Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart

To the afflicted, tossed with tempests and not comforted 

by John Newton

(traditionally sung to the tune of Take My Life and Let It Be)

Pensive, doubting, fearful heart,

Hear what CHRIST the Savior says;

Every word should joy impart,

Change thy mourning into praise:

Yes, he speaks, and speaks to thee,

May he help thee to believe!

Then thou presently wilt see,

Thou hast little cause to grieve.

"Fear thou not, nor be ashamed,

All thy sorrows soon shall end

I who heav'n and earth have framed,

Am thy husband and thy friend

I the High and Holy One,

Israel's GOD by all adored;

As thy Savior will be known,

Thy Redeemer and thy Lord.

For a moment I withdrew,

And thy heart was filled with pain;

But my mercies I'll renew,

Thou shalt soon rejoice again:

Though I scorn to hide my face,

Very soon my wrath shall cease;

'Tis but for a moment's space,

Ending in eternal peace.

When my peaceful bow appears

Painted on the wat'ry cloud;

'Tis to dissipate thy fears,

Lest the earth should be overflowed:

'Tis an emblem too of grace,

Of my cov'nant love a sign;

Though the mountains leave their place,

Thou shalt be for ever mine.

Though afflicted, tempest-tossed,

Comfortless awhile thou art,

Do not think thou canst be lost,

Thou art graven on my heart

All thy walls I will repair,

Thou shalt be rebuilt anew;

And in thee it shall appear,

What a God of love can do.

The Tough Roots of Habitual Tenderness 1

It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender—wimping out on truth when we ought to be lion-hearted, or wrangling with anger when we ought to be weeping. I know it's a risk to take up this topic and John Newton in a setting like this, where some of you need a good (tender!) kick in the pants to be more courageous, and others of you confuse courage with what William Cowper called "a furious and abusive zeal."   Oh how rare are the pastors who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel.

I dream of such pastors. I would like to be one someday. A pastor whose might in the truth is matched by his meekness. Whose theological acumen is matched by his manifest contrition. Whose heights of intellect are matched by his depths of humility. Yes, and the other way around! A pastor whose relational warmth is matched by his rigor of study, whose bent toward mercy is matched by the vigilance of his biblical discernment, and whose sense of humor is exceeded by the seriousness of his calling.

I dream of great defenders of true doctrine who are mainly known for the delight they have in God and the joy in God that they bring to the people of God—who enter controversy, when necessary, not because they love ideas and arguments, but because they love Christ and the church.

It is possible and necessary to be as strong and rugged for truth as a redwood and as tender and fragrant for Christ as a field of clover.

So now, with the help of the life of John Newton, I want to say it again. And make no mistake: our heroes have feet of clay. There are no perfect pastors. Newton himself warns us:

In my imagination, I sometimes fancy I could [create] a perfect minister. I take the eloquence of –, the knowledge of –, the zeal of –, and the pastoral meekness, tenderness, and piety of –: Then, putting them all together into one man, I say to myself, "This would be a perfect minister." Now there is One, who, if he chose to, could actually do this; but he never did it. He has seen fit to do otherwise, and to divide these gifts to every man severally as he will.

So neither we nor Newton will ever be all that we should be. But oh how much more like the Great Shepherd we should long to be. Newton had his strengths, and I want us to learn from them. At times his strengths were his weakness, but that too will be instructive. Our theme is "the tough roots of John Newton's habitual tenderness." His great strength was "speaking the truth in love." As you listen, listen for what you need, not for what the pastor across town needs. On which side of the horse are you falling off?

I begin with a brief telling of his life, because for Newton, his life was the clearest testimony to the heart-breaking mercy of God he ever saw. Even at the end of his life he is still marveling that he was saved and called to preach the gospel of grace. From his last will and testament we read:

I commit my soul to my gracious God and Savior, who mercifully spared and preserved me, when I was an apostate, a blasphemer, and an infidel, and delivered me from the state of misery on the coast of Africa into which my obstinate wickedness had plunged me; and who has been pleased to admit me (though most unworthy) to preach his glorious gospel.

This is one of the deepest roots of his habitual tenderness. He could not get over the wonder of his own rescue by sheer, triumphant grace.

(The first of several excerpts from a lecture for pastors by John Piper; the full text and audio can be found here.)

A Brief Biography of the Saint: John Newton

John Newton's life was an eventful one, full of desperate deeds and hairbreadth 'scapes.

His mother, a devout, godly woman, had from his infancy dedicated him to the ministry. But she "died in faith, not having received the promise."

Following his father, young Newton became a sailor. But he was reckless and vicious, and "being his own enemy he seemed determined that no one should be his friend."

He was forced into naval service on board the Harwich man-of-war, and flung virtue and religion to the winds.

His Narrative, from which we learn the facts of his history, depicts these years in the blackest colours. Perhaps the picture is overdrawn. Prodigals who have returned are always tempted to exaggerate the wickedness of their godless life. But when full allowance is made for such natural exaggeration, it is clear that his life was an abandoned and vicious one.

Yet he had conscience-stricken hours. In the uttermost parts of the sea, even there God's hand found and touched him. Though a scapegrace, he occasionally fasted and prayed and read his Bible. But these whims and superstitions did not last long. He turned to infidelity for a time. He delighted to talk virtue and to practice vice.

Not every infidel is a profligate by any means; but it is equally clear that profligates are glad to be infidels. The profligates of the world are a witness to Christianity, just because they do not like, cannot endure, its light cast upon their evil deeds.

He deserted, was caught, kept in irons, publicly whipped, and was degraded from the rank of midshipman. He was in consequence filled with bitter anger and despair.

By a mere accident — a midshipman having maliciously cut his hammock, and dropped him on the deck and injured him — he was exchanged on board a merchant vessel trading with the west coast of Africa.

It was here that he landed without anything but the clothes on his back, became practically a white slave among black ones, and, like the prodigal, in hunger was glad almost of the swine-husks for food.

Newton was an instance of the common experience that men who are morally shipwrecks are intellectually clever, the ruins of great citizens. He amused himself in his semi-slavery by studying mathematics. He mastered Euclid, drawing the figures of the first six books on the sand.

His father sent out money to ransom him; but the master of the vessel who received the commission was told that Newton had gone far inland, and so took no further trouble about him. But in reality the semi-slave was not a mile off. Following his custom, he was walking along a narrow neck of land on the beach. He saw and hailed a passing vessel; it stopped; he took a canoe and went out to it. It was the very vessel whose captain carried the ransom for Newton's emancipation.

On the homeward voyage he was treated kindly by the captain, and having little to do, took up Thomas à Kempis.

..Newton was affected by it. "What if these things be true?" A storm arose; the ship seemed sinking and book and storm united to arouse his conscience. The hurricane passed, but while he had been at the wheel, steering at midnight, a crisis in his heart came, when his life of sin passed before him, and he began to pray and think wistfully of Christ, Whom he used to deride. This was the "Great Deliverance."

But light did not come all at once. He desired to change. He renounced swearing and other evil habits. But it was little more than an attempt to mend himself.

He made several voyages as a captain; purchased slaves, and sold them again in the West Indies. Curious what contradictory principles can live in the same mind! His conscience did not trouble him on the slave question. We sometimes wonder if there is any question on which our consciences are as yet as unenlightened.

He by-and-bye met a captain who taught him the true way of faith in Christ, and he became a sincere child of God.

Through a sudden attack of illness he was compelled to leave the sea, and became a tide-surveyor or ship-inspector at Liverpool; met Whitefield, Wesley, Wilberforce; occupied spare time in studying classics; applied for Ordination, and was refused by the Archbishop of York because of some formal irregularity.

But the Bishop of London ordained him, and he became the minister of Olney Parish. Thus the Providence that had so strangely watched over his life brought Newton and Cowper together. Living close beside each other, they were scarcely twelve hours apart. They were like David and Jonathan in their friendship.

Newton, while a man of the deepest piety, was too stern and ultra-Calvinistic a companion for the sensitive Cowper, and sometimes unintentionally increased his mental troubles.

From the time of his "great deliverance" he kept a diary, of which the following passage is the opening: "I dedicate unto Thee, most blessed God, this clean, unsullied book, and at the same time renew my tender of a foul, blotted, corrupt heart."

Together they held a prayer-meeting every week, and Newton proposed that they should unitedly write a volume of hymns, partly "for the promotion and comfort of sincere Christians," and partly as a memorial of their intimacy. Many of them were written for use in these weekly prayer-meetings. The volume was not published for eight years after it was begun. It appeared under the name of Olney Hymns, the place giving the title to the book.

Of the Olney Hymns Cowper composed about sixty-eight, Newton about two hundred and eighty. Many of these are quite unsuitable for public praise. In proportion to the number that each wrote, Cowper has far more that are held dear by Christian hearts everywhere.

Newton wrote one well-known prose work— Cardiphonia.

When fifty-four he became Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard Street, in the City of London. Here his ministry was much blessed; far more popular than in his former sphere in Buckinghamshire. Many flocked to Lombard Street to get their spiritual food from him. Here he died at the age of eighty-two. His epitaph was written by himself:

"JOHN NEWTON, Clerk,

Once an infidel and libertine,

A servant of slaves in Africa,

Was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour

Jesus Christ,

Preserved, restored, pardoned,

And appointed to preach the Faith

He had long laboured to destroy,

Near 16 years at Olney, in Bucks

And years in this church."

He was certainly a brand plucked from the burning; his life a study in Providence; the change in his character a witness to the transforming power of grace; the hymns he has left among the most devout and simple, full of grace and truth.

Copied by Stephen Ross for WholesomeWords.org from Romance of Psalter and Hymnal: Authors and Composers by R.E. Welsh. London: Hodder and Stoughton; New York: Pott., 1889

Musical Monday: John Fullbright

What would I do without Annie B. always feeding me new music??  Ladies and Gentlemen, meet John Fulbright:

What You Will

It's time again to gear up for this summer's  Shakespeare in the Park performance!  May 22 - June 16

Music Monday: Frank

No comment required...

Musical Monday: Oscar Peterson

Does it get any better than this?  No. No, it doesn't.

Musical Monday: Not for Kids Only

One of my favorite children's albums: by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.

Take Heart

"He that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out."  John 6:37

Thy sins may be legion-like, - the sand of the sea may be their befitting type, - the thought of their turpitude an aggravation may be ready to overwhelm thee; but be still!  thy patient God waits to be gracious! Oh! be deeply humbled and softened because of thy guilt...yet despond not by reason of former shortcomings, - thy sins are great, but thy Savior's merits are greater.  He is willing to forget all the past and sink it into oblivion.  Ah! how different is God's verdict from man's!  After such sins as thine, man's sentence would have been, "I will in no wise receive!" But "It is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of man;" for He says, "I will in NO WISE cast out!"  

"Remember this word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope!" 

--The Faithful Promiser, John Ross Macduff

Contentment 3

There is an infinite variety in the works of God in an ordinary providence, and yet they all work in an orderly way.  We put these two things together, for God in his providence causes a thousand thousand things to depend upon one another.  There are an infinite number of wheels, as I may say, in the works of providence; put together all the works that ever God did from all eternity or ever will do, and they all make up but one work, and they have been as several wheels that have had their orderly motion to attain the end that God from all eternity has appointed.

We, indeed, look at things by pieces, we look at one detail and do not consider the relation that one thing has to another, but God looks at all things at once, and sees the relation that one thing has to another. ...the workman sees the dependence of all, one upon another.  So it is in God's providence.  Now notice how this works to contentment: when a certain passage of providence befalls me, that is one wheel, and it may be that if this wheel were stopped, a thousand other things might come to be stopped by this.  In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel because they  are dependent upon one another.  So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend upon this thing?  God may have some work to do twenty years hence that depends on the passage of providence that falls out this day or this week.  

 -- The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs

Musical Monday: Somebody That I Used to Know

I wonder if any contemporary song has been covered by more artists than Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know.  Here are a few versions for your enjoyment:

The Original

One Man Performance

Ingrid Michaelson

My personal favorite:

Pentatonix

Goodbye to The Man

Good words from Albert Pujols.

Stan Musial was bigger than life. He is not only the greatest Cardinal of all time, but the greatest baseball player I have ever had the privilege of knowing. From the first time I met him in 2001, Stan always took time for me a person and as a player. I have always been grateful to have access to the purest hitter in National League history, and to have him call me his friend. When I played in St. Louis, and now in Anaheim, when anyone called me ‘El Hombre’ I am quick to remind them there is only one “Man” in baseball and that is Stan “The Man” Musial.

My prayers are with the Musial family tonight. I will cherish my friendship with Stan for a long as I live. I will hold our conversations close in my heart. You were a dear sweet man who influenced my game and my life more than you will ever know.

May you now find peace in the arms of your Savior and our Lord Jesus Christ.

- Albert Pujols

Musical Monday: Classical on Steel

Thanks to Bob Wooldridge for linking to this piece a couple of weeks ago.  As he pointed out, some would shift in their graves, wag their heads, snub their noses or gasp in horror at this piece being played on a steel string guitar, but you simply can't deny its magnificence...can you?   I was enthralled beginning to end.  Enjoy!

Music Monday: Luke Winslow King

Another gem from my Southern Belle friend (and I mean that in all its wholesome and redemptive senses), Annie B.



Check out his latest album here.  I like!

Proverbs & Politics

This article, which offers a critique of the present political climate in the United States, deserves to be read in its entirety:

Agur and the American Election

From:  Comment Magazine

My Heart & I

My Heart and I

by: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.

ENOUGH! we're tired, my heart and I.

    We sit beside the headstone thus,

    And wish that name were carved for us.

The moss reprints more tenderly

    The hard types of the mason's knife,

    As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life

With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.

You see we're tired, my heart and I.

    We dealt with books, we trusted men,

    And in our own blood drenched the pen,

As if such colours could not fly.

    We walked too straight for fortune's end,

    We loved too true to keep a friend;

At last we're tired, my heart and I.

III.

How tired we feel, my heart and I!

    We seem of no use in the world;

    Our fancies hang grey and uncurled

About men's eyes indifferently;

    Our voice which thrilled you so, will let

    You sleep; our tears are only wet:

What do we here, my heart and I?

IV.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!

    It was not thus in that old time

    When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime

To watch the sunset from the sky.

    Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;

    I, smiling at him, shook my head:

'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

V.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I!

    Though now none takes me on his arm

    To fold me close and kiss me warm

Till each quick breath end in a sigh

    Of happy languor. Now, alone,

    We lean upon this graveyard stone,

Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

VI.

Tired out we are, my heart and I.

    Suppose the world brought diadems

    To tempt us, crusted with loose gems

Of powers and pleasures ? Let it try.

    We scarcely care to look at even

    A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,

We feel so tired, my heart and I.

VII.

Yet who complains? My heart and I?

    In this abundant earth no doubt

    Is little room for things worn out:

Disdain them, break them, throw them by

    And if before the days grew rough

    We once were loved, used, — well enough,

I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

What Does Redemption Look Like?

When my email reminds me that  Comment Magazine has published a new article online, I usually sigh.  Not for the same reason I sigh about many other email  notifications, but because I rarely have time to read it then and there, and know that I'll probably forget to go back and take it in before the next article rolls around.   The authors at Comment consistently put forward articles that are not only theologically sound  and culturally relevant, but are also stylistically superior...even poetic.  

Thankfully, one of the articles I missed back in December, was highlighted on FB tonight (thanks, Ryan Van Horn!), and if you have 10 minutes, it is well worth the read!  If you only have 4-5 minutes, check out the excerpt below.  I'm warning you, though, you'll be compelled to go read the article in its entirety!   And then...you'll want to subscribe (so you too can sigh when you find yourself too busy to stop and take it all in).

This particular article, Redemption, was the first published by James K. Smith after his recent appointment as editor.  Enjoy...    

But what does redemption look like? For the most part, you'll know it when you see it, because it looks like flourishing. It looks like a life well lived. It looks like the way things are supposed to be. It looks like a well-cultivated orchard laden with fruit produced by ancient roots. It looks like labour that builds the soul and brings delight. It looks like an aged husband and wife laughing uproariously with their great-grandchildren. It looks like a dancer stretching her body to its limit, embodying a stunning beauty in muscles and sinews rippling with devotion. It looks like the graduate student hunched over a microscope, exploring nooks and crannies of God's micro-creation, looking for ways to undo the curse. It looks like abundance for all.

Redemption sounds like the surprising cadences of a Bach concerto whose rhythm seems to expand the soul. It sounds like an office that hums with a sense of harmony in mission, punctuated by collaborative laughter. It sounds like the grunts and cries of a tennis player whose blistering serve and liquid forehand are enactments of things we couldn't have dreamed possible. It sounds like the questions of a third grader whose teacher loves her enough to elicit and make room for a sanctified curiosity about God's good world. It even sounds like the spirited argument of a young couple who are discerning just what it means for their marriage to be a friendship that pictures the community God desires (and is).

Redemption smells like the oaky tease of a Napa Chardonnay that births anticipation in our taste buds. It smells like soil under our nails after labouring over peonies and gerber daisies. It smells like the steamy winter kitchen of a family together preparing for supper. It smells like the ancient wisdom of a book inherited from a grandfather, or that "outside smell" of the family dog in November. It smells like riding your bike to work on a foggy spring morning. It even smells like the salty pungence of hard work and that singular bouquet of odors that bathes the birth of a child.

Redemption tastes like a fall harvest yielded though loving labour and attentive care for soil and plant. It tastes like a Thanksgiving turkey whose very "turkeyness" comes to life from its own animal delight on a free range. It tastes like the delightful hoppy bitterness of an IPA shared with friends at the neighbourhood pub. It even tastes like eating your broccoli because your mother loves you enough to want you to eat well.

So redemption looks like the bodily poetry of Rafael Nadal and the boyish grin of Brett Favre on a good night; it sounds like the amorous giggles of Julia and Paul Child and smells like her kitchen; it reverberates like the deep anthems of Yo-Yo Ma's cello; it feels like the trembling metre of Auden's poetry or the spry delight of Updike's light verse; it looks like the compassionate care of Paul Farmer and Mother Theresa. Redemption can be spectacular and fabulous and (almost) triumphant.

But for the most part, Spirit-empowered redemption looks like what Raymond Carver calls "a small, good thing." It looks like our everyday work done well, out of love, in resonance with God's desire for his creation—so long as our on-the-ground labour is nested as part of a contribution to systems and structures of flourishing. It looks like doing our homework, making the kids' lunches for school, building with quality and a craftsman's devotion, and crafting a municipal budget that discerns what really matters and contributes to the common good. Of course, redemption is the fall of apartheid, but it's also the once-impossible friendships forged in its aftermath. It's an open seat on the bus for everyone, but it's also getting to know my neighbours who differ from me. It's nothing short of trying to change the world, but it starts in our homes, our churches, our neighbourhoods and our schools.

It should not surprise us that redemption will not always look triumphant. If Jesus comes as the second Adam who models redemptive culture making, then in our broken world such cultural labour will look cruciform. But it will also look like hope that is hungry for joy and delight.

A Mere Wannabe

Once upon a time, I thought I was adventurous.  But photos such as these smack me upside the head with the reality that I am only a very pathetic version of a Wannabe Adventurer.  

I'm OK with these three.  I would do this.

These, however, I find terrifying:

See the rest of the photos here.

Psalm 23: Chorale

My Shepherd will supply my need:

Jehovah is His Name;

In pastures fresh He makes me feed,

Beside the living stream.

He brings my wandering spirit back

When I forsake His ways,

And leads me, for His mercy's sake,

In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death

Thy presence is my stay;

One word of Thy supporting breath

Drives all my fears away.

Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,

Doth still my table spread;

My cup with blessings overflows,

Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God

Attend me all my days;

O may Thy house be my abode,

And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,

While others go and come;

No more a stranger, nor a guest,

But like a child at home.

Music Monday: Brandenburg Concerto #3

1 man + multiple melodicas (I can't tell how many...3 maybe?) + 10 tracks = unique entertainment.  You'll notice his hands aren't always playing what you're actually hearing, but this is reportedly because he actually laid down 10 tracks and didn't take the time to sync multiple video tracks with the audio.  Enjoy!

Past & Future

Past and Future

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

My future will not copy fair my past

On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,

Supernal Will! I would not fain be one

Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast

Upon the fulness of the heart, at last

Saith no grace after meat. My wine hath run

Indeed out of my cup, and there is none

To gather up the bread of my repast

Scattered and trampled! Yet I find some good

In earth's green herbs, and streams that bubble up

Clear from the darkling ground, — content until

I sit with angels before better food.

Dear Christ! when thy new vintage fills my cup,

This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine spill.

History as Moral Philosophy

The historian of morals and ideas has a mission no less austere than that of the historian of events.  The latter has the surface of civilization, the struggles of the crowns, the births of princes, the marriages of kings, the battles, the assemblies, the great public men, the evolutions in the sunlight, all the exterior; the other historian  has the interior, the foundation, the people who work, who suffer, and who wait, overburdened woman, agonizing childhood, the dumb wars of man with man, the obscure ferocities, the prejudices, the established iniquities, the subterranean reactions of the law, the secret evolutions of souls, the vague shudderings of the multitudes, the starving, the barefooted, the bare armed, the disinherited, the orphans, the unfortunate and the infamous, all the goblins that wander in darkness.  He must descend with a heart at the same time full of charity and of severity, as a brother and as a judge, to those impenetrable casemates where crawl in confusion those who bleed and those who strike, those who weep and those who curse, those who fast and those who devour, those  who suffer wrong and those who commit it.  Have these historians of hearts and souls lesser duties than the historians of the exterior facts?  Do you think that Dante has fewer things to say than Machiavelli?  Is the underworld of civilization, because it is deeper and more gloomy, less important than the upper?  Do we really know the mountain if we do not know the cavern?

We must say, however...a decided separation between the two classes of historians might be inferred, which does not exist in our mind.  No man is a good historian of the open, visible, signal, and public life of the nations, if he is not, at the same time, to a certain extent, the historian of events, and vice versa.  They are two different orders of different facts which answer to each other, which are always linked with and often produce each other.  All the lineaments which Providence traces upon the surface of a nation have their dark but distinct parallels, in the bottom, and all the convulsions of the bottom produce upheavals at the surface.  True history dealing with all, the true historian deals with all.  

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables