Favorite Reads of 2016

Here are my favorite things I remember reading this year (and one of my New Year's resolutions is to start keeping track of what I read!)

Christian Non-Fiction

Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson

A scholarly focus on the prayers found in the Pauline epistles, but organized in such a way that Paul’s example becomes very applicable.  I found the chapter on “A Sovereign and Personal God” to be very helpful, as well as the examination of how Paul prays for others (and what he prays for them).

Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home by Gloria Furman

This isn’t the book I was expecting (wanting) but one I needed.  I would have liked for Furman to have imparted some wisdom on how to make the whole mom/wife/chief-dish-scrubber thing easier, but she doesn’t.  Instead, she points to the ongoing need for the gospel in the life of every believer and reminds the reader that even (especially?) the mundane tasks of our ordinary lives are God’s means of our sanctification.  That dish-scrubbing has cosmic significance.  

Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore

The tag for this book reads: “Keep Christianity strange.”  Moore, who is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, contends that the “Christian America” that so many are remembering wistfully never actually existed--what was there instead was a cultural Christianity, focused around “good values” rather than redemption through Christ.  It’s passing is not bad news.  Because Christianity is no longer the assumed cultural default, it starts to seem weird, and Christians will have to articulate who we are and what we believe, and the gospel, not the almost-gospel of values and morality, will be heard.  

Other Non-Fiction

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson

I love Bill Bryson, who has written about quite a few things, but primarily travel and language.  One of his earlier works, Notes from a Small Island, was ostensibly a travelogue of his time in Britain, but worked more as a funny, though often petulant memoir.  His later travel-writing, especially his work on Australia, In a Sunburned Country, was more informative, with bits of interesting history and culture, while maintaining the hilarious personal narrative.  I often wished he would do another book on Britain in the newer style. The Road to Little Dribbling is it.

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast by Laura Vanderkam

I’m slightly obsessed with habits and trying to find the most effective methods of getting things done without going crazy.  This short work is full of useful, practical insights and anecdotes from Vanderkam’s research and interviews.  The print version of this also includes two other works by Vanderkam originally in e-book form: What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend and What the Most Successful People Do at Work.

Fiction

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

This one didn't make it to my comps reading list in grad school, so my director suggested I pick it up sometime once I was done with everything. I finally did, and, oh wow. Amazing. Nearly 1,000 pages of mystery, romance, detective story, legal drama, insanity, death, near-death, family ghosts, sorrow, redemption, and spontaneous combustion. Everything a Victorian novel should be.

A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery

I have a long-standing, very serious relationship with the works of L.M. Montgomery, and I am finally completing my collection (I only lack a few of the short story collections now).  A Tangled Web is one of the lesser known works, and it is rather different from the Anne books most are familiar with--it’s set later, in the early 20th century, and it’s a bit darker, more acidic.  It focuses on the feuds and rivalries of the interwoven Dark and Penhallow families, and shows off Montgomery’s decided powers of capturing a community, both its ordinariness and eccentricities.  

The Likeness by Tana French

This is my first novel by French (though it’s the second in her Dublin Murder Squad series).  The premise is interesting though implausible, but I most enjoyed the setting--an estate inhabited by a group of young, secretive English PhD students.  It’s low on gore, high on psychological games, with a distinct Victorian Gothic vibe in the midst of a modern detective novel.

Kids’ Books

The Big Book of Things that Go by DK Publishing

As a testimony to how much my two year old loves this book, I will admit that I have hidden this one many, many times to be spared yet another storytime with the same book.  It’s a  thorough detailing of trucks, trains, boats, construction equipment, and farm vehicles with photographs and border illustrations.  It’s not my favorite for reading out loud (there’s no narrative; it’s more like super brief encyclopedia entries), but the kid has accumulated quite a few hours poring over the over-sized pages.

On the Farm, At the Market by G. Brian Karas

We found this one at the public library and Nathan requested it quite a few times before we had to return it.  It is a narrative, with characters at different farms preparing their goods (veggies, cheese, mushrooms) for a farmer’s market.  The illustrations are cute, and we enjoyed a behind-the-scenes look at how beans are packed, cheese stirred in great vats, and mushrooms grown on artificial “logs.”  Good for inspiring the “where does our food come from” question.

Blogs

Modern Mrs. Darcy (Anne Bogel)

Bogel’s site is primarily about books--book reviews (I especially appreciate her ability to compose brief but amply informative synopses) and reading lists (there’s a 2017 reading challenge that looks interesting) and all kinds of literary goodness.  She also has a weekly podcast called “What Should I Read Next?” where she chats with a guest about their favorites and makes recommendations accordingly.  The Modern Mrs. Darcy and I seem to have similar taste and my to-be-read list is growing by the week.  

Challies (Tim Challies)

I came across Tim Challies’s blog when I was researching commentaries on Ephesians. The tagline on his blog is “Informing the Reforming” and he seems to specialize not only in book reviews, but in compiling information and references that are abundantly useful.  For example, he recently posted “The Collected Best Christian Books of 2016” in which he synthesized the “Best of 2016” lists from sites like The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God as well as from individual writers like Kevin DeYoung and Russell Moore (see above).  I appreciate this practical, bookish Christian resource.

Sanctification and Squash Casserole

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” Philippians 2:12-13

Paul is always good for a nice, mind-bending paradox. Look at these verses. He’s saying, basically, “Work because God works in you to work”!

Before we get into how this working works, let’s establish what the object of this work is: “your own salvation.” We know that in many other places Paul clearly argues that eternal salvation,
the salvation of the individual from hell is “not of works,” and instead is by grace through faith,which is “the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
So, I think that the salvation being discussed here is not the salvation from the penalty of sin, but salvation from the power of sin (to borrow a distinction made by Arthur Pink in his work, A
Fourfold Salvation). This salvation from the power of sin is also known as sanctification--the process of becoming holy, becoming like God. This process of sanctification is described a chapter earlier: “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God” (1:9-11). Sanctification is here pictured as growing in love, knowledge, discernment, approving what is excellent and so becoming pure and blameless, producing the fruit of righteousness to the glory and praise of God.

So, we return to the question: who does this work of sanctification? Are we doing the work? Is God doing the work? Both?
Here is what this paradox made me think of:
In my family, for big holidays, we all bring food to my grandmother’s house. For as long as I can remember, my sister and I have been in my mom’s kitchen the night before a holiday gathering putting together cakes, casseroles, and salads to take to my Gran’s the next day. The three of us work together in the kind of seamless synchronicity that only comes with years of practice.
The recipes are only reminders, largely unnecessary because we’ve made the dishes so many times, but they come out every year, either on the splotched pages of spiral bound cook books or in my mom’s handwriting on blue note pages.
One Thanksgiving, as dish after dish lined my grandmother’s countertops, one of my aunts asked me,“Do you know who made the squash casserole?” I immediately replied, “Momma did.” But then I thought, “Wait, didn’t I make it?” I had put it together and stuck it in the oven while on another counter a sweet potato casserole was being assembled and water was boiled for deviled eggs.But, my knee-jerk reaction was, if it came from Momma’s kitchen, she made it. It was her recipe, her ingredients, she’s the one who taught me to cook.

I wonder if sanctification is something like this.  Good things produced while abiding in the presence.  It is, of course, work.  But also pleasure and peace.  And, assuredly, something for which to give thanks.

Do We Have The Wrong Idea About Humility?

It's problematic that our understanding of humility and being humble has gotten rather entangled with our notions about self-esteem and confidence--that it, that being humble means having low self-esteem or lacking confidence, that humility is thinking "we're just not much good."  This doesn't seem quite sufficient though.  And maybe it's misleading.  After all, Christ is our ultimate example of humility and for him to think that he's "just not much good" is ridiculous.  So it must be something more.  Or something else.

Maybe the problem with thinking that humility means thinking "I'm just not much good" is that it's still a lot of thinking about "I."  Our focus then becomes the self, our own worth or lack thereof, how well we are managing to maintain the notion that we are lowly.

C.S. Lewis (of course!) so cleverly illustrates this in his work, The Screwtape Letters.  The senior demon instructs young Wormwood:

You must therefore conceal from the patient [that is, the Christian the demon is trying to tempt] the true end of Humility.  Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talent and character. (70).

 Instead, Wormwood is to undermine any attempt at humility on the part of the Christian by drawing his attention to it: "Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove!  I'm being humble,' and almost immediately pride--pride at his own humility--will appear" (69).  In Mere Christianity, Lewis further explains that if you meet someone who is truly humble, "he will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all" (128).  So, it seems that humility cannot be this inward focus on our own lowliness (whether accurate or not!).

What does humility look like then?  I think it has something to do with identity--our own self-perception of our identity and the rights and privileges thereof.  I think it might look like a cop wearing pink fairy wings.

A Facebook friend of mine posted a picture of her husband, a big, tough cop, playing with their young daughter.  He was very obligingly wearing pink, sparkly fairy wings.  The fairy wings were not in keeping with his identity as a big, tough cop, but he laid aside the rights he has as a big, tough cop to be perceived as a big, tough cop in order to love on his little girl.

I've observed similar occurrences.  The president of a university, whose position entitles him to more luxurious venues, eating at the cafeteria with students.  My dentist, laying flat out on the asphalt, changing the tire of a patient in his parking lot.  The missionary who leaves behind the comforts and security of their former lives to venture into new waters.  The shy, reserved church member performing on stage.

In each case, the individual chose to lay aside some aspect of their identity in order to serve someone else.  They could have said "That's not me."  Or, "Not my job, someone else can do it."  But they forgot themselves in order to love someone else.

What's the basis for this definition of humility?  Christ (of course!)  Paul instructs the Philippians:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (ESV Philippians 2:5-8)

Let's be clear.  Jesus is God.  Becoming human did not change the fact of his divine identity.  What happened was that he laid aside the rights and privileges associated with that divine identity--he "emptied himself" of those rights in order to become a servant.  His humility was demonstrated by the ultimate act of love--dying for us.

As followers of Christ, we know that we will also be called to suffer.  And rejecting some privilege can often be uncomfortable, or even painful.  But I think that, ironically, the experience of humility may have more to do with joy.  The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus "endured the cross" "for the joy that was set before him" (Hebrews 12:2).  My friend's husband, the big, tough cop, was certainly more concerned with the joy of loving his child than any sense of his own sacrifice.

C.S. Lewis (again) points to happiness as the ultimate outcome of humility:

The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself.  And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble--delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. (Mere Christianity 127)

 Contact with God will naturally result in humility.  And, it is only through humility that we can be close to God.  Our dignity, self-perceived identities, and estimations of ourselves are lost in the reality of who God is.

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity.  1952. New York: Harper Collins, 2001.
--. The Screwtape Letters. 1942. New York: Harper Collins, 2001.

Opening the Heavens: Daring to Seek God's Glory

Recently, the worship leader at our church introduced a new song to the praise choir: "Open Up the Heavens" by Meredith Andrews.  (See the music video here).   I was first impressed with the song's driving, impassioned tone (and also, of course, that the soprano part wasn't "screechy," my usual concern!).  But I also found it a little unsettling.  The imagery of the verses recalls the Old Testament period of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness--in the first verse, "Your glory like a fire, awakening desire, will burn our hearts with truth;" in the second verse, "Descending like a cloud, you're standing with us now. Lord, unveil our eyes."  As the Israelites moved about in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, they were lead by the presence of the Lord, who appeared as a "pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night" (Exodus 13:22).

Following each verse of the song, a pre-chorus builds the tension before the chorus bursts out with an exuberant demand: "Open up the heavens, we want to see you.  Open up the flood gates, a mighty river flowing from your heart filling every part of our praise."  The bridge becomes quieter, more reflective: "Show us your glory.  Shower us your power."

Given the imagery of the verses, I was reminded of the Israelites' less than enthusiastic response to seeing a glimpse of God's glory.  At Mount Sinai, God descended as fire on the mountaintop and the people had a visible manifestation of his glory.  Their response?  Terror: "Now when all the people saw the thunder and flashes of lightening and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood afar off and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die'" (Exodus 20: 18-19).

This is, of course, perfectly right: what other response can an unrighteous people (and by the way, that's all of us) have before the totally righteous God of all creation?  Faced with this glory, we must become aware of our obvious incompatibility with perfection.  Even Moses, who was specifically chosen by God to be his intermediary to the people, could not face God's glory without some element of danger.  God grants Moses' request to see God's glory, but he must be shielded.  God says, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by" (Exodus 33: 21-22).

If the Israelites were terrified of God's glory and Moses had to be shielded from a direct encounter with it, how then can we so boldly ask for our revelation?  There are a few reasons.  And they all have to do with Jesus.  Just as Moses was hidden in a rock, we who know Christ are also hidden in The Rock, "as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious" (1 Peter 2:4),  In him, our unrighteousness is covered by his righteousness, so we are no longer incompatible with the perfection and glory of God--this is the work of the cross and also reflects Christ's ongoing role as our advocate who "ever lives to make intercession for us" (Hebrews 7:25).  The gospel enables us to have contact with glory.

We can also boldly ask to see God's glory because it is part of his plan for our transformation.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3, "Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God....who has made us sufficient to be ministers of the new covenant" (vv. 4, 6), and it is because of this new covenant that "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (v. 18).  Seeing God's glory is the vehicle by which we are "transformed into the same image."  The same image as God!

We can also boldly ask because seeing God's glory is the source of joy, both for ourselves and for God himself.  As Gloria Furman writes, "'Behold your God!' is the most loving command we could receive from the Lord.  He is beautiful beyond our human capacity to describe, yet he exuberantly instructs his people to declare his glory (68).  An authentic vision of God's glory must naturally lead to the glorification of God.  Note the relationship between the expression of his glory and God rejoicing in Psalm 104:31-32:

"May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works,
who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!"  

God demonstrates his glory and rejoices in the work.  Note also, the response of the psalmist in the very next verse: "I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being."

So, how do we dare ask to see God's glory?  Because we are in Christ, being transformed by the manifestation of his glory to the glorification of God and our mutual joy.  As Paul writes, "Since we have such a hope, we are very bold" (2 Corinthians 3:12).  May this soprano sing "Open Up the Heavens" and every other song of praise all the more boldly.