family integration, Divided the movie, and A Weed in the Church.
If you have not seen Divided the movie and would like to show it to your friends, you can view the movie for free at www.dividedthemovie.com.
