Whew! The last few weeks have stretched my nerves a little bit. Katrina’s recovery has been slower and longer than we had expected, but I’m happy to report that the last few days have been more encouraging. She’s still unable move herself from place to place; but once she has gotten into position, she gets busy and manages to get a lot done. She’s doing her therapy each day and getting back to her routines. Her nausea has lessened and her strength is slowly coming back. We can’t wait for the doctor to let her begin using her arms again. Last Saturday was our 34th wedding anniversary, so we’re going to Atlanta this Thursday, eat at our favorite restaurant, and stay overnight in our favorite hotel.

In the meantime, I’ve been working hard on my sermon series/book about angels, my Exodus sermons for TDF, and my upcoming Christmas and January messages. I’m also working on a couple of book projects that need increasing amounts of attention. Last week was our annual staff retreat, which was exhausting but productive.

I have to guard carefully against those little moments when a straw lands on me that breaks the camel’s back. I’ll confess to a moment of frustration yesterday in the checkout line at Krogers. They didn’t have enough lanes open, and I was worn out from my hour of grocery shopping. I tried one lane, then another, finally finding one that seemed shortest. The woman in front of me was almost done, and I crammed all my groceries on the conveyer belt.

But that woman…. she had already questioned how several items had scanned and now she was sure the bread was mispriced by fifty cents. She discussed it at some length with the cashier, and I had the smallest sense that my blood pressure was rising. The woman dug out her Krogers card (why do we have to carry around cards all the time to get ten cents off our toilet paper?). The customer discussed the situation with her companion and then again with the cashier as they decided what to do. The cashier scanned the Kroger card again but the bread was still fifty cents off.

The cashier sent the bag boy to check the price of the bread, and if he had walked any slower he would have gone backwards. By the time he got to the bread aisle he forgot what he had been sent to look for. He wandered around in a daze and finally sauntered back saying he couldn’t remember exactly which loaf to check. My ice cream was starting to melt. The cashier and bag boy inspected the loaf again and wondered what to do. Finally she called for someone important to come from customer service to solve the problem. By and by, here came customer service who I thought would say, “Give the woman her bread and get her out of here.” Instead it was, “I’ll have to go back to the bread department and see what the sticker says on the shelf. Now which loaf of bread was it?”

That’s when I threw up my hands, said “Oh my goodness!” and turned and walked out of the store with my groceries sitting on the belt. Frankly, I don’t intend to go back and get them.

I guess this is an honest admission. I can get impatient with the best of them. But every caregiver knows these things happen, and I’m only glad I’ve lived long enough to know when to make a strategic exit. Sometimes it’s better to walk away before you say something you really regret. Walking away is always better than blowing up.

Of course, we are running low on toilet paper…

A couple of years ago, Andrea Doering, the outgoing (and outstanding) senior acquisitions editor at Revell Books, asked if I had any ideas for a devotional book based on hymns. I suggested a date-based approach to mining the riches of the hymnbook. I had in mind a cross between the concepts behind two of my other books: “On This Day” and “Then Sings My Soul.”

The result is a brand new devotional book, “Near to the Heart of God,” 366 stories about hymns presented day by day, each on a day connected with that hymn.

Here are some examples from among the January installments:

• You might be surprised to learn that “Amazing Grace” was originally a New Year’s hymn. It was first presented on January 1, 1773, as part of a New Year’s sermon preached by John Newton in Olney, England.
• The wonderful music for the hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” was written by Lowell Mason, the “Father of American Church Music,” who was born January 8, 1792.
• The great hymn, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” was sung by the perishing passengers aboard the steamship London as it sank in a gale on January 11, 1866.
• B.B. McKinney wrote the powerful invitational hymn, “Wherever He Leads I’ll Go,” during a Sunday School Convention on January 17, 1936, in Clanton, Alabama.
• January 21 is the birthday of Edward Mote, a cabinetmaker and preacher, who wrote the favorite Gospel song, “The Solid Rock” (“My Hope is Built on Nothing Less”).

Out of the lives of composers, poets, hymnists, and out of the stories of the hymns themselves come 366 true stories, plus the words of these theological gems we call hymns — all with the purpose of encouraging your day with the deep, timeless truths of our Scriptures and our songbooks.

“Near to the Heart of God” will be released in October. Find out how you can reserve one of the first copies at an incredibly low price by clicking here.

[Note: Katrina is home and we're hoping for a speedy recovery. Thanks for your prayers!]

How to Eat a Book

In Revelation 10, John took and ate a scroll from the angel’s hand. It tastes sweet as honey, but left his stomach feeling bitter (representing the fact that the Bible is sweet to believers, but gives us a message of judgment for the world). This is one of several passages comparing the Bible to food, and Bible study to eating.

When God created the physical and spiritual realms, He used the same grid. That’s why we can illustrate spiritual truths by their corresponding physical realities, as Jesus did when He used the story of the sower to illustrate the spreading of the Gospel.

In the physical realm, we need food. God could have made us so we recharged with sunlight like solar panels, or we replenished our strength by plugging into some kind of power supply. But he gave each of us a mouth, a set of teeth, an esophagus, a stomach, and a digestive system. We have supper, chew it up, and swallow it; and it satisfies our mouths and stomachs. Then our digestive system goes to work, and this satisfying meal is broken down to its smallest parts, transferred through our bloodstream, and carried to every last place in our bodies.

This is why nutrition is so important. Our bodies temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are what we eat. You’ll never be any healthier than your diet.

The same is true mentally and spiritually. What do most people devour today? Entertainment and a constant diet of pure secularism. But Jesus said, “May shall not live by break alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” To trace this through the Bible, see:

• Ezekiel 2:9 – 3:15 (notice the resemblance to Revelation 10)
• Job 23:1
• Psalm 19:10
• Psalm 119:103
• Jeremiah 15:16
• Hebrews 5:11-12
• 1 Peter 2:1-2

 If you want to study the Bible on a daily basis here is a simple, workable seven-step plan. Here’s how to eat a book.

1. Select a book of the Bible to study. Perhaps Philippians, for example.
2.  Jot. Read every day where you left off the day before, using a pen or pencil. You can either underline and circle and make marginal notes as you read, or you can jot down observations in a small notebook. It’s amazing how a pen helps the mind to focus on the passage being studied.
3. Consult. Read the explanatory notes in a good study Bible. Study Bibles have been around since the Geneva Bible of the 1500s. The best study Bible available today is the ESV Study Bible. It’s like a seminary sown up between the covers.
4. Cross-Reference. Follow the cross-references in the margins of your study Bible.
5. Ponder. Find a key verse from the passage and ponder it. This is what the Bible calls meditation.
6. Pray. Turn the passage or verse into a prayer for yourself and others. Try this and you’ll find it an indispensible part of your daily study time.
7. Align. Look for practical ways to bring your life into alignment with the passage.

  Katrina is starting to look and act more like her old self (not that she’s old!) We’re not sure when she’ll be home from the hospital, but she’s in good spirits. Most heart patients are on their feet by now. For several years Katrina has been unable to walk due to MS and has relyed on her arms to hoist her and propel her. Now she can’t put any weight on her arms, so she’s fairly immobilized. This is the biggest problem. We’re just hoping she’ll not lose too much mobility before she’s healed. The good news is that she’ll likely have more strength in the future. What I had thought was advancing MS now appears to have been a matter of a bad heart. Her weakness was caused by insufficient blood flow. With her heart working so well now, we’re convinced her strength will return better than ever. Thanks for continuing to pray for her. She’s greatly encouraged by all the support.

Now to last night’s KALEO study of Revelation 10:

Introduction: As the book of Revelation outlines it, the Great Tribulation is based around three series of events, which are described as seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls of wreath. We’ve looked at the seven seals and we’re currently working our way through the seven trumpets. Six of them have already sounded. As we come to chapter 10, we’re waiting for the seventh trumpet, but we have another parenthetical passage. This is one of the shortest and most interesting chapters in Revelation – the big angel with the little scroll. It’s a prelude to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, designed to impress on John the gravity of the message he is being given.

V. 1: Some people identify this “mighty angel” as Christ, but there are better reasons to identify him as one of the mighty angels that do God’s bidding in Revelation. The word “another” implies that this is an angel like the ones blowing the trumpets, and the fact that he swears by one greater than himself in verse 6 also identifies him as an angel, not as the Lord Jesus. His description, however, is glorious with great authority and rank.

V. 2: This mighty angel holds a small scroll. We aren’t told the contents of the scroll, but whatever its specific contents, it represents the Word of God.

V. 3-7: Apparently this angel was about to unleash another (a fourth) series of judgments – thunder judgments – but God tells him this information is still “classified” and is to remain top secret.

V. 8-11: John is told to take the scroll from the angel’s hand, to eat and digest it. He does so and finds the scroll as sweet as honey through it leaves him feeling bitter. This passage is based on Ezekiel 2:9 – 3:15, where the same thing happened to Ezekiel. Our Bibles are sweeter than honey to us, but they do contain a bitter message of judgment for us to proclaim as a warning to the world

Conclusion: The analogy of the Bible as food is seen throughout Scripture. In a supplemental blog tomorrow, I’ll survey these passages and tell us “how to eat a book.”

  Katrina is doing very well. She has just been moved from ICU to a regular room, and she’s well enough now to complain about the hospital food (“disgusting,” she told the nurse). Otherwise she’s in good spirits. They’ve disconnected most of the tubes, wires, pumps, monitors, pipes, and jumper cables (except for her heart monitors). She hasn’t experienced much pain (though she’s still on some pain-killers), and she seems to be regaining strength. The doctor said there is a world of difference in the way her heart sounds; so we are hopeful she’ll recover with new strength and vigor. They are talking about releasing her the first of the week, probably to go straight home. Katrina has drawn a world of encouragement from the notes, calls, e-mails, facebook posts, visits, card, and assurances of prayer; so thank you so much!!

Katrina’s surgery was successful, and the doctor determined that her faulty heart valve was defective at birth. He replaced it, and she did fine. Her “tissue is soft,” he said, due to longterm MS medication, so they are watching her carefully for bleeding and brusing. But we can see her in a couple of hours and expect a normal recovery. The MS department will work with her to minimize immobility. Everyone at Vandy has been great, and we are so grateful for everyone’s prayers and support.

Katrina got checked into Vanderbilt yesterday and met the the MS doctors prior to today’s surgery. She spent a restless night, but was in good spirits this morning as they prepped her for surgery. She rolled off toward the surgery theater about five minutes ahead of schedule. The doctor said that the main aortic valve will clearly need replacement, but her other leaking valve will need little or no repair. It’s not as bad as first thought, and repairing the main aortic valve will take pressure off the others. He said he might “tighten it up a little” while he’s in there. Her surgery should be starting anytime now, and I’ll post an undate later in the day. Thank you for your prayer.

  Last month, my lovely wife, Katrina, suffered acute chest pains, and subsequent tests showed that she had two faulty heart valves. This Wednesday, she is scheduled for full-blown open-heart surgery at Vanderbilt Medical Center. She’s checking in on Tuesday and the operation is planned for eight o’clock Wednesday morning. If all goes well, she’ll likely be in the hospital several days, followed by several months of recovery. The complicating factor is her multiple sclerosis, because whenever she is immobilized for a period of time she tends to lose whatever strength, flexibility, and mobility she has; and it’s difficult to get it back.

She and I, after having discussed it at length, have decided to assume the best. Once her heart is functioning well again (the doctor is amazed she’s not had fainting spells due to insufficient blood getting into the heart) and with her new MS medication, we’re just going to assume she will bounce back with a level of strength she’s not had for several years.

We think that, as a general rule, faith in the Lord translates into assuming the best on earth, with an awareness that He works all things for good whatever the outcome.

Many people have asked how they could help. I honestly don’t know. But we are so grateful for everyone’s prayers and loving support. I’ll use this blog to post her updates. Thanks for your prayers for her on Wednesday.

  The first book I ever wrote is the latest to be published. Entitled Knowing, Showing, and Growing, it’s a set of stories and projects I wrote many years ago for parents at The Donelson Fellowship to use in bringing their children to a maturing faith in Christ. It’s just been released by B&H Publishers in a beautiful, inexpensive, illustrated softcover.
 
Using this book, children can learn how to be saved, what it means to be baptized, and how to grow in daily Bible study, prayer, and witnessing.
 
For information about ordering single or multiple copies, click here.

Yesterday, caught between competing demands, I became upset in Katrina’s doctor’s office. The claustrophobic waiting room, the blaring television, the germ-infested old magazines, and the inexcusably long wait made me a pacing,  fideting, complaining nervous wreck. By the time Dr. Zhou could finally see us, we didn’t have time to see him because I had a wedding to officiate. We rushed out of his office like bats out of hell.

This morning I’ve been reviewing my time management principles to see what went wrong, and my mind has been soothed by this quotation from a favorite writer, Dr. J. Oswald Sanders.

Our Lord moved through life with majestic and measured tread, never in a hurry and yet always thronged by demanding crowds, never giving those who sought His help a sense that He had any more important concerns than their particular interests. What was His secret? Knowing that every man’s life is a plan of God, He realized that His life and all the conditions in which it was to be worked out were alike under the perfect control of His Father…. His Father’s plan had been drawn with such meticulous accuracy that every hour was accounted for and adjusted to the overall purpose of His life. His calendar had been arranged, and His sole concern on earth was to fulfill the work given Him to do in the allotted hours.

PS – Tomorrow one of our TDF missionaries will speaking at church, and tomorrow night I’ll be teaching from Revelation 5 at KALEO. For the first of my messages on Managing Your Time, Managing Your Life, click here.