We were greeted by some seriously deep snow when we arrived home last night. We’d been in northern Ohio with family for Thanksgiving. We left Thursday morning in the midst of a blizzard and returned Friday night to a pile of the deep stuff. There’s actually a car under that pile to the right of the van. This is one of the reasons we love northern Michigan so much.

Check out this set of photos in our Flickr photo album.

GO Bucks!

Where is your hope when you face difficulty and trouble? Mine is in the Lord–this from today’s Daily Light.

For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
Isaiah 25:4 (ESV)

In preparation for THE big game tomorrow.

We’re enjoying the first snow in the north country today. Got four inches or so. The view from my study.

TMS Alumni Blog has a piece on Pursuing Pastoral Virtues.

Here’s the abreviated list, but you should read the full post.

“Considering the difficulties of ministry and what it is that moves us off course - what are those things that keep us on the course?”

WISDOM - I need an abundance of wisdom (James 1:5). Although I have a framework and a vision for what the ministry of our local congregation ought to look like, knowing how to get there is a duanting task…

HUMILITY - I am ever more aware of how crucial this virtue is for the ministry (James 4:10; 2 Tim. 2:24-25). Armed with confidence in the truth is no excuse for arrogance…

BOLDNESS - There is a neccessary boldness I crave that is also compatible with humility minus the arrogance…

PATIENCE - I desperately need patience (Again, 2 Tim. 2:24-25). It is only natarul that patience correspond with the latter 2 virtues…

DILIGENCE - I think most of us have been sufficiently weaned from those romantic notions of ministry being the path of ease and comfort. Ministry is excurciatingly hard labor…

POWER - I can’t imagine going one step further in the ministry if my diligence rested in my own power…

FAITH - Not only do I need power, I need faith in the one who will accomplish His purposes…

LOVE - Finally, I need love - but not the Beatles kind. I need the supernatural love upon which our whole faith rests…

Happy 230th Birthday to the United States Marine Corps, 10 November 2005.

Updates:

• National Review Online: “The Marines@230, The Marine Corps was formed in a bar and then immediately went on a Caribbean cruise.” Love this quote: “As Marine general Jim Mattis says, ‘The Marines: no better friend, no worse enemy.’”
• Marines celebrate 230th years in every clime and place
• Happy 230th Birthday to the United States Marine Corps!–nice flash presentation
• The 230th Marine Corps Birthday
• 2nd Marine Division follows birthday tradition while conducting combat operations in Iraq

Consider contributing to Project Valour-IT. Their efforts are going toward raising funds to provide voice-activated laptops for our injured troops.

If you’re a blogger you should consider joining the friendly competition stationed here. Having served in “the Corp” I’ve signed this blog up for the USMC team which you can join here.

Make sure you donate using the “make a donation” link on your team leader’s website. Go donate using the USMC team donation link now or sign your blog up for the team of your choosing.

Graphic via Cox & Forkum: Project Valour-IT

Reading The Best of Vance Havner¹ this morning, his thoughts struck a common cord I’ve been challenged with lately, one I think more ministers of the Gospel should heed–especially myself.

Vance Havner says…

“I am convinced that if the devil can’t make us lazy, he will make us so busy here and there that the best is sacrificed for the good.”

“We display the Lord’s leading as much by what we refuse as by what we accept. The Lord is not interested in mere quantity production. We can often do more by doing less.”

“If our lives and ministry count for anything today, we must make time for God. It is not easy. Some people won’t like it, but somebody else wouldn’t like it if we did some other way, so that doesn’t matter. We must make out a schedule and work out a program at all costs that will eliminate the nonessential (including a lot of things some dear folks will think are very essential), put first things first, and make a lot of second rate things stay in line, no matter how much they clamor for first place.”

I was also reading last night from Warren Wiersbe’s book Walking With the Giants: A Minister’s Guide to Good Reading and Great Preaching². I was reading the chapter on Alexander Maclaren and was challenged with similar thoughts from this man’s life. Wiersbe says of Maclaren…

“He turned down most speaking and social invitations. He stayed home, did his work, and built a great church. ‘I began my ministry,’ he told a group of young preachers, ‘with the determination and concentration of all my available strength on the work, the proper work of the Christian ministry, the pulpit…I have tried to make my ministry a ministry of exposition of Scripture’”

Maclaren “…refused most invitations and concentrated on studying the Word and feeding his people. He was not a visiting pastor, and he repeatedly challenged the adage that ‘a home-going pastor makes a church-going people.’ He reminded ministerial students that the adage is true only if, when the people come to church they hear something worth coming for.”

“To Maclaren, studying was hard work. He often said he could never prepare sermons while wearing slippers: he always wore his outdoor boots. Studying was work and he took it seriously…[h]e studied a passage in the original language, meditated on it, sought its divine truth, and then ‘opened it up’ in such a way that we wonder why we didn’t see it before ourselves. No artificial divisions, no forced alliteration, nothing sensational; just divine truth presented so simply that any listener (or reader) could understand and apply it.”

“He scheduled his time and saw to it that none of it was wasted. He knew how to enjoy a vacation or an evening of relaxation; but even those times were opportunities for meditation and preparation. He did more by doing less. He knew how to say no. He did not feel obliged to attend every meeting, sit at every table, or grace every platform.”

“‘This one thing I do’ characterized his life as it ought to characterize our lives today.”

How dare I think I can do a hundred things well–how dare I try.

Why is it often true of us as pastors that we willingly place piles of small, good burdens on our own backs that accumulatively sap our energy and time and take us from the most necessary, the best things, such as personal holiness, cultivating in our heart a love for God’s Word, drinking deeply from the well of God’s Word, preparing our heart spiritually for the study of God’s Word and then mining the treasure of the Word as we prepare to feed God’s people?

May God help me.

1. The Best of Vance Havner, Baker Book House, 1992, pgs. 37-38
2. Walking with the Giants, A Minister’s Guide to Good Reading and Great Preaching, Baker Book House, 1976, pgs. 36-39

Great story–”Michigan Dad Loses 230 Pounds to Enlist in Army” (from)

The New York Times has a piece today on Dave Ramsey. He’s serious about debt free living and doles out down to earth financial advice with a little marriage counseling mixed in when needed. His book Total Money Makeover is a worthwhile read and if you can’t find his weekday radio program locally you can listen to it online.

Here’s the view from my study today. It’s a beautiful November 1 here in Northern Michigan.