Psalm 6 --- Psalm 8-10 --- Psalm 14
 Psalm 16 --- Psalm 19 --- Psalm 21

     Southern women scattered spring flowers on the graves of both the Northern and Southern soldiers who died during the Civil War. This was the origin of Memorial Day, which in 1868 was set on May 30th. From the Spanish-American War, to World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam, this is a day for honoring all who gave their lives to preserve America's freedom. Beginning in 1921, every President has placed a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is inscribed with the phrase: "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known only to God."

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

So long as God reveals Himself,
or doesn't,
He is behaving like God.
--- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart.
--- Blaise Pascal

... from here, there and everywhere

“Yes—But …!”

     Lord, I will follow Thee; but … --- Luke 9:61.

     Supposing God tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you will do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. ‘Yes, but—supposing I do obey God in this matter, what about …?’ ‘Yes, I will obey God if He will let me use my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.’ Jesus Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worth while, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what He says, and immediately you do, you find that what He says fits on as solidly as common sense. At the bar of common sense Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit that they are the words of God. Trust entirely in God, and when He brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

     Praise

I praise you because
you are artist and scientist
in one. When I am somewhat
fearful of your power,
your ability to work miracles
with a set-square, I hear
you murmuring to yourself
in a notation Beethoven
dreamed of but never achieved.
You run off scales of
rain water and sea water, play
the chords of the morning
and evening light, sculpture
with shadow, join together leaf
by leaf, when spring
comes, the stanzas of
an immense poem. You speak
all languages and none,
answering our most complex
prayers with the simplicity
of a flower, confronting
us, when we would domesticate you
to our uses, with the rioting
viruses under our lens.

Thomas, R. S. Selected Poems, 1946-68

     Notice Christ's fire was kindled before they came. The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 Drummond to Jowett, and General Index Christ's fish was already laid on it, and all they had to do was to come and dine. It is all you have to do, all the churches have to do. Didn't Christ put it so in the parable of the great supper? "Come, for everything is now ready" (Luke 14:17). Is not the last word of Scripture the great invitation? "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life." When he says, "Come and dine," there is enough for each, enough for all, enough for evermore. The same voice speaks even now to your hunger-bitten soul, to your famished heart, "Come and dine" (see John 6:51).

     And then there comes one last touch in the beautiful story. While these things happened, the day was breaking. Is there one of us long tossed on sunless seas of doubt, long conscious of failure and disappointment in life? Are there those of us whose sorrow lies deeper than that which is personal—sorrow over our failure in Christ's work, pain over a life's ministry for Christ that has known no victorious evangel? Turn your eyes from that barren sea to him who stands on the shore; he will yet make you a fisher of souls. Turn your eyes from that bleak, dark sea of wasted effort where you have fared so ill; it is always dark till Jesus comes, it is always light when he has come. And to each of us he says today, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever."

     "Come and dine." Will you come?
--- William Dawson

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers (27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

     According to the Bible, one of the most powerful apologetic arguments for the Christian faith is humanity itself. The Scriptures tell us that the wonder of the human body points to the creativity and genius of the Creator God in a way that should evoke both fear and awe (Ps 139:14). The human exercise of dominion over the created order reflects God's kingship over the universe (Gn 1:26), a kingship that is fully realized in the mediation of Christ Jesus (Eph 1:10). Man is created male and female in the image of God for a one-flesh union resulting in offspring, a union that foreshadows the reality of the Christ/church relationship (Eph 5:22–33).

     The Bible tells us that the human conscience testifies to the content and the rightness of the law of the Creator. Although human beings sought to define good and evil apart from the authoritative Word of God (Jms 4:17), God nonetheless planted within all children of Adam a witness to His standards of good and evil. The fact that fallen humans acknowledge any standards of morality indicates that there is a transcendent code of law, somewhere above merely constructing societal rules and boundaries (Rm 2:12–16). Moreover, as the Apostle Paul pointed out, this conscience points beyond itself to a day of reckoning. When humans make moral choices—or make immoral choices using moral arguments—they are actually acknowledging that they know of a day in which God will judge all the secrets of the heart (Rm 2:16).

     Regardless of how often fallen humans seek to classify themselves as merely biological, they know on the basis of their common rationality, morality, and search for meaning that this is not the case. No matter how many times Darwinians, for example, speak of humans as one more kind of animal, and no matter how many times some psychologists explain our behavior on the basis of evolutionary mechanisms, human beings know it just isn't so. We know there is something distinctive about us—which is why the Bible calls on us to appeal to the minds and consciences of unbelievers, even though the minds are blinded (2 Co 4:4) and the consciences are often calloused (1 Tm 4:2).

     Therefore, the biblical witness about human beings stands in stark contrast with other belief systems. Unlike some Eastern religions, the Bible does not present the life of a human being as a cycle of incarnations, nor does it affirm, as Mormonism does, the preexistence of disembodied human spirits. Unlike many nature religions and various forms of pagan worship, the Bible does not present humanity as part of the larger "life force" of nature. Unlike Islam, the Bible affirms the freedom and responsibility of human beings as moral creatures before a God whose image they reflect. Unlike many psychological theories, the Bible does not reduce human motivations or actions to the interactions of unconscious desires, habitual patterns, or the firing of neurons. Unlike Marxism and libertarian capitalism, the Bible presents the longings of the human heart as far more than material. Unlike Gnosticism or feminism, God's good creative purposes are seen in the goodness and permanence of sexual differentiation, in the equal worth of the sexes as image bearers (Gn 1:27), and in the protective, sacrificial headship of men as fathers of families and leaders of tribes (1 Co 11:3). In contrast to rival belief systems, the Bible presents human beings as distinct from a nature they are called to govern (Ps 8:5–8), free to act according to their natures (Jos 24:15), responsible for actions before the tribunal of Christ (Rv 20:12–13), and created for conformity to the image of Jesus as joint heirs of a glorious new creation (Rm 8:17, 29). The doctrine of the image of God grants value to every human life, regardless of its vulnerability or stage of development (Gn 9:6), and it stands in eternal hostility to any form of racial bigotry or nation-state idolatry (Ac 17:25–27).

     The Bible's truthfulness about human depravity contrasts strongly with belief systems that are more optimistic about human nature, such as Mormonism, Scientology, or secularism. Human sin is an apologetic issue since a Christian framework explains how educated, rational, loving persons can bring forth cruelty, violence, and hatred. The biblical teaching on sin also answers what may be the most persistent charge against the truthfulness of Christianity: Christian hypocrisy.

     Likewise, the prevalence of world religions and ideologies, which is often used as an objection to Christianity, actually serves as an apologetic argument for Christian claims. The Bible tells us that the universal instinct to worship and to interpret reality is grounded in the revelation of God and that the universal suppression of this truth leads to diverse idolatries (Rm 1:18–32). We should not be surprised, then, that literally every human civilization in history has had some practice of worship, but also that cults, world religions, and even secular ideologies often ape some aspects of Christian truth. Nor should we be surprised, as the ancient book of Ecclesiastes illustrates, when the human quest for sensual gratification, material abundance, or the wielding of power apart from the Creator's purposes leads to despair.

Cabal, T., Brand, C. O., Clendenen, E. R., Copan, P., Moreland, J., & Powell, The Apologetics Study Bible: Understand Why You Believe