Book Review: Ordinary

For the last few months I have been digesting a book that I think is one of the most important books I will read for a while. Usually I am someone that reads book very fast and frequently, but with this one I took my time... I read parts over and over, thought about them, and applied them in areas of my life.

This book is extremely important... Horton writes in a way that is applicable yet theologically grounded. There are parts of this book that get down into the details of ecclesiology that some might find boring, but these aspects of church-life are so very important and it hits at the core of modern day consumeristic church culture.

Ultimately, if you are someone that struggles with how God is using you in the every-day ordinary parts of life,  this book is a great reminder that because Jesus was extraordinary for us, that we are free to live a life that is ordinary... This ordinary life is not to be taken lightly though, because within the kingdom of God ordinary lives are making small impacts that will make a lasting difference in the world.

I took some time to write out parts of the book that stood out to me... If you don't have time to read this book at least read these highlights! Here they are:

• "We have forgotten that God showers his extraordinary gifts through ordinary means of grace."

• "What I need courage for is the ordinary, the daily every-dayness of life. Caring for a homeless kid is a lot more thrilling to me than listening well to the people in my home. Giving away clothes and seeking out edgy Christian communities requires less of me than being kind to my family on an average Wednesday morning or calling my mother back when I don't feel like it."

• "Even more than I'm afraid of failure, I'm terrified by boredom"

• "Changing the world can be a way of actually avoiding the opportunities we have everyday, right where God has placed us, to glorify him and enjoy him and enrich the lives of others."

• "We are growing bored with the everyday means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out."

•  "I am convinced that we have drifted away from the true focus of God's activity in the world. Its not to be found in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary, the everyday."

• "Excellence requires caring about someone or something enough to invest time, effort, and skill into it, with God's glory and our neighbor's good as the goal."

• "You pursue excellence when you care about something other than your own excellence."

• "The key is a loving, patient, attentive care to the things that really matter--things that we're likely to ignore in our overachieving rush to relevance and radical impact."

• "In the church today we do not need more conference, more programs, and more celebrities. We need more churches where the Spirit is immersing sinners into Christ day by day, a living communion of the saints."

• "Our tireless service is driven more by a desire for self-justification and self-acclaim than by being secure in Christ enough to tend now to the actual needs of others."

• "When we turn a godly passion for excellence into an idol of our own self-justification, we miss the truly radical thing that God is doing right under our noses."

• "Being 'ordinary' means that we reject the idolatry of pursuing excellence for selfish reasons."

• "We aren't digging wells in Africa to prove our worth or value. We aren't serving in the soup kitchen or engaging in spiritual disciplines because we long to be unique, radical, and different. When we do these things for selfish reasons, God becomes a tool for winning our lifetime achievement award. Our neighbors become instruments in the crafting of our sense of meaning, impact, and identity. What we do for God is really for ourselves."

• "There is a difference between frenetic activism and faithful activity in the daily struggles and joys of life."

• "The power of our activism, campaigns, movements, and strategies cannot forgive sins or raise the dead. "The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation" (Rom 1:16)

• "God does not need our good works; our neighbor does. - Luther"

• "God's church isn't a stage where we perform our solos. It is God's garden. It is a building that God is constructing in his Son, by his Word and Spirit."

• "We, as modern Christians, living under the alluring lights of a Las Vegas culture, find it difficult to enjoy more familiar, routine, and common pleasures."

• "Happiness is like a cat, if you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your leg and jumping into your lap. - William Bennett"

• "If you are always looking for an impact, a legacy, and success, you will not take the time to care for the things that matter."

• "Revival is God's extraordinary blessing on his ordinary means of grace."

• "Is the intense longing for revival itself part of the problem...? Is it not remarkable enough that Jesus Christ himself is speaking to us whenever his Word is preached each week?"

• Real growth is "slow growth in the same direction"... "If our Christian life is grounded in a radical experience, we will keep looking for repeat performance... But its the ordinary disciplines and not the extraordinary breakthroughs that make the change"

• "Ambition (in the original Greek NT) is selfish by definition"

• "Ambition is an empty pursuit, because none of us is truly the master of our fate."

• "When we are ambitious, each of us campaigns for the office of emperor. In the process, we're tearing Christ's body, our homes, our workplaces, and our society to pieces."

• "Relationships are more important than ambition: there's more to life than leaving home."

• "What would it say to our youth group if, instead of inviting the former NFL star, we had a couple visit that had been married for forty-five years...? What if we held up those examples of faithful service over worldly success stories?

• "We desperately need more Timothys and a lot fewer would-be Pauls in the church. We need to wean ourselves away from identifying particular churches as 'So-And-So's church,' from identifying the church with gifted speakers and charismatic leaders. 

• "There are no living prophets or apostles."

• "Jesus did no establish a movement, a tribe, or a school, but a church."

• "One example of the tendency to shift our focus from the ministry to the ministers is the proliferation of multi-site churches... My concern is that the model is more susceptible to a greater focus on the minister than on the ministry."

• "There are no apostles today, but ordinary pastors who shepherd particular churches together with the elders."

• "Christ's global garden grows concretely only in local plots."

• "We need to stop adding something more of ourselves to the gospel. We need to be content with the gospel... We also need to be content with his ordinary means of grace that, over time, yield a harvest of plenty for everyone to enjoy."

• "More than heroes we need a Savior."

• "The call to radical transformation of society can easily distract faith's gaze from Christ and focus it on ourselves."

• "Hearing this gospel, from Genesis to Revelation, is the means by which the Spirit creates faith in our hearts."

• "The call to change the world undervalues ordinary vocations that actually keep God's gifts circulating."

•  "God is building his kingdom in this world through his Word and sacraments, but we know that the kingdoms of this age will not be made the kingdom of Christ until his return."

• "True, there are many ordinary people who, precisely through their ordinary callings, sometimes make an extraordinary impact. Yet it is just as true that ordinary lives have an ordinary impact that is beautiful in its own right."

• "it makes a profound impression on a young person to be taken seriously by the minister of the whole flock."

• "We often miss the trees for the forest, looking for ambitious causes instead of actual people God has sent into our lives that moment, hour, day, or year."

• "We need to stop looking for extraordinary callings to give meaning to our lives, which often encourage us to think of others as tools in our self-crafting."

• "On the one hand, they're (women) expected to be Proverbs 31 wives and mothers. That's pressure enough. But on the other hand, they're also encouraged to be everything a boy can be, to do everything boys can do....We place these contradictory and unlivable expectations on our girls."

• "I'm suggesting that the burdens we place on women--even from childhood--make them anxious about life and drive them to expect dissatisfaction with the normal and everyday aspects of life that are so crucial for the development of deep roots, wisdom, and nature for the whole family."

• "Do we enjoy our neighbor? It's a lot easier to serve a neighbor than to enjoy him or her. It's a lot easier to see me and my service as a gift to someone less fortunate, without seeing a 'needy' person as a gift to me."

• "Apart from the surprising announcement of the gospel, we would vacillate between utopianism and nihilism."

• "There are two kinds of prosperity gospels. One promises personal health, wealth, and happiness. Another promises social transformation. In both versions, the results are up to us. We bring God's kingdom to earth, either to ourselves or to society, by following certain spiritual laws or moral and political agendas. Both forget that salvation comes from above, as a gift of God. "

• "Even if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today." - Luther

Worldview Movie Review: Lucy... a picture of typical science fiction and cult anthropology

This weekend I was able to watch the movie Lucy after the kids went to bed. Movies like this often catch my eye, because it is these types of movies that make the largest worldview claims. On a cinematic level the movie was really cool... great effects, and an interesting and cool story line... yet if one looks deeper there are some deep worldview assumptions that are really important.

In short summery Lucy is about a woman and a professor. The woman (Scarlett Johansson), who is forced to ingests an experimental recreational drug, begins to develop the use of all of her brain power. The professor (Morgan Freeman) has developed theories about the potential of the human brain and how powerful human beings can become if they just harness all of their brain power.  

(Spoiler alert) In the end, the brain of Lucy develops so much that she is able to move objects, read minds, and not feel pain. She becomes more and more in control, and more and more aware of the environment around her as her brain develops. As Lucy hits 90% of her brain power she begins to transcend time and space. She travels to different places and different times with just a thought. 

At 100% Lucy dematerializes and the researchers around her receive a text message that says "I am everywhere". Although this movie is science fiction, like many other movies of its kind, it makes a huge statement about humanity. 

According to this movie, in short summery, humanity can become God if the power of the human brain is fully realized. Man can become omniscient, omnipotent, spiritual, and omnipotent; all qualities that Lucy possess at the end of the movie. 

This type of idea is not unique to science fiction but has been the teaching of many false religions through history. Mormonism, for example, teaches the 'doctrine of exaltation' which is the idea that humans eventually become God and rule their own planets. Scientology teachers that after OTIII training humans possess God like powers and are able to move objects with their minds and read thoughts. Science fiction cinema often teaches something similar... that man will eventually evolve to the point of deity. This same idea is present in one of my favorite movies of the year, Interstellar. (spoiler alert again) In the end of the movie human beings became so evolved that they transcend time and space which is what enabled them to communicate in the past and save themselves. 

Sadly, however, as great as all of this sounds, it is far from the truth. God indeed created us in his image, yet there is also a clear distinction between the creator (God) and his creation (mankind). 

God is God. We are human.We will never become God even if we harness our full potential. But, you might ask, "aren't we supposed to be like God?" Yes, but we have to be clear on this... Theologians often make a distinction between God's communicable and incommunicable attributes. God's communicable attributes are attributes that we can posses like love, grace, mercy, justice, etc., yet God's incommunicable attributes are attributes we cannot and never will posses like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and infinitive. The latter, God's incommunicable attributes, we will never possess, in opposition to the claims of false religions and science fiction. 

Even at the consummation of all things in our glorified states we will only be a mirror pointing back to the glory of the creator.

The same lie of the serpent in the garden continues on in false religions and the science fiction cinema today... The serpent said to Eve in the garden, "You will be like God..." (Genesis 3:4). The movie Lucy says the exact same thing... Don't believe it.  

Interesting movie and fun to watch, but don't forget who God is... He is God alone and there is no other (Isaiah 45:5).

Book Review: Jesus Continued...

Over the weekend I was able to read Jesus Continued... by J.D. Greear.

I have never read anything by Greear, but this book seemed intereting... J.D. is a professor at Southereastern Seminary with a Ph.D in Theology, so my kind of guy! 

I really enjoyed this book. This is a book about the Holy Spirit and J.D. has a unique perspective, but one that is becoming more popular, in that he combines a strong Reformed doctrine while also remaining open and engaging with the charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit. I have found this perspective encouraging.... Some call it  "charismatic with a seat belt"... 

Ultimately this book is solid doctrinally, yet there were parts of it that made me just a little uncomfortable in relation to relaying on experience. However, as someone that is a very much a "thinker" I need constant reminders that although good doctrine is vitally important, it is not enough, and this book was a great reminder that a God has given us a dynamic experiential relationship through the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us... 

Here are some of the things Greer said that really stood out to me... 

In Scripture, the word of the gospel and the power of the Spirit always go together.

Christians tend to gravitate toward one of two extremes regarding the third person of the Trinity....Some pursue experience in the Spirit apart from the Word. Others, however, seek to know and obey the Word without any interaction with the Spirit.

But the Spirit and the Word work inseparably. One without the other leads to a dysfunctional Christianity. Just as a toaster without a plug is useless, biblical knowledge apart from the Spirit is impotent.

The same is true of the Spirit of God. His purpose is to illuminate the gospel and bring glory to Jesus. J. I. Packer calls the work of the Spirit a “floodlight” ministry, quietly turning everyone’s attention away from himself and to the Savior.

Where the gospel is not cherished, the Spirit will not be experienced.

And, on the flip side, where the Spirit is not sought, there will be no deep, experiential knowledge of the gospel.

Just as there is no real experience with the Spirit apart from the Word, so there can be no true obedience to the Word apart from the Spirit

Jesus claimed that having the Holy Spirit in them would be better than having him beside them.

Only through the Holy Spirit can we live victoriously over sin. In Romans 8, Paul’s great chapter on how to live the victorious life, he refers to the Spirit twenty-two times. (To put that in perspective, he mentions the Holy Spirit only ten other times throughout the other fifteen chapters of Romans!) The implication is clear: If we want victory over our sinful flesh, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

You see, when I read the book of Acts, I don’t have any problem seeing how the apostles would have considered the Spirit’s presence in them to be better than Jesus beside them! They turn out, after all, to be much more effective witnesses after Jesus leaves.

Now that the Holy Spirit had come, God’s power was not localized in one person in one place. He was in every believer, scattered all over the world with his power.

The Spirit takes God’s timeless truths and makes them come alive in us. He helps us understand them, shows us how to implement them, and empowers us to accomplish them. He transforms task lists into a relationship.

I once heard a Christian leader say, “Better to spend one hour on your knees pursuing the Holy Spirit than ten hours studying the Bible.” Tweetable, maybe, but very wrong. Better to spend one hour on your knees pursuing the Holy Spirit through the Bible.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Reformed, British pastor of a previous generation, said, “I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half telling them doctrine is not enough.

Many Christians, you see, function as deists. They act as if God rules from the heavens and has spoken in his Word, but does not act on earth or move in their souls — at least in any way that they can sense those movements.

The vibrant Christian life is a union of clarity in the Word and openness to the Spirit.

If you want to be led by the Spirit of God, then devote yourself to the Word of God.

The first time the Spirit preaches the gospel, he does so in all languages simultaneously. I can hardly overstate the importance of this. This was no mere random display of power! It was a sign. The gospel was not just a “Hebrew” thing; it was an “every people group in the world” thing.

the Spirit loves diversity, and Spirit-filled Christians possess an internal humility regarding their cultural preferences.

But the gospel is, in its essence, an announcement about what Jesus did to save people, not a presentation of what a good person you are. Sharing that announcement requires words, because you can’t really explain what Jesus did through charades.

Some Christians appeal to the quip attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.” With all due respect for St. Francis, how can you preach the gospel of Christ’s finished work without words? That’s like saying, “Tell me your phone number. If necessary, use digits.” The announcement consists of words.

God’s call to radical generosity begins with the good news that he doesn’t need us

God has no need of our help. We need to offer our lives to him because the gospel demands it, not because he needs it. And then we need to look inward to discover where and how the Spirit of God has called us specifically to help. Instead of being guilt-driven, we need to become grace-driven and gift-driven

The Holy Spirit, you could say, is always leading to the cross or from it, to carry its message of healing to others.

Our waiting is not passive, however; it is extremely active.

Because we already have the Holy Spirit, we don’t sit around in inactivity, waiting on Jesus to send something from heaven. We’ve already got it. We aggressively offer our lives in living sacrifice to his mission, looking to him to steer us in the where and how.

In order for the Spirit of God to lead your heart, he has first to reform it into the image of Jesus. Until that happens, you’ll never hear his voice rightly.

I plan to present six distinct ways in which we experience the Spirit’s presence: • The gospel • The Word of God • Our giftings • The church • Our spirit • Our circumstances

The Spirit of God makes that intelligible to our hearts. God sent the Spirit to illuminate that message and to spread it over all the earth

The gospel is not merely the entry rite into Christianity, but the source of our entire Christian experience.2 Every blessing in the Christian life flows from faith in the gospel, including the fullness of the Spirit.

The way we first received the Spirit is also how we grow “more full” in him. We received the Spirit not by asking for him, but by believing the gospel. So if we want to grow in the Spirit, we don’t just plead for more of the Spirit — we put renewed faith in the gospel! Fullness of the Spirit, you see, is the byproduct of believing the gospel. Prayer for the Spirit is great (Luke 11:13), but faith in the gospel is better.

Justification by faith dominates the first half of Galatians, and the fullness of the Spirit the last, because the former produces the latter. Justification by faith is the “root”; the fullness of the Spirit is the “fruit.” The two are inseparably linked

“Reckoning” ourselves dead to sin means believing that God has done what he said he did in the gospel.

We don’t produce fruit by working it up with self-discipline and resolve. We simply drive our roots deeply into the gospel and the fruit grows naturally.

The gospel is an invitation to relationship. To truly delve into the doctrines of the gospel is to commune with the God revealed in them by his Spirit. To fail to interact with the Spirit of God in the doctrines is to miss their real purpose.

Is “peace in your heart” really proof that God wants you to make a certain decision? I remain often skeptical about that. First, people often tell me about some colossally stupid decision that, at the time, filled them with perfect peace. I’ve done that too. Second, I made some of the best decisions of my life filled with fear and trembling. Third, I see in Scripture an enemy whose whole goal is precisely to give us “peace” about spectacularly wretched decisions. Fourth (and most important), I see nothing in Scripture telling us to look for peace in our hearts as proof the Spirit is behind something.

Augustine, a fifth-century Christian saint, summed it up best: The will of God? “Love God and do what you will!”

Some decisions are “trivial” and should be treated as such. God just wants you to make what seems like the best choice and move on without fear...

We should make decisions based on the best wisdom available to us at the time, and then trust God with all the butterflies....So, if you want to know which grocery store God wants you to go to, don’t wait for a warm feeling; find out which one has the best deals.

Much of the stress we feel about discerning the will of God comes from assuming we are responsible for both sides of this contract.

Sometimes, God gives spiritual gifts that have little to do with natural abilities, in part to highlight that power in ministry comes from God, not from our talents.

 “I would go into the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit, that I might know how to speak a word in season to the weary." - Spurgeon

Discovering your vocational abilities is part of learning how the Spirit wants to use you on earth....Perhaps you feel something deeply satisfying, even divine, in some kind of “secular” work...I know doctors, businessmen, lawyers, forest rangers, artists, nurses, and waitresses who feel that same sense of satisfaction — something akin to the “pleasure of God” — when they work...The Spirit of God works through all of his people as they engage their abilities to arbitrate a case, build a wall, paint a picture, treat a body, or tweak an assembly line.

The act of proclaiming and applying God’s Word to people in particular situations is the primary form of prophecy.

Have you ever had the strong impression to pray something specific for someone, not sure quite where it came from? Or a strong impulse that you needed to warn someone or remind them of a certain promise of Scripture? This very well might be the spirit of prophecy at work within you.

more havoc has been wreaked upon the world following the words, “God just told me . . .” than any other phrase.

Never claim the authority of God on your words, even if you feel convinced the Holy Spirit might be speaking through you.

Prophetic speech is strongest when tied to actual Scripture.

The gift of prophecy has a purpose: building up the church and guiding in mission. Use it only for those things.

The more Scripture you know, the more illumination the Holy Spirit can give regarding his will for various situations. God has never brought to my mind a Scripture I did not already know. Memorizing Scripture is like stocking myself with ammunition for the Spirit to fire as I pray — promises I can claim or warnings I can heed.

Be Cautious, But Not Cynical

As we’ve seen before, Paul often interpreted open doors as invitations by God to preach the gospel and closed doors as God’s direction to go elsewhere.

Open doors don’t always mean God is behind something...

Every open door should be viewed through the lens of Scripture and in the counsel of godly wisdom.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. (Deut. 29:29)

Think about it again: the most radically stupid decision humans ever made was to crucify Jesus, and yet God used that as our salvation.

Every believer has times in which they feel as though God is distant. Or absent altogether

God sanctifies us by humbling us. He works his salvation out in us by taking us through the valley of the cross, which often means feeling alone and abandoned.

If you are a believer, that feeling of being alone is always an illusion. In fact, it’s a divinely designed illusion — designed to strengthen your faith.

The essence of the cross was substitution. Jesus faced our aloneness — the utter abandonment we had brought upon ourselves through our sin — so that you and I would never have to. The Father turned his face away from his Son so that the Father would never have to turn his face away from us.

So when we feel abandoned — that’s all it is, a feeling. A lying, deceptive feeling. It has to be. Jesus faced the full measure of our aloneness in our place and put it away forever.

Here is a life-saving spiritual lesson: What you “feel” is not usually a good indicator of what really is

Tim Keller says a revival is “the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit (conviction of sin, regeneration and sanctification, assurance of salvation) through the ordinary means of grace (preaching the Word, prayer, etc.).

Martin Luther described his role in the Reformation: I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept . . . the Word did everything.

If you want to see revival, pray, pray, pray, and then pray some more

The key to a new movement of the Spirit of God is not found in a new technique, but in the “old” paths of gospel proclamation, earnest prayer, and yearning for the Spirit.

Sometimes we will hear how God is using some new discipleship method, preaching, or worship style to awaken others elsewhere; and we assume the key lies in that new method. Don’t be deceived. Faith in God’s mercy, not a new program, is the catalyst for releasing the Spirit, not the open-air preaching of the Great Awakening, the new music style of the charismatic renewal, or the cluster groups of the Brazilian revival that supplied the power of awakening.

Immediately after Jesus ascends to heaven, the early church remains in the upper room for ten days. We don’t know everything they did there, but we know that the main thing they did was pray (Acts 1:14)...Today, we shuffle the zeroes around: we pray for ten minutes, preach for ten days . . . and only three people get saved. What a difference the placement of those zeroes can make

Don’t miss the order: they prayed; the Spirit shook them; then they shook the world.

Our most important assignment, I believe, is to believe. God overflows with all the compassion and power necessary to save, and he can do more in a few moments than we can accomplish in 10,000 lifetimes. So as we labor, we ask. We keep our hands to the plow, but always looking to heaven with the hope that he will send down the power of the Holy Spirit just as he promised.

There is no “secret” to the Holy Spirit’s power, you see. It’s a promise God holds out to all who will seek it through persistent prayer.

This is what God does with all those whom he wants to fill with the power of his Spirit. He leads them down a path of humiliation and failure. He breaks them. He makes them weak in themselves so they can fill up with the power of God.

Here’s the bottom line: You will never be full of the Spirit so long as you are full of yourself.

if dependence is the objective, then weakness becomes an advantage.

A. W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.

Book Review: Crazy Busy

During this snow break I was able to read the book Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung today during Micah and Caroline's nap time. I have heard about this book for a while, wanted to read it, and after I got word that the book was $.99 on Kindle I had to jump on it! 

I loved this book! It was very much an encouragement to me, and the big take away for me was about priorities... Something I realize about myself is that a juggle lots of roles... Husband, father, teacher, coach, musician, student, leader at our church, etc. This book has given me a new focus to really be fully present individually in all of these roles, and yet still find rest while juggling these roles. It also caused me to think differently about social media and the priority it holds in my life, and also email and the expectations I have for myself and others. 

Here are a few of my highlights from the book: 

- Am I trying to do people good or trying to look good? we are more concerned about looking good than with doing good.

- The Ten Commandments are not easy commands. But they don’t overwhelm me. Doing something about the global AIDS crisis, tackling homelessness, getting water to an impoverished village—these overwhelm me.

- Is it possible that God is not asking me to do anything about sex trafficking right now?

- He didn’t want to say we should do something about all suffering, because we can’t do something about everything. But we can care.

- Every Christian should be involved in the Great Commission, but not everyone will move overseas.

- Jesus didn’t meet every need...He hid away to pray. He got tired. He never interacted with the vast majority of people on the planet...He spent thirty years in training and only three years in ministry... He did not try to do it all. And yet, he did everything God asked him to do.

- Jesus was so terrifically busy, but only with the things he was supposed to be.

- Jesus understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to

- Think about it: Jesus wasn’t just turning down an opportunity to play in the community soccer league. He said no to people who had diseases—diseases he could have healed instantly. The disciples didn’t understand why he wasn’t attending to the urgent needs right in front of him.

- Jesus understood his mission.

- Dave Crenshaw argues that the brain really can’t put forth effort in two mental processes at the same time. We are not multi-tasking but actually “switch-tasking.”

- Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to

- Kids are safer than ever before, but parental anxiety is skyrocketing.

- Parents make their work more difficult than it has to be because they overestimate how much depends on them for the future well-being of their children.

- While upbringing can make a big difference in the short run, scholars argue that, in the long run, grown twins display personality and sociological behaviors owing more to heredity than to environment.... His (Dave Crenshaw) contention, though, is that within the framework of a pretty “normal” family in the developed world, different approaches to parenting do little to determine the kind of adult the child will become.

- The best things we can do for our kids is to find a way to stop being so frantic and frazzled.

- The kids rarely wished for more time with their parents, but, much to the parents’ surprise, they wished their parents were less tired and less stressed.

- My point in unpacking Caplan’s book is not to make us all biological determinists. Our genes will never fully explain the variations in human behavior.

- While the proverbial wisdom of Scripture (Prov. 22:6) and the promises of the covenant (Gen. 17:7) tell us that good Christian parents and good Christian children normally go together, we must concede that God is sovereign 

- “Parents with unbelieving children, friends with children in jail, the discoveries of the geneticists, and the faith heroes in Hebrews 11 are all powerful reminders of this truth: We will parent imperfectly, our children will make their own choices, and God will mysteriously and wondrously use it all to advance his kingdom.”

- Certainly, there are lots of ways that good parents make their kids a little more manageable from day to day, but even the kid hooked on Angry Birds who just downed a pack of Fun Dip and is now watching his fifth Pixar movie of the week still has a decent shot at not being a sociopath.

- Just know that the longer I parent the more I want to focus on doing a few things really well, and not get too worked up about everything else. I want to spend time with my kids, teach them the Bible, take them to church, laugh with them, cry with them, discipline them when they disobey, say “sorry” when I mess up, and pray a ton.

- We must realize that, as the presence of digital devices and digital dependence grows, with this growth comes new capabilities and new dangers.

- I’ve noticed the same thing happening to me for the past few years. I can’t seem to work for more than fifteen minutes without getting the urge to check my e-mail, glance at a blog, or get caught up on Twitter. It’s a terrible feeling.compulsive nibblers of info-snacks.”

- “The only thing my mind can do, indeed the only thing it wants to do, is plug back into that distracted frenzied blitz of online information.”

- “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

- But we could do with a little more “distance” from technology, a little more awareness that there was life before the latest innovations and there can be life without it.

- To my surprise the “charter” (charter on emailing) had very helpful advice about reducing time spent on e-mail: don’t ask open-ended questions; don’t send back contentless replies; don’t cc for no good reason; don’t expect an immediate response. It’s amazing the way my impatience works. If I text someone, I expect a response in seconds. If I e-mail, I might allow for a couple of hours, but with friends I expect to hear back in a matter of minutes. Cutting back on busyness is a community project. We must allow that slow replies and short replies are not rude.

- We have to stop taking our phones to bed. We can’t check Facebook during church. We can’t text at every meal.

- Of all the little bad habits I have that contribute to my busyness, the habit of checking my e-mail right before I go to bed and checking it as soon as I wake up is probably the worst. 

- The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. We cannot be any of these things. We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choose wisely. 

- we should rest in Christ alone for our salvation. But along with that there is still an abiding principle that we ought to worship on the Lord’s Day and trust God enough to have a weekly routine where we cease from our normal labors. 

- But according to the Bible, both work and rest can be good if they are done to the glory of God.

- Many of us are less busy than we think, but life feels constantly overwhelming because our days and weeks and years have no rhythm.

- We never quite leave work when we’re at home, so the next day we have a hard time getting back to work when we’re at work.

- We have no routine, no order to our days. We are never completely “on” and never totally “off.” 

- God made us to need sleep, and when we think we can survive without it, we not only spurn his gift (Ps. 127:2); we show our mistaken self-reliance.

- Going to sleep is our way of saying, “I trust you, God. You’ll be okay without me.” We regale each other with stories of great saints who got up at four or five o’clock in the morning to pray, forgetting that in the days before electricity most people went to bed soon after dark and woke up earlier in the morning.

- By all accounts, we are sleeping less than ever before. The average American gets two and a half fewer hours of sleep per night than a century ago.

- Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep—not pray all night, but sleep.

- The antidote to busyness of soul is not sloth and indifference. The antidote is rest, rhythm, death to pride, acceptance of our own finitude, and trust in the providence of God.

- Mary’s example is not a summons to the contemplative life in a cloister. But it’s a pretty strong reminder that we had better keep first things first.