The Importance Of Beauty

It's been a busy month. No, scratch that, it's been a busy year. I suppose that buying your first house and having your first child within six months of each other can do that. It's been a good year too, but busyness, even normal every day busyness, is corrosive. It wears us down and the enemy is right there waiting to use it to separate us from our hearts. Despite the joy this year has brought I've felt the busyness of the year beginning to wear on me.

Fortunately God has provided the cure: beauty. I believe that's one reason He placed us in as beautiful a world as He did. He knew we'd need it and lots of it if we were going to survive the busyness of life. Beauty brings restoration if we're willing to let it. And I'm not just talking about Grand Canyon level beauty. I'm talking about the sort of beauty we see when we look out the window at the leaves changing color, the type of beauty we find in the stillness and peace of a quiet afternoon, the way a good story stirs our hearts in a way that seems impossibly true and right.

We need beauty to remind us of the larger story because busyness isn't only corrosive, it's distracting. When Peter got out of the boat to walk on water he got so busy trying to figure out how he was doing what he was doing that he forgot he lived in a story where things like walking on water are an every day occurrence. He got sucked into his own small story where all he could see were the waves and his own inadequacy to do anything about them. It wasn't until he looked again at the beauty of The Master that his heart was restored.

Beauty can't be explained, it simply is. You can't possibly explain why Pachabell's Canon is beautiful and if you could you'd probably ruin it. It just is. And that's so important because for as much as I believe that learning, building, conquering and working are all good and noble parts of life God has given to us, we need to also have times where we simply stand in awe.

Beauty reminds us of God's heart towards us. He is the great romancer who is pursuing us, fighting for us and desperately in love with us. We are the bride of Christ and we must let beauty remind us of this.

For me lately, God has been using music. These are a few of the pieces that have been speaking to my heart.



This is an awesome guitar version of Together We Will Live Forever from The Fountain. I love playing this song on piano. The acoustic guitar used here is nothing short of haunting.



From the third season soundtrack of Battlestar Galactica, but don't let that scare you off. This is a great piece of music for nerds and non nerds alike.



My favorite piece of music, Canon in D. I have a ton of different arrangments on my ipod. I can (and have) listen to this over and over again.

The Insanity Begins!

If you thought I was nuts when I put together my 8,000 piece puzzle of The School of Athens, then you're really going to think I've lost it now. This weekend I started working on a 24,000 piece puzzle. It's the largest in the world and has only been completed a hand full of times.

The finished puzzle measures in at 14 feet by 5 feet., which presents a little bit of a challenge in terms of space. Thankfully, we have a couple spare rooms still, one of which is just barely big enough.

Before I started I built a foam board backing that I'm using both to construct the puzzle on and later to mount it on. Since no one sells a 14ftX5ft piece of foam board I had to put it together using several 40X32 pieces. I built two overlapping layers to give it stability and then glued them together using spray adhesive. Moving it was a bit of a challenge but we did manage to get it out of the garage and into the downstairs spare room.

The puzzle comes in four bags of 6,000 pieces each and most people who've put this thing together have done it as four 6,000 piece puzzles. To each their own, but for me I've already done a 6,000 and 8,000 piece puzzle and if I'm going to do a 24,000 piece puzzle then I'm going to do a 24,000 piece puzzle. So I emptied all the bags into the box and shook it to mix them up before I started.

I have no idea how long this will take to finish. There's a ton of variety in the picture but 24,000 pieces is going to be tough no matter how you slice it.

Check out worldslargestpuzzle.com to see what the finished product will look like and to see other people who've finished the puzzle. I'm hoping to become the first person in Minnesota to finish after mixing all 24,000 pieces

Ellie helps to model just how big this puzzle is,
even while still in the bags!

Ellie in the puzzle box

After mixing and dumping all 24,000 pieces onto
my foam board monstrosity

Out of Isolation, Into a Fellowship of the Heart

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone."
-Genesis 2:18a

Isolation is something that can be a struggle for me. I enjoy other people and love deep conversation. But at the same time I am naturally introverted, I love to be home and am perfectly happy to spend an entire weekend by myself with some books, some movies and my piano.

None of that bothers me. It is who I am and I make no apologies for it. But at the same time, I know full well that the enemy loves to exploit those introverted parts of my heart and drive me into isolation.

I've spent much of the last year praying against isolation and that God would lead Annie and I to a good fellowship. It's been awesome seeing Him come through.

This was a bad week. Not because of the stress of a new baby. Actually, Elise hasn't been all that stressful and I'm never more relaxed than when I'm holding her. But despite how well things are going with the baby I felt very assaulted this week. To start with we had a flat tire on our van. It wasn't a huge deal but having a fussy baby in the car well I'm trying to get the spare on made the situation that much more stressful. Add in the normal stress of work and the terrifying economic news and the week was not off to a great start.

But the real assault started Wednesday. Sam, our golden retriever puppy, was outside on his tie out. Since we've been busier with the baby we've tried to have him out there more so he can have some time to explore outside on his own. Anyway, he saw me and took off in my direction at full speed. He reached the end of his rope, his neck snapped back violently and he screamed like I've never heard him scream before. My first thought was, "his neck is broken." Maybe it was an overreaction but I felt positive he was going to die. I ran to him, scooped him up and drove him to the emergency vet.

Sam was ok after a while. He irritated some nerves in his neck pretty bad but the vet seemed confident he'd make a full recovery. She gave us some pain meds and sent us home.

All day Thursday Sam was doing great. He was walking around as though nothing had happened. He wasn't too fond of his new harness collar just yet but he was adjusting. Around 5, I was doing some work in my office and I heard Sam chewing on one of his bones. I thought nothing of it and kept doing what I was doing. After about 5 minutes I got up and realized it wasn't a bone he was chewing on. He'd found his pain medication bottle and by the time I'd found him he'd eaten every pill in there. For the second time in 24 hours I thought my dog was going to die.

We called the vet and were given instructions on how to make him throw up. Thankfully it worked and he seems to be ok. But it was a very scary couple of hours.

On Friday I felt beat up and depressed. I felt terrible for leaving Sam's pills where I did and emotionally wrung out from the previous two days. Sam may be just a dog but he's also become a member of the family and it was very tough feeling that close to losing him twice. I felt depressed like I haven't in a long time.

Friday night was small group. During the day I didn't feel like going or doing anything else but sit on the couch and feel bad. But we went and it was awesome. It's a fairly new group but in the few months we've been meeting we've already grown close. Spending a few hours with our fellowship of the heart was refreshing and healing. I left feeling like a new man

Genesis 2:18, where God says, "It is not good for a man to be alone", obviously has to do with marriage but I think the application goes even deeper. Marriage is important but we also need intimate fellowship and community within the Body of Christ. Now, I'm all for going to church and I think larger meetings of the Body like that are important. But we also need a small intimate fellowship. It's impossible to be intimate with a church of 2,000 or even 200. Church is important but we need more.

When I first started praying a year ago for this sort of intimate fellowship a year ago I didn't know if it would ever happen. I'm pretty shy and am very capable of being socially awkward, saying dumb things, and being obnoxious. But God has been faithful and it's awesome. If you don't have a fellowship of the heart start praying for one and fighting for one now. It's available if we ask for it, even for the introverted and socially awkward.

Abortion and The Election

These are two of the best videos I've ever seen on abortion and the 2008 Presidential Election. The first one is on abortion specifically. The second is on the election and conservative values. Thanks to John C. Wright's blog for linking to these.

Point for point, this guy is 100% right on the money. Together these are two of the best arguments I've heard in a long time for the pro life movement and conservative values.

Reflections On Becoming a Father

One week ago today my life changed forever


I've struggled with what to write about this because I'm not sure an experience like having your first child can be put into words. So instead let me just pull a few thoughts and feelings from the jumble of emotions that's been running through me this past week.

I don't care how many ultrasounds I saw or kicks I felt, nothing could have prepared me for the first moments of seeing Elise. It was overwhelmingly wonderful, like nothing I've experienced before. After nine months, it was tough to believe it was real. It's been a great first week with her but nothing compares to those first few minutes.

Having Ellie has been a great reminder of the larger story. Last Monday was not such a hot day for news as the Dow dropped more points than in any other day in history. But even as caught snippets of the bad news later that night in our hospital room, nothing could have changed my mind that this was one of the best days of my life. What goes on in the world is important but my family is a larger and more important story. Thinking about that reminded me that even beyond my family there's a larger story still, God's story. I see introducing Ellie to that larger story as being my primary mission as a parent and it's good to have that reminder in the front of my mind during her first few days.

Ellie is a blast! I've been excited about being a dad but I didn't think it would be this much fun. It doesn't matter if she's awake or asleep, I just love being with her.

I was reminded again this week about how precious life is and how it needs to be defended. The fact that there are prominent leaders in this country (including one who could very well be our President) who, through their support of partial birth abortion, think it would have been perfectly acceptable to end Ellie's life just moments before she was born is horrifying. It makes me sick and furious just thinking about it. Thanks to our current President we don't, for now, need to worry about that particular evil act but there's still a long struggle ahead, both legally and for the hearts and minds of this country, to end abortion and defend life. Looking in my daughter's eyes I'm reminded again of just how worth it that cause is. Please, pray for the end of abortion and that we would have leaders who care about life.

Finally, I've been reminded again and again this week that if I can love Elise as much as I do, how much more does God love me? If I would do anything to protect and care for her, how much more is God desiring to protect and care for me? I'm thankful I'm Ellie's daddy but I'm even happier that she has another Daddy who loves her and cares for her even more than I do.

"He Made Virture Accessible"

For the past few weeks I've been reading Les Miserables (a fantastic book, by the way. If you're not up for the entire 1,500 page tome at least see the Liam Neeson adaptation). One of the parts that's stuck in my mind is from the beginning of the novel where Victor Hugo is describing the Bishop of Digne. He's talking about the Bishop's relationship with his people, his generosity and how he inspires others around him to good works. Hugo writes that the Bishop made "virtue accessible" to those around him.

That's exactly what Christ wants to do for us. A while back I wrote about holiness and how mistaken views of holiness lead us to lean either towards legalism or moral relativism. I think that we're in danger of both of those tendencies when we miss what God is doing here. When we see holiness as something far away and inaccessible we'll either tend towards legalism, believing holiness is attainable only for those with an extreme sense of discipline, or towards relativism, beliving holiness is so far away that it would be impossible to ever acheive and a waste of time to try.

I believe this is one of the reasons Jesus didn't discriminate over who He spent time with. He hung out with the rich and the poor. He gave some of His most profound teaching to a socially lofty man in Nicodemus and He chose lowly fishermen to be among His closest friends. He made His virtue accessible to anyone and everyone who was willing to receive it and called all of them into a richer and deeper life than they had ever imagined.

Jesus was able to do this because He saw who these people truly are. Beneath all of their sin and pain and woundedness He saw their true selves, their hearts, the people God had in mind before the foundations of the world. He saw it and He called it out. Virtue to Jesus was not something distant and inaccessible. It was and is Him calling His people back to Eden. It's His forgiveness and grace for sin. It's His healing and restoration for our wounds. It's His life that He always meant for us to live.

When we strip away the idea of God being an annoyed father who cannot stand to look at us until we shape up (legalism) or an easy going, distracted father who doesn't care what we do one way or the other (relativism) it's amazing what He can begin to accomplish in our lives. What takes those mistaken views of God is loving, available, passionate Father who is intimately involved in our restoring our lives to what they were always meant to be. God has made virture accessible to us. Now He is waiting for us to make ourselves accessible to Him.

What's Your Glory?

A while back I posted about purpose and what it looks like to begin to find God's plan for our lives. It's a subject that's stuck with me through the last couple months and one that God has continued to speak to me about. As I've been thinking, I'm beginning to wonder if we're not asking the wrong question. Whenever we begin to look at this topic we usually ask questions like what does God want me to do? What work has He prepared for me? What am I supposed to be doing with my time here on Earth? Those are all valid and worthwhile questions that God does want us to find answers to. But in order to find those answers, I believe we need to ask another question. A question that's at the heart of all our other questions about purpose. We need to ask God what our glory is.

We tend to shy away from this side of purpose because it sounds a bit self centered. Most of us when we think of purpose rightfully believe that that purpose is going to be first and foremost about serving God and others. That's true. We are part of a whole, the body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven. Christianity is not a giant ego trip, it's an invitation to step into something much larger than yourself. So yes, it's absolutely true that our purpose, the work God has for us, is going to be for the benefit of others and His kingdom.

But it's not the whole truth.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know by now that I passionately believe God cares about our hearts and that the heart is central to the Gospel. He cares who He made us to be and restoring us to that person. He cares about healing our hearts and bringing us life. God is passionate about us as individuals. With that conviction in mind, I also believe that God made us individually in such a way so that we will come alive, step into our glory, by doing the work He has for us. In other words, when we talk about the work God has for we're actually talking about the very things that make us come alive.

As I'm beginning to discover more about my glory and purpose one thing I have tried to do is pay attention to what my heart is doing in any given situation. What sort of situations, stories, conversations, etc. make my heart feel alive? Then I go deeper into those things and start to explore what specifically about that situation, story or conversation made my heart alive. What is God saying to me through my heart's reaction?

One example for me has been playing the piano. Ever since I started playing a year ago I've known that I love it and that it's a huge source of joy in my life. But lately I've been asking myself what about it makes me love it. As I've paid attention I've realized that there's something in my heart that loves to play something beautiful and complex and especially to share it with others. My heart had the same reaction when Annie told me she wanted me to put together my puzzle of Monet's Starry Night so I could hang it in the bedroom. I was being invited to create something complex, beautiful and then to share it with my wife. It's not my main purpose or glory but it's certainly a part of it that God is inviting me to live out.

What makes you come alive? How does God want you to live it out in the work He has for? Those two questions are the key to finding your glory and ultimately your purpose. Invite God to show you your glory, to make you come alive. He will and as He does you'll begin to find your purpose and your place in the larger story.

New On My Office Walls

It turns out that gluing and mounting a gigantic puzzle isn't nearly as tough as you'd think it would be. Up until a week ago I'd never glued any puzzle, gigantic or otherwise, so before I risked ruining my 8,000 piece School of Athens I decided to try gluing and mounting a smaller one.

I settled on a 1,500 piece map of Middle Earth that I'd done once before. I chose it because it's both a pretty cool picture that would look good on my wall if the gluing worked out and because I didn't care that much about ruining it. For some reason I don't really like doing puzzles of maps so while I wasn't going to be too broken up if the project went down in flames. It took a couple days to put together and then came the moment of truth. I opened up the first jar of puzzle glue and started to spread it on. It was so thick and white that I could barely see the picture after I was done. I was thinking, "This should dry clear, right?"

Thankfully it did. I did another coat, used craft glue to put it on foam board, trimmed the edges of the foam board, and the result was fantastic!


Next up was the big one. I had to order more glue since I'd only bought two bottles, the map took over one bottle, and the other puzzle is five times bigger. The glue I used this time I worked even better. It took only one coat for most of the puzzle and then a second around the edges. I mounted it on two 60x40 sheets of foam board, trimmed the edges and used a heck of a lot of 3M mounting tape to get it on the wall.

I don't think I really appreciated just how HUGE this thing was till I got it on the wall. It looks great in the office and I'm really happy I decided to glue it.




I did one more puzzle once all that was done. This one is 2,000 pieces. I'd done it once before and thought it would look good in my office. Unlike The School of Athens, it's by no means great artwork but it's still a fun picture.


My new sword also arrived in the mail this week. It's a replica of the William Wallace sword from Braveheart. It was being sold at Boot Camp and it has Wild at Heart inscribed on the blade. I mounted it using a magnetic sword mount which makes the sword look like it's floating on the wall. Very cool.


Next up I'm doing a 2,000 piece puzzle of Monet's Starry Night. Annie thought it would look good in our bedroom. Then, in a few months I'm hoping to start on this one. It's 14 feet by 5 feet and 24,000 pieces.

More Than Forgiveness

1 Then the angel showed me Jeshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. The Accuser, Satan, was there at the angel’s right hand, making accusations against Jeshua. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “I, the Lord, reject your accusations, Satan. Yes, the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you. This man is like a burning stick that has been snatched from the fire.”

3 Jeshua’s clothing was filthy as he stood there before the angel. 4 So the angel said to the others standing there, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And turning to Jeshua he said, “See, I have taken away your sins, and now I am giving you these fine new clothes.”

5 Then I said, “They should also place a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean priestly turban on his head and dressed him in new clothes while the angel of the Lord stood by.

Zachariah 3:1-5

One of the things I try and pray on a daily basis is to renew my commitment in Christ to put off my old, sinful nature. I do this both because it's a much needed reminder of where Christ has brought me from and because not a day goes by where some part of me doesn't return to that sinful nature.

Lately as I've been thinking about this I've realized that while it is helpful and needed to pray this daily, and while I do genuinely believe it, I have a hard time living it. As I've been talking to God about why that is, He's been reminding me that while forgiveness, stepping out of our sin and having our slate wiped clean are all wonderful and beautiful promises God has made to us they're not the whole story.

I love the imagery in the passage above. It's exactly what's going on in our lives. The enemy has done his best to take us out and he's got a list a mile long of reasons why God should reject us but instead God rejects him. The picture of a stick snatched from the fire is a beautiful image of Christ's redemption. Just when everything seems hopeless, He comes and rescues from our sin.

But I also love that it doesn't end there. There's a promise in the last two verses that God isn't about just rescuing us and then leaving us to fend for ourselves. What He's up to is restoration, healing, growth and adoption.

There's a beautiful picture of this in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Early on in the story, Fantine, a single mother, is forced to leave her infant daughter, Cosette, in the care of the Thenardiers. She is to pay them a monthly rate and in return they will care for Cosette as one of their own. Eight years later the Thenardiers have long since broken their part of the bargain. Instead of treating her like a daughter, they've made Cosette a slave and are constantly demanding more money each month. Fantine is unable to go to Cosette herself but Jean Valjean promises Fantine that he is going to rescue her daughter.

When Jean Valjean arrives at the Thenardier's inn, Cosette is, in between beatings, being forced to knit new stockings for the Thenardier's daughters, even though she is denied any stockings for herself, new or old, and goes the whole winter in bare feet. Jean Valjean buys the unfinished stockings from the Thenardiers and in doing so he buys the time Cosette would have spent knitting them. He tells her that she is to use that time to stop working and play, something she's never been allowed to do.

It's wonderful. He comes into her life and gives her a freedom from her slavery she had never imagined possible. But there's one problem. Cosette has never been allowed a single doll her entire life. She has nothing to play with. She has her freedom but something's missing.

Jean Valjean goes out of the inn and comes back with the nicest, most expensive doll in the village. Cosette has seen it before but always believed that only a princess would be able to own such a doll. In a few moments, Jean Valjean's love has transformed her from a slave to royalty. He goes on to take her far from the cruelty of the Thenardier's and adopts her as his own.

That is exactly what God promises to do for us.

The reason I struggle (and I suspect I'm not alone) with putting off my sinful nature is because I forget that that's not the end of God is up to in my life on any given day. The freedom from sin He offers is wonderful but we must realize that we need more. We must not be content with just forgiveness when what God is really offering, what He truly desires and longs for, is to make us sons and daughters. Put off your sinful nature and do it daily. But remember too to step into your new nature and the life God is offering.

Two Questions

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10

As I've been going through the last few weeks of warfare and starting to live out everything God showed to me at boot camp, I've found myself returning again and again to John 10:10. If you were trying to sum up the entire story of the Bible in a single verse I don't think you could do much better than this one. Yes, there's much more to the Gospel and to the Christian life but when it comes right down to it, what is going behind all of that other stuff is Jesus trying to restore and the enemy trying to destroy us.

With that in mind, as I've been thinking about this verse I've found that God has been using it to ask me two questions: What is Christ doing to give me life to the full? How is the enemy trying to steal, kill and destroy it?

I've found this to be a fantastic way to reorient myself on Christ. It forces me to look at my thoughts, my actions, my desires and think about where they're coming from. It forces me to think about what the fruit of any thought or action is.

For example, I've been feeling worried about work the past couple days. In the past I would have brushed this off as normal human anxiety or maybe even God trying to force me to go find more work. Asking myself these two questions completely changed the way I looked at my situation. If I recognize that the enemy is constantly trying to steal, kill and destroy my life than attempting to paralyze me with fear seems like a pretty effective way to accomplish his goal. Add to that the fruit of my worry wasn't to help me find more work or do anything worthwhile but to make me feel miserable.

On the more positive side, when I am asking myself how God is trying to bring me a full life, it changes everything. It's so easy to simply blast through the day but when I recognize that one of God's goals for the day is to bring me life it changes how I approach everything. I slow down and take in what He has for me in the beauty of the day. I can trust Him more because I know that whatever He's up to, it includes bringing me a full life.

I've known the truth of John 10:10 for quite a while now but drawing these two questions out of it and asking myself them regularly has moved that knowledge into action. Give it a shot. You might be surprised how much God shows you through it.