Being Held Tenderly

October 14th 2009

Our Father's hand holds us, like this logo picture from LAMB hospital in Bangladesh.

Even after a rough night where Bethyl was coughing a lot with her flu, up and down, here in Awana, Genting Highlands, Malaysia. He tenders his children along the path, you and we.

While Bethyl rested, I took some time to listen carefully to John Piper today from a downloaded podcast. I quietly walked through the lush Malaysian mountain-scapes, monkeys swinging in the jungle trees above me, and listened while he addressed 6,000 attendees at the American Association of Christian Counselors’s national convention. He said, three things of note:

1. the apex of men’s mental health was the praise of the glory of the grace of God. A mouthful. Men who don’t praise—whatever they find praiseworthy—are swimming counter to the current of God’s universe. He delights in praise of all kinds--even for your new insect collection, or new car, or girlfriend--but specifically for men to see and feel and hear and taste and know Him and the immeasurable grandeur of his kindness to us.

2. When we complain, we shrivel. When we praise, we become more capacious.

3. We are loved not in order to soak in our own loveliness. We are loved to fill up our reservoirs with God’s love and then reflect it back to Him, spilling our reflection of God’s grace over onto others without a lot of effort or intentionality.