“Oh have you seen it?”
“I heard it was pretty bloody.” The small circle of thirty-something women stood talking loudly. Piercingly loud.
“It’s just a movie. I have this friend who thinks that everybody needs to see it.”
Three or four of them murmered undecipherably at the same time.
“I just hate that,” one responded to some unheard comment. “I went with my friend Carol, with a bunch of people from her church. You know what she said? ‘This is my Catholic friend, Debbie.’ That’s how she introduced me.”
More murmuring.
“Aren’t we all Christians? Eventually that’s just what I said. ‘Why did you have to single me out like that?’”
“Those people think they have to change everybody. What do they call it? Proselize… Protel- Prosel- Proselizing? What is the word?”

I turned back to my book, pretending not to overhear the obnoxiously loud conversation. Li Quan was walking through heaven, having just been beaten to death by his persecutor.
“This is a special guest invited to join the fellowship of martyrs on this occasion. He is the man who did surgury upon my eyes when I was a small child. It was he who led me to Yesu when I was a child.”
“Hudson Taylor?” Quan asked.
“Yes,” the man said.

“It’s just a movie,” another woman repeated for the second or third time, breaking my focus on the book.
The mixed conversations were impossible for an outsider to follow, but the meaning was becoming clear.
“We all believe in basically the same thing,” it eventually came to.
Another woman, Jewish it appeared, added, “We believe the first testament. We just don’t need more than that.”
“It all branches from the same thing. It’s all basically the same.”
The Catholic: “We started it.” She thought the idea was amusing.
“I went over to that Islamic place the other day and talked to the guy there.”
They continued noisily, but my thoughts became louder. Should I say something? No. What would I say? How would I say it?
I couldn’t help but notice what you were talking about, a small voice fed into me. I ignored it. I didn’t want to butt into their conversation.

Back to the book. It was just getting good, anyway. Ben Fielding had finally returned to the States from four months in China, and was now talking to his boss.
Ben sighed. “Maybe some things are more important than my being CEO.”
Martin looked at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Is this one of those body-snatcher deals? What have you done with the real Ben Fielding?”
Ben laughed. “I guess hearing myself say it, I’m as surprised as you are. But I mean it.”
“I hate to have to say it, Ben, but we’re all watching you.”
“You’re not my only audience,” Ben said. “God is watching me. And he sees everything, including a lot that you don’t.”
“Yeah? Well, we’re the ones who pay your salary.”
“Real gold fears no fire,” Ben said.
“What?”
“Something Li Quan used to say.”

“Well, are we going to stand here all day or are we going to go get coffee?” a loud woman’s voice broke in. Finally, they were leaving. I wanted to finish my book. They walked away.
That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard in a long time, I realized.

Only more sad was my heart when I reflected on it later in the car. Real gold fears no fire. Father, forgive me for my silence.

This one’s been tucked away for a couple years now. Inspiration just hit for some reason and I fixed a lot of errors in the meter (argh how I loathe structured poetry, haha). There is still a hiccup or two, but I thought I’d share it as is.

Flame
* * * * *
This flame that has so brightly burned
Through all the years this clock has turned,
It shall not wither, shall not die
For deep within our hearts it lies.
This flicker once so small and dim
Has brightly burned, for souls to win.
And though this race is long and hard,
We shall have triumph by His word.

Glory indeed belongs to Thee,
The great and blessed Trinity.
For though the weak, chosen by You,
Are poor, and suffering ensues,
You prove again, again to be
The ruler over earth and sea.
For by all Thy great sovereignty
Again You cause all earth to see
That You who good, will always be;
For by that good, You set us free.

So I’m considering buying new Bible. I’m starting to see several people using a pretty nice black ESV. I’ve never used ESV before, so I’m not sure what to think. I’ve always been an NASB, and more recently NIV, kinda guy.

The thing that’s funny, though, is that page at the beginning of every (English) Bible. Presented to [blank] by [blank] on [blank]. Does anybody ever fill this out? I mean, I suppose you do if you give the Bible as a gift. But every Bible I’ve ever owned, I bought myself. Can’t you just see it? Presented to Keith by Keith on Feb. 20. Then I’d add a nice little note. I think you’re swell. Or maybe something like You’re a great guy, enjoy this. Maybe I should get more serious. Oh you wretched sinner, you need this book. Could you imagine the double-take you’d get when you loaned it to somebody else during service and they happen to flip open to that page? It just may be worth it.

I can’t keep my eyes open. Really. I just sat down to pray and read at about 4:00 pm, and though I got some done, I found myself groggily waking at about 5:00. This, mind you, is after a nap I took just three hours earlier. I’m working the early shift. Have been since Thursday, and will be through next Friday. This means I wake at 3:40 am, shower, and run to work by 4:30, for 11 work days (I get to sleep in this Thursday). Going to camp this weekend sure didn’t help.

I’m never gonna make it.

I just returned from a wonderfully refreshing weekend at college camp, though I am unimaginably exhausted. These past three days have been some of the best I’ve had in a long time, just being with the Lord, and pleading earnestly before his throne. Pleading for a heart to love him more, pleading for the salvation of a couple non-believers that came up with us for the weekend, pleading for transparency with other believers, pleading for my family. After praying with a couple of the brothers last night, I walked away with an overwhelming sensation that God is the victor. We labor in a spiritual battle, a war where souls are won and lost. And our God wins. Always.

In Christ alone, my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song.
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

I’ve come away from this past week with a great realization of the weight of the gospel, the power of the cross. I’ve been a Christian for seven years. Seven years today. I’m sick of my sin. I’m sick of living for myself. I want to live for You. Three sentences I prayed that have been burned in my memory forever. I remember the date only because it was at a high school camp (always this same holiday weekend). I don’t believe there is any power in having a “moment” or a “date” when we are saved. I just happen to. And for me it serves as a wondrous memorial of the work he has done in my life; it’s always a time to reflect on how far I’ve come (or not come) in the last year, and, today, in the last seven years.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when striving cease!
My comforter, my all in all,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

I can see the general flow of the Lord moving in my life these past seven years: which years are good, what years were bad, what he taught me when. I think this year has been a great year of simplifying. Some years emphasized growing in my knowledge of biblical truths. Some in living out certain aspects of the Christian life. This year, and this week especially, has been taking me back to the cross. It’s not about knowing stuff or acting the right way, being good or standing for truth. It’s about God’s grace. Unmerited and unasked-for grace. What Christ did on the cross is so simple, so utterly at the core of all we believe. And yet I will never fathom the depth of what that means. How can I comprehend, or even attempt to comprehend, what it means for the God of the universe to humble himself below any man, to be whipped, and torn, and nailed to a beam of wood?

In Christ alone, who took on flesh.
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones he came to save.

And infinitely more unfathomable is what it means the that Trinity, who existed for all of eternity in a joy and bliss far greater than anything I have ever experienced, was torn apart for those six hours. God the Son, seperate from the joy of the Father and the Spirit for the first and only time ever, made the object of the molten wrath of God for the sins I committed today, and never even noticed, for the sins I committed years ago, and have long since forgotten, for the sins I will do in years to come, and have no way of knowing. Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabachthani!. The only time in his 33 years Jesus did not call God “Father.”

Till on that cross, as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin on him was laid.
Here in the death of Christ, I live.

No. That, I will never understand.