This weekend, in church, we sang my favorite hymn, It is Well With My Soul, written in 1873 by Horatio G. Spafford. I decided to post the lyric here because, well, I like it. Enjoy.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

My esteemed colleague Joanna has awarded me with the prestigious Blogger Reflection Award.

I remember the first time I heard of the Blogger Reflection Award, as though it were yesterday. Actually, more like the day after yesterday. I was sitting at my desk this morning, reading my usual blogs (see the sidebar on the right; note to self – update the sidebar). And I read the above-referenced post from Joanna, where she was awarded the Blogger Reflection Award herself. (To keep from typing that over and over, I will hereafter refer to it as the “Reflecty.”)

After gushing over the honor of being a Reflecty recipient herself (“Thanks, Ashley!”), Joanna proceeds to nominate others for this prestige, along with the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award which, sadly, I did not qualify for. Some sort of technicality.

Writes Joanna,

James, a coworker, has a blog that he fills with book reviews, links, and very reflective thoughts on faith. His deep thought always challenge me to examine my own heart and beliefs, and I appreciate it.

Thank you, Joanna, for this award. Part of me wonders if the award is to put pressure on me to come up with more deep thoughts. I shall certainly try to live up to the challenge. In the meantime, there’s always this.

Note: Part of receiving this award is to then pass on to others. I will therefore also be trying to come up with other reflective blog favorites to nominate.

A Christian complains he cannot pray. ‘Oh, I am troubled with so many distracting thoughts, and never more than now!’ But has he put into your heart a desire to pray? Then he will hear the desires of his own Spirit in you… God can pick sense out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in his ears than your sins. Sometimes a Christian has such confused thoughts that he can say nothing but, as a child, cries, ‘O Father,’ not able to express what he needs…

‘Oh, but is it possible’, thinks the misgiving heart, ‘that so holy a God should accept such a prayer?’ Yes, he will accept that which is is own, and pardon that which is ours…

God accepts our prayers, though weak, because we are his own children, and they come from his own Spirit; because they are according to his own will; and because they are offered in Christ’s mediation, and he takes them, and mingles them with his own incense.

There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost. And as every grace increases by exercise of itself, so does the grace of prayer. By prayer we learn to pray.

from The Bruised Reed, by Richard Sibbes, 1630.

This past weekend, in Sunday school, we were studying the return of Israel after the Babylonian captivity, and the huge celebration they had in Ezra 6. One of the students, a young lady, asked how they celebrated birthdays back then. So…

There are two references to birthday celebrations in Scripture. The first is Pharoah’s, during the time of Joseph, when he restored his cupbearer and had his baker killed:

Genesis 40:20-23

20 On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. (ESV)

The second is Herod’s at the time of Christ, when he beheaded John the Baptist:

Mark 6:21-29

21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 For when Herodias’s daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.” 23 And he vowed to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.” 24 And she went out and said to her mother, “For what should I ask?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.” 25 And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26 And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. 27 And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison 28 and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (ESV)

According to Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary:

BIRTHDAY — the day or anniversary of one’s birth. The word “birthday” is used three times in the Bible: once of Pharaoh (Gen. 40) and twice of Herod Antipas (Matt. 14:6; Mark 6:21). The birthdays of kings and other high officials were regularly celebrated, especially in Egypt and Persia. But the anniversary of a common person’s birth apparently was not celebrated as much as it is today.

So the verdict? Yes, birthdays were celebrated, but mainly for royalty and “other high officials.” And judging from the biblical accounts, the celebrations were elaborate. But the “common person”? Probably not so much.

Read the Bible first.
It is important to read what God is saying in the morning before reading what bloggers or news reporters have to say.

And other advice on being a better blog reader here.

I was going to include this in the Random Thoughts post I just did, but I found this one so good I had to set it off to itself.

Melinda at Stand to Reason writes that It’s Not All About Us:

Most preaching in church these days is focused on personal application. That’s been the trend since about the 70s, which was probably a needed balance to the lack of it before. But I’m concerned that we have developed a habit and mentality that leads us to look for personal application all the time. In other words, we’re thinking about ourselves rather than God. There’s something to learn from every bit of the Bible, but sometimes it’s about God, not us.

That’s a wonderful point. We could go crazy if we try to think of a personal “application” for a verse like this:

Revelation 4:8

8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!” (ESV)

But not only does it teach us something about God, there actually is a personal application there. Do you see it?

No?

Here it comes…

The thing to take away from a verse like this, the real practical application for your life, is that you should bow down and worship your amazing creator God who was and is and is to come. That’s the application. Apply it to worship. Apply it to your fear of God. Apply it to your understanding of who God is, who you are, and what all the implications of that are. Praise God.

• Steven Kreloff, guest blogging at Pyromaniacs, wonders Is “Messianic Judaism” a Good Idea?
• Chez Kneel asked recently asked why the priests were allowed to eat the breast and thigh of the Peace Offering, and answers it today.
• Peter Mead makes some very good points about sermon points (or teaching points) in Pointers for Points
  (so point your browser on over there)
• Lifehacker gives us, courtesy of the New York Times, 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less
• Irish Calvinist (who also recently updated his site) reminds us that God is near, and [we] need to act like it. (Erik has a way with titles. Check out his tracts, also.)
• Mark Dever is exploring the reasons behind the surge of interest in Calvinism.
• John Piper explains why parents must be united in front of their children.
• And Josh at Desiring God reminds us to READ. So, read something this weekend!

Men must not be too curious in prying into the weaknesses of others. We should labour rather to see what they have that is for eternity, to incline our heart to love them, than into that weakness which the Spirit of God will in time consume, to estrange us…
Where most holiness is, there is most moderation, where it may be without prejudice of piety to God and the good of others. We see in Christ a marvellous temper of absolute holiness, with great moderation. What would have become of our salvation, if he had stood upon terms, and not stooped thus low unto us?

from The Bruised Reed, by Richard Sibbes, 1630.

OK, if you use a newsreader like Google Reader to read the site, I apologize for the flooding of old posts this morning. I’m trying to get Technorati to recognize my recently-implemented tags.

Also, I recommend not visiting the site itself at the moment, as things are a bit slow until that’s done. I recommend trying later this afternoon…

Update, 4:20 PM: I’m done playing with  the site. For now.

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve updated the look and feel of the site. I think this new theme is easier to read than the old one. I’ve also spent the past few days going through and cleaning up some old posts. I haven’t changed any content, but I have…

• Updated broken links where I found them, particularly internal ones from when I migrated the site to WordPress
• Fixed old pictures (baby pics!) that were lost in the migration also
• Updated all Bible links/references to use the cool ESV plugin. I also hacked the plugin to be able to use the Flash player for the “Listen” link at the top of each Bible excerpt. Try it out, and listen to the Bible being read to you as you read my posts.

And that’s about it for now. I’ll be tweaking the sidebars over the coming weeks, so keep an eye on those. Until next time…