Meditating on James 4:1-2

On second thought, just check these out.

http://www.stannespublichouse.com/thecellar/15-/

http://www.credenda.org/images/stories/pdf/17-2.pdf

(Pages 4 and 13)

Job 15-20

Job 15 - Eliphaz: you're a fool and a sinner, and talking like both. Man can't be righteous before God. The wicked are punished in this life.

16-17 - Job: You are miserable comforters." God assails me, and you scorn me. Yet I plead before Him and cry out to Him. You are denouncing me, but I cling to my righteousness.

18 - Bildad: be sensible, Job, or shut up. The wicked do get punished in this life.

19 - Job: you are crushing me with words, when God has wronged me. Have pity on me. I know my redeemer lives; my hope is in God.

20 - Zophar: I'm offended by your rebuke, Job. The wicked are punished in this life.

Job 8-14

Job 8 - Bildad: Don't charge God with injustice. Your kids got what they deserved for their sin. Life is short and frail. But God will restore you if you are righteous.

9-10 - Job: How can I speak with God or make myself righteous before Him? Why are You doing this? What have I done? Let me die in peace!

11 - Zophar: you're getting less than you deserve, sinner! If you were really righteous you could lift up your face.

12-14 - Job: I'm as wise as you. Why is there injustice, and God ordains it so? He is sovereign. But you are "worthless physicians." I will trust God "though He slay me." Remove Your heavy hand from me and tell me what I've done. What hope does man have in his sin?

Job 1-7

Job 1 - Job is righteous and wealthy. God allows Satan to test Job's faith by removing his wealth and family. Job grieves but worhsips and doesn't blame God.

2 - God points out Job's continued righteousness to Satan. Satan claims it would change if Job were personally hurt. God allows it. Even Jos't wife turns against him, but Job accepts "evil" from god as well as good. His 3 friends arrive.

3 - Job: I'd rather be dead, never even born. I'd rather be in Hades.

4-5 - Eliphaz: Why are you discouraged in trouble, when you have encouraged so many others in trouble? The innocent are not destroyed. Are you saying you know better than God what to do with your life? Appeal to Him. He is sovereign, and restores those He chastens.

6-7 - Job: I'm in anguish with good reason. I still wish God would kill me, rather than afflict me, because I haven't blasphemed Him yet, and I can't take much more. Friends should help in trouble, but you aren't helping. Show me my wrong. Life is futile pain, these days. Why are you doing this to me, God?

Lego Clone Trooper Cake

Another year, another birthday cake. As Owen gets older, his creativity challenges my baking skills! This year he said he wanted a Lego cake, and anything Star Wars would be awesome. A Clone Trooper it is!

I wanted to try out a rolled fondant for the smooth finish. I have never done this and was a little nervous. I found a great website that had a marshmallow fondant recipe and lots of help on how to use this stuff. It wasn't as tough as I thought, but it was VERY messy. Sticky melted marshmallows and 2 pounds of powdered sugar kneaded by hand... with a bit of Crisco to keep things nice and slippery! The finished log remined me of a greased watermelon... It was greased, wrapped in plastic, and refrigerated overnight.





Rolling it out the next day was easy, but messy. Cornstarch is sprinkled over everything to keep the fondant from sticking. But the principles are the same as rolling a pie crust. I rolled it around the rolling pin to transport it to the cake when ready.















Now the cake. Duncan Hines yellow cake in a 9x13, baked, then FROZEN. If you're going to do any fancy cutting on a cake, freeze it first. It keeps it from falling apart. I felt like Michelangelo while sculpting this! I didn't worry about smooth curves too much because the fondant would cover a lot of sins.
I missed a step in my photos: there's a layer of chocolate buttercream frosting (from a can!) over the cake under the fondant. It helps smooth the fondant and "glue" it to the cake. A few careful cuts with a knife neatly trims the edges.










Here's the covered cake. I had to help the fondant a bit in the nooks and crannies by giving it a little extra shaping with my hands. I kneaded a good amount of cocoa powder into some extra fondant to make it brown. That kind of dried it out and made it a bit too dry, but my kitchen was a mess and I was pretty tired of this expedition at this point, so I said good enough. We're going to eat this after all, not put it in a museum!

Things I never noticed...

At the end of Genesis 22, the future city of promise and future bride of promise are both introduced. On the mount of Yahweh the sacrifice will be provided (22:14), which will be Jerusalem. And Rebekah is mentioned, who is Isaac's future bride (22:23).

And the holy city, the New Jerusalem, is as a bride (Rev 21:1-2).

Genesis 18-22

Genesis 18 - 3 men/angels come to Abraham and announce Sarah will conceive a child, shortly. Sarah laughs, but denies it. They head for Sodom to see how evil it is; Abraham goes with them a ways. God reveals His purpose to Abraham, and Abraham intercedes for the city.

19 - Sodom is indeed found to be wicked, in how they treat Lot and his guests. God spares Lot and his daughters for Abraham's sake; He destroys Sodom; Lot's wife turns back and dies. Moab and Ammon are born of incest.

20 - Abraham again seeks to protect God's promise on his own, like in Egypt. God preserves the situation again. Abimelech seems to accept Abraham's rationale for saying Sarah is his sister, and Abraham lives in Abimelech's territory. Here and in chpt 12, the promise of a child through Sarah is in danger of not coming true.

21 - Isaac is born and circumcised when Abraham is 100. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away. On the verge of death, God preserves them. As Abraham grows strong, Abimelech makes a treaty with him. Abraham obtains a well and plants a tree in Beersheba.

22 - God tests Abraham to see if his faith is in the child God has given, or in the God who gave him. Abraham trusts God. God shows He will provide a substitute sacrifice instead of taking us, on the mountain of Moriah (future Jerusalem). Also, Abraham's brother Nahor has had 12 children, and granddaughters (future wife).

Genesis 12-17

Genesis 12 - God promises to bless Abraham and give him children, and calls him to go to Canaan. He goes, by faith, lives as a pilgrim/refugee, and continues down to Egypt since there is a famine in Canaan. He pretends Sarah is his sister, so they don't kill him. Pharaoh turns out to be righteous, though, and treats her honorably, and him with needed rebuke.

13 - Abram goes back to Canaan, separates from Lot who goes to nice-looking Sodom. God promises Abram the land again. He sets up altars to God.

14 - Lot is taken captive, as a citizen of Sodom; Abram rescues him, and is blessed by Melchizedek, king of Jerusalem

15 - God again promises Abraham that he will have children. Abraham believes, and God considers him righteous for that belief. But Abraham still wants to know it can be. God performs a blood ritual, giving Abraham a self-maledictory oath, and a prophecy about Israel's future in and out of Egypt.

16 - After 10 years Abraham's faith wavers, and he tries to make the promise come true through Hagar. This causes strife in Abraham's family, as Ishmael is born. God promises Hagar that he will become a great nation, too, but he will be hostile to everybody.

17 - God gives a more lasting sign of His covenant promise to bless Abraham: circumcision. Thus, Isaac will be conceived and born in circumcision, unlike Ishmael, who is now 13. Abraham is 99; Sarah is 90.

Genesis 6-11

Genesis 6 - The godly seed mixes with the ungodly, and God wouldn't tolerate the great evil that resulted. Noah pleased God, so God has him prepare an ark to preserve His family from the coming flood.

7 - Some of every kind of animal go into the ark, with Noah and his wife, his 3 sons and their wives. The 40 day rain from above and springs opened from below covers the whole earth with water and everything drowns.

8 - Noah is safe in the ark, waits it out, then sends birds to see if there is any plant life to live on. Once off, Noah sacrifices clean animals, and God makes a covenant to keep a natural order.

9 - He also promises not to flood the earth again (sign of the rainbow), gives Noah animals to eat, and establishes the death penalty. Ham is cursed to serve Shem when he mocks Noah to his brothers, after Noah gets drunk.

10 - The lineage of 70 nations from Shem, Ham and Japheth is listed.

11 - Mankind tries to reach to heaven on its own unity and power. God foils them by confusing their language. Shem's lineage is recounted down to Abram. He moves with his father and brother from Ur (around Babylon/Iraq) to Haran (around Syria).

Genesis 1-5

I've decided to summarize my daily readings, like I did last year with Calvin's Institutes, for my Bible reading. This will be roughly chronological...

Genesis 1 - God creates all things in heaven and earth in 6 days, ordered, filled, declared good, and blessed to multiply.

2 - God creates Adam, puts him in a garden to tend it, and gives him a helper-wife.

3 - The serpent tempts Eve and they sin by eating the forbidden fruit. God seeks them out, curses the natural order in man's work and in woman's childbearing. Yet in mercy He clothes them, and promises the serpent He will be defeated in the end, by the woman's Descendant.

4 - Cain is born, then Abel. Cain gets jealous of Abel's offering and kills Abel. God confronts and curses Cain. Cain builds a city; human culture advances, but so does depravity. A new child of promise is born: Seth.

5 - The lineage of Adam to Noah is recounted. They all died.

St.Distaff is stingy

The spinning blitz on St. Distaff's Day ended well. I had a full spindle of the lurvliest red merino singles, then I dove in and wrapped it all up around my wrist as the photo shows in progress - all 64 yards. That's one mighty field goal and a good coupla hours of work twisted up about my arm. I was a bit nervous, shall we say. Nervous that my husband would come home and find me tied up in red yarn, snivelling on the floor. That crazy Andean-plying method actually worked! The only downside is that I'm literally tied to my spinning until it's finished.

This morning I washed and hung my skein on a plant hook over the sink, weighted it with the pump soap dispenser hung from the bottom of the skein, and paused a bit for it to dry. A few hours later I had 34 yards of sweet lace yarn.

That's it. 34 yards. Sheesh! Barely enough to knit a racy bookmark. St. Distaff is pretty stingy, but his magic works in that entrancing little spinning whorl. Draws you in, calling for more. The spindle is nearly full again! Here comes another 34 yards - end zone nowhere in sight.

A small triangular lace shawl takes about 450 yards of lace yarn. It'll take me longer to spin the yarn than to knit it! Now to experiment with the speed of the spindle wheel - gotta love the 200:1 spin ratio on that baby! Vrrrroom!

Faith and politics; God and country

Our faith should be worked out in the political realm. There is a fine line to walk here. My concern is not to keep people out of politics, but to steer us away from placing faith in politics or in a form of government. God uses politics to accomplish His purposes, but He does this as a funnel gets oil into a car: the main thing is the quality of the oil, and the engine, not the funnel. The main thing is the righteousness and faithfulness of the church within the nation, not how much and how strongly the church voices and funnels its opinion into DC. Doing this makes DC the source of hope for change, when our hope should be the Spirit dwelling within us. Politics reflects culture, it doesn't shape it, and culture will only be transformed by winsome evangelism and faithful living, the Spirit regenerating hearts.

I think it's a mistake to say the republic is the Biblically endorsed form of government (see Calvin on this here, especially section 8). There have been many faithful kings in the Bible and history who aren't to be despised for not changing to a republic. And any time we start saying "no other nation," there is a strong possibility we are giving too much credence to an earthly nation. Of course, we should be thankful for our great national heritage. But sometimes the rhetoric leaves one feeling like USA is the only safe or good place on earth, when it is the church in Christ that is the only safe place. Some nations are more rightoues than us on the issue of abortion and sodomy. Many nations now send missionaries to USA, and we need them. Rev 3:14-22 is for America.

Happy St. Distaff's Day!

January 7 is traditionally St. Distaff's Day, the day after Epiphany when housewives went back to work after celebrating 12 days of Christmas. We've been doing just that, and let me tell you, I'm ready to get back to work! Christmas is great, but it's time to box up the greenery and glitz and switch gears.

And you know this housewife couldn't let St. Distaff's day go by without doing some spinning herself (even though I don't own a distaff; my arm suffices). I finished filling up my spindle and then plied it all into some very fine yarn to be used for knitting RED lace! Yum! It all happens just as my son read "A New Coat for Anna" - a book about a girl who waits months for her new coat, and watches it go from wool on the sheep, thru the spinner's and weaver's hands, and finally to be sewn by the tailor. Perhaps my kids will try their hands at spinning red wool this week too!

Westminster Shorter Catechism for Study

Decent. Hard to compare while reading Calvin, maybe. Some helpful illustrations, but often simplistic, overly rigid or the pat Calvinistic answer. Still can bring the average Christian a long way in the right direction to a fuller understanding of the Biblical worldview.

Kissing Dating Goodbye

Over 10 years ago, Josh Harris wrote this superb book. I just got around to it.

He diagnoses well the problems with dating. Encourages intimacy without commitment. Distraction from God and character development. Isolation from friends. Focus on self's physical and emotional desires. Bad way to evaluate future mates.

He also shows a better way. Purity isn't not crossing some physical line, but pursuing righteousness according to God's plan and time, not our desires. Don't shop (date, or otherwise fool around with the emotions of others) until you can buy (commit to marriage). This doesn't mean no contact with the opposite sex, but regulating relationships, so they stay focused outward. Friendships by definition focus on something else. Intimate relationships focus on each other personally, and explore the person.

This topic can be controversial, with everything from parents seeing dating as healthy and a right for their kids, to keeping their kids from talking with the opposite sex of their age at all. Wisdom lies between these two ditches.