it's that time again!!!

It's that time again!!!

2009 Summer Book Sale
Friday, June 26, 4 – 7 p.m. Friends members only—join at the door!
Saturday, June 27, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Everyone welcome.
Sunday, June 28, 2 – 5 p.m. Everyone welcome. $7 Bag Sale, auditorium only.

blog-worthy

My recent reading has not been very blog-worthy. (not to be confused with sponge-worthy! Seinfeld has indeed burned itself indelibly on my subconscious. Thanks Elaine!)

Following the elimination of my previous position (and with it, my job) in Texas Instruments' January RIF, I've been focusing most of my energy and attention on starting my own company, and working very hard on my first significant sized job. Part of building a new business is tailoring one's expertise specifically to one's clients' needs. In this case, one of those needs is to install and configure a server running Microsoft Small Business Server operating system. Therefore, my recent reading has been fairly un-blog-worthy. For example...Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Administrator's Companion
that is a page-turner, let me tell you!

OK, software books and kidding aside, I did read something pretty amazing recently in the back of a book I read last year. The book is entitled "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning. I loved the book when I read it, but for some reason, I did not read the Appendix which is entitled "19 Mercies: A Spiritual Journey". I still have not read it all, but I stumbled upon one of them that I want to share here. It especially resonated with me after reading "The Shack" twice, and meeting the author a few weeks ago. It is from page 239-240 of "The Ragamuffin Gospel", and it speaks for itself:

8. The God who is love.

A second radical message from Jesus about the Father is that God is love. It sounds almost trite, doesn't it? But a comparative study of world religions will show how striking and novel is the Christian affirmation that God is love.

That means that all God does is love. Not only that God is love, but that God is loving - in fact, the He always acts in a loving way. Just as the sun only shines, conferring its light and warmth on those who will receive them, so God only loves, shedding His light and warmth on those who would receive them.

All changes in the quality of a Christian's life grow out of a change in one's vision of reality. Jesus said, "You will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

Therefore, I ask you: Do you really believe that God is unchangeably, unalterably loving? And have you let that change your personal vision of reality .. every hidden corner and embarrassing shadow and intense desire of it? Your personal transformation begins here.

When I was a little boy, I had a naive idea that when I went to confession, God was frowning on me because I had been bad. As soon as I confessed my sins, God would begin to smile again. Somehow my confession implied a change in God. How absurd! My confession only implies a change in me.

Now I understand things differently. More like this: You and I are standing in the middle of a spotlight on the platform of a church; the rest of the church is in darkness, but we are in bright light. To me this scene is a good image of ragamuffins living in a state of grace. Now, suppose that you or I commit grave, deliberate sin. What happens? We step aside into shadows, but the light remains shining. God's love never changes - we have simply chosen to step away from it. When we repent, we come back into the light of God's love, which has always been there.

Reading: I John 4:7-16

Grace is the majesty, the freedom,
the undeservedness, the unexpectedness, the newness,
the arbitrariness, in which a relationship to God and
therefore the possibility of knowing Him is opened up to
man by God Himself ... Grace is God's good pleasure.

Karl Barth