I was skimming headlines a few days ago and noticed a story about some activists on a college campus who were planning to cover all of the school’s mirrors for a day. I did not read long enough to see why they wanted to do this, but I assume it was somehow meant to draw attention to a problem the school or government was covering up. You know how these college-aged activists are, always thinking they are so clever and profound. But in this case they got me to thinking about life without mirrors.

Now I’m not one of those metrosexual guys who spends half of my life primping and preening in front of a mirror. My bathroom isn’t stocked with hundreds of different kinds of moisturizers, hair products and body sprays. But I still wouldn’t want to start my day without a quick peek into the mirror. I still like to make sure that my weird and wiry hair isn’t doing anything too obnoxious and that the afflictions of age (primarily those thick black hairs that seem to grow suddenly out of strange places) are not protruding from places they shouldn’t be.

There is something comforting about peering into a mirror every now and then. Certainly there is usually no reason to gaze at myself when I go into a bathroom but, like you, I always make a cursory check to ensure that nothing too weird is going on. If I eat a poppy seed bagel (my favorite!) I have to check that there isn’t a seed stuck between those two teeth that are just a tiny bit crooked and always (always!) manage to trap a seed. Few things are worse than trooping around all day and only realizing at the end of it that I’ve had a piece of parsley or spinach stuck to one of my teeth or that I’ve had a ridiculous cowlick. You know the feeling.

My personal Bible study this morning took me to the closing verses of the first chapter of James. You no doubt know these words well:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

As I read these verses and began to meditate upon them I was reminded immediately of those activists on the college campus. I realized that I would never intentionally head out to a meeting or an appointment without first checking a mirror to make sure that everything looked just about right (or as right as it can, anyways, based on what I’m working with here). Covering all the mirrors in our house would bother me! And then I was struck by the way James portrays the Bible as a mirror for the heart. I thought of how loathe I am to begin my day without peering into a mirror but how little it troubles me when I begin the day without peering into the mirror of the Word.

I know there have been times when I’ve forgotten to check a mirror before heading out. Most of the time it hasn’t mattered, but there have been a couple of occasions when I realized only when it was too late that I had forgotten to shave or that I was still showing clear evidence on my face of having eaten a chocolate cookie earlier in the day. I could have saved myself embarrassment by just checking the mirror. I know there have been times when I’ve forgotten or neglected to look into the mirror of the Word, the perfect law of liberty, to assess my heart. Most of the time it hasn’t shown, but I know there have been occasions when I gave clear evidence of this to the people I encountered. There have been other times that I’ve read the Bible, but have not allowed it to penetrate or to take hold. I’ve been just the person James warns about who “looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” I have looked quickly, glanced briefly, but have not looked long enough to allow the Scripture to reflect back to me my sin and God’s standard of holiness. I have gone merrily on my way having already forgotten to be both a hearer and a doer.

God’s Word has the unique ability to give great clarity to what God demands and expects of us. It also unmasks our sin and our rebellion. I would be a fool not to gaze into this mirror every day. I would be a fool to go about life without regularly looking into this amazing mirror.

Roy Halladay is Toronto Blue Jays’ ace pitcher and is one of the top players in baseball. Halladay has a well-established routine that begins as soon as a game is complete and continues until the next game has begun five or six days later. He has another routine which takes him from the end of one season to the beginning of the next. And, like many players, has a routine which takes him from pitch-to-pitch. His off-season regimen, which prepares him for a long and grueling season of baseball, is legendary and readies more than his arm. To prepare his mind he reads The Mental ABC’s of Pitching seven or eight times every season. To hone his concentration he carries with him a series of laminate grids filled with 100 randomly numbered squares that he crosses off in order, from 00 to 99, with an erasable marker. “Every day that I’m not pitching, I’m doing something that’s going to help me when I’m out there, not just vegging on the bench or in the hotel room,” he says. To prepare his body he works out constantly and so vigorously that he rarely breaks into a sweat during a game. He has the reputation of being the team’s hardest worker. Not surprisingly, he is also the team’s best player. His team members flock to him, eager to learn from his routine so they, in turn, can become better players. While Halladay is clearly a talented athlete, what sets him apart is his preparation. He prepares to pitch by rigorously preparing himself both physically and mentally. He tends to more than his arm, but looks to his entire body and mind. He knows that to be a great player requires skill and preparation in a wide variety of disciplines.

I have been thinking about what is necessary to be a man or woman of discernment (and you’ll have to forgive me for the constant discernment talk these days. For obvious reasons it is much on my mind). It is clear that discernment is not a discipline that can be pursued on its own. A person who wishes to be discerning cannot simply read and study the passages of the Bible dealing with discernment. He cannot concentrate only on making the black-and-white decisions necessitated by discernment. Rather, he must look further and prepare himself in a variety of disciplines. He must be a person who prays, who studies the Bible, who is committed to a local church, and so on. He must maintain a particular posture. This makes me think of a sprinter. Just as a person who wishes to win a sprint will have to begin the race in a certain posture, crouched low with legs ready to spring forward, a person who wishes to be discerning must maintain a particular spiritual posture.

While this idea of spiritual posture arose from my musings on discernment, I have come to see that it has wide application. In any discipline of the Christian life, we need to have a certain kind of posture. There is nothing a Christian does or practices that is isolated from everything else. Too often I get hung up on one thing. I emphasize prayer and let Bible-reading slip. I emphasize reading my Bible and let prayer slip. But these disciplines are necessarily inter-related and together form the posture that allows me to run the race in a way that brings glory to God.

I am quite a fan of sports, or certain sports at any rate. One thing that has always attracted me to sports, and baseball in particular, is the numbers. I can take a brief look at a list of players and immediately have a sense as to how they are doing. The sports pages always have these great lists of statistics, showing batting averages, on base percentages, numbers of hits, home runs, singles, doubles and runs batted in. Sorting those lists quickly allows the best players to rise to the top. Statistics has become such an art, such a science, that every aspect of the game can be boiled down to a number or a rating. Even the inevitable intangibles have been boiled down to numbers and percentages. The fact is that success in sports is easily measured, easily tabulated, and easily understood in simple numbers.

But sports is one of the few areas where this actually works. Back when I used to work in the corporate world I would have to undergo the annual process known as a “performance review.” I would be given a form which would guide me in rating myself in various areas. I had to determine if I was poor, below average, average, above average or excellent in my leadership skills, in performing the responsibilities of my job, in participating in teamwork, and on and on. I would then submit this form to my manager and he would walk me through the form he had filled out on my behalf. We would compare notes to see where his impressions of me were different from my impressions of myself. It was sometimes a helpful process, but there was something just a bit humiliating about it. There was something dehumanizing about boiling down a year’s worth of work into a number between one and five. There was little room for the unmeasurable skills, for the contributions that are not mentioned on the form or that are not easily measured. I hated performance reviews and am thankful that, because I am self-employed, I no longer have to endure them.

The success of a Christian life is difficult to measure. Occasionally I receive some kind of a test or assessment that seeks to lead me through my skills, gifting, abilities and so on. This assessment will apparently help me understand how I am doing as a Christian and what areas I need to work on. But, as with a corporate performance review, boiling down the Christian life to a list of numbers and ratings just doesn’t work. I can’t rate myself between one and five in areas like evangelism, personal devotions and church attendance. It just doesn’t work.

And yet there is one time in the year when I receive a numeric rating that helps me gauge my “performance” in at least one area. And at the same time of the year I receive a numeric rating that helps me see just how much God has blessed me. That time of the year is right now—it is tax time.

I dislike tax time almost as much as I dislike performance reviews. As a self-employed guy I know that I will never again experience the wonder of the tax refund. I owe money, and lots of money, to the government every April. Every spring I have to dig deep and come up with a year’s worth of income tax so I can pay the government what I owe. With Canadian taxes being what they are (this “free” health care we enjoy isn’t really anywhere near free as so many Canadians are reminded this time of year) this is never a small amount.

So while the very bottom line on a tax return (the “this is what you owe us” line) is often painful to me, the one immediately above that, the one that shows my income, is always a blessing. I typically cringe to see it because I know that the very bottom number is necessarily influenced by the one right above it. And yet I am always amazed at just how God has blessed us financially in the year that has just passed. Since Aileen and I have been married we have seen that number go up and down. But always it has been enough. Usually it has been more than enough. For just one brief moment I can see God’s providence through another year written plainly in black ink on that little line.

There is another line that is of equal importance. Further up in the form is the spot where I have to list the amount of money I have donated to eligible charitable organizations throughout the year. Through the first two months of the year, these organizations are responsible for sending tax receipts to anyone who has donated money and, as often as not, I am surprised when I receive these forms. I expect one from my church, but often forget other individuals and organizations I have supported through the year. I compile these little numbers and arrive at a bigger number. And then I compare this number to the number mentioned earlier, the one on the second line from the bottom. This may be a moment of humility and a moment of shame, especially if the one number is just the tiniest fraction of the other. Hopefully, however, it will again cause me to marvel at God’s goodness in providing for my family. Hopefully it will be a moment of holy humility as I see the hand of God’s provision. It may be a moment of joy as I see that God has continued to impress upon me the importance of being obedient to Him so that I understand the importance of giving regularly to His work. Not many unbelievers would be willing to give away ten percent of their income; not many would be able to. And yet, as Christians, we know that all we have is God’s and that He rewards faithfulness, consistently providing for those who return to Him the first fruits of their labor.

Of course numbers are not a thorough measure of our giving. They may tell how much we have given, but they cannot tell us about the spirit in which they have been given. God knows and judges our hearts, and He cannot be fooled by mere numbers. He expects that we give joyfully. Numbers look much the same whether they are grudging or joyful. But not to God. He knows.

Tax time is an awful time. It is mostly a thankless time. And yet we would be remiss if we did not use it as an opportunity to examine our hearts, to measure at least the quantity our gifts and offerings to God, and to see at least some measure of His faithfulness to us through another year. It more than offsets the pain of having to empty bank accounts to give to the government what they demand and deserve.

Thank you. Just over a week ago I asked that you would pray for me. I asked that God would allow me opportunity both to work (and thus make money to support my family) and to find time to finish up my book in what is going to be a very busy six to eight weeks. Someone must have taken the time to pray for me because God answered in an amazing way. Late last week I got a call from a person whose client needed a site completed on an emergency basis. When he told me how much these people were willing to pay, my eyes bugged out a little bit. I dropped everything and worked on the site for two days, Friday and Saturday. During this time I made what is pretty well a month’s worth of money. So thank you for praying. God is good. This is yet another God moment, another story, proving to me that God is behind me in writing this book. It means the world to me.

For the last few weeks I’ve felt as if I’m somehow living under some kind of special blessing. The realities of God’s care and provision seem so real to me—probably more real than at any other time in my life. I can’t really explain it. Perhaps I should turn to the Puritans, those men and women who had such a gift for understanding and explaining the realities of God’s involvement in our lives. Perhaps they would be able to help me understand. I’ve had lots of moments in my life where I’ve felt so close to God, so aware of His presence. Sometimes they last for minutes and sometimes for days. I think every Christian experiences these and every Christian begs God to never let them go away. And yet they always do. What I feel now is different. It’s not a feeling as much as a sense and understanding of the reality that God is providing in ways that somehow seem beyond the course of the ordinary. That’s the best I can do.

And even while God is providing for me in such amazing ways, I am shocked and amazed by my own prayerlessness. As with many Christians, spending time with God in Scripture and prayer has been a lifelong struggle with me. Neither of these disciplines comes naturally to me and I fight constantly to spend time with God and to even want to spend time with God. It is one that breeds guilt and shame. It breeds exasperation. Even at my most insightful moments I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what it is that convinces me that I should do anything but spend a good part of my day studying God’s Word and pouring out my heart to Him. Even at those times when I feel like I am making strides forward, I still know how much better I could do. I’m amazed at my own failures. It’s not that I don’t pray at all, but more that I just don’t pray enough. I don’t pray often enough and I don’t pray earnestly enough.

Recently I’ve been reading Prayer and the Voice of God by Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne (of Matthias Media fame). I’ve found this book helpful in understanding why we, and why I, don’t pray. It is too easy to say “I’m lazy” or “I can’t find the time” or “I can’t be bothered.” These reasons are too much on the surface and must be mere symptoms of a deeper, greater problem. Jensen and Payne point to three broad reasons. These are not the surface reasons, but the deeper heart issues that feed the surface reasons.

First, we don’t pray because we have false views of God. In our hearts we doubt that God is able to respond to our prayers. We may think that He is limited by natural laws he put in place to govern the world or that He is limited by his fixed, sovereign will. Alternatively, we may doubt that God is willing to respond to our prayers and act in a way that benefits us. We may question whether God is willing to act because of the problem of evil or because we consider our requests too small or insignificant to merit His attention. Of course these are all false assumptions. And, while they may manifest themselves in excuses like “I just don’t have time today,” they are based on a view of God that is opposed to how He reveals Himself to us in Scripture. We sin when we think of God in such human ways.

The second reason is that we have false views of our relationship with God. We may not trust God as we should and persist in this disobedience. We may think that our prayers have only been heard if and when we receive exactly what we asked for or we may think that our feelings are accurate indicators of our prayers and whether or not God has heard them. These are also false assumptions. The reality is that God may answer prayer in an infinite number of ways and we may never understand just how God has answered. He may also answer with a “no.” And while our feelings are important, they cannot stand as the measure of the quality of our prayers or the extent to which God has heard them. Prayer is to be an objective fact of our relationship with God, not a subjective impression of our feelings. And, as the authors point out, “the important thing about trust is not how strong the trust is or how it feels, but whether the thing you’re trusting in is trustworthy.”

The final reason is simply sin and Satan. The ultimate basis of our difficulty is not intellectual but moral and spiritual. Our sin keeps us from acknowledging our dependence on God and our lack of independence. Because we are sinful we do not want to rely on God or respond to His call to trust and prayer. And, of course, Satan, our old adversary, will do all he can to keep us from praying. He will interfere in whatever way he can.

These are three reasons, each of which contributes to the “I don’t have time” and “I can’t be bothered” excuses that we offer all too often. I am spending time searching my heart to see how these false assumptions have somehow fueled my prayerlessness. I know in my head that I need to pray, that I need to pray earnestly, and that I need to pray a lot. And somehow I so often seem not to. There must be something in my heart, something lurking there, that is keeping me from acting on what I know. There must be something that is keeping me from living in obedience and from effectively denying the sovereignty of God on such a consistent basis. There must be.

The authors say, rightly I believe, that the hardest part of prayer is starting. And this is where we so often fail. It is where I so often fail. I do not commit to prayer as a discipline that is absolutely critical to my relationship with God. And then it becomes just so easy to let it slip by or to give it only a token effort. And yet somehow God still sees fit to bless me so richly. He is good.

This time next week, if all goes well, I will be sitting on a plane, on my way to Los Angeles. I will be heading to the Terrace Theatre: Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center (that’s a mouth full!) to bring liveblogging of the Resolved Conference. This kicks off my 2007 liveblogging schedule—a schedule that is ridiculously full.

I never anticipated that I’d be traveling across the United States blogging conferences. It is really something that just kind of happened to me (much like just about everything else about this web site). Liveblogging is really a new phenomenon and one I am mostly making up as I go. There is really no model to follow and no objectively right way of doing it. I do enjoy liveblogging a great deal and am looking forward to all of the opportunities that are fast approaching. As I weighed various opportunities, I was struck by the diversity of ministries that are either distinctly Reformed or that appeal to a Reformed audience. This diversity quickly became my theme as I decided which invitations to accept and which to regretfully decline. I find it thrilling that I’ll have the opportunity to criss-cross the continent this year and see so many ministries in action. I find it unlikely that I will be offered or be able to accept such a variety in the future. Time will tell. But for this year I just couldn’t decline so many incredible opportunities.

There are conferences “seasons,” with most conferences being held in the spring or fall. My schedule reflects this. Here are the conferences I hope to attend this year.

I will be kicking off my Spring conference itinerary with the Resolved Conference, a conference inspired by the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards and geared towards a younger audience (I anticipate being one of the oldest people in the audience!). It is a ministry of Grace Community Church. I’ve invited one of the young guys (he’s single, ladies!) from our church to go along with me and am looking forward to spending the weekend with him. Speakers at this conference will be Rick Holland, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, C.J. Mahaney and John Piper. Can you think of a group of men better qualified to address this young crowd?

Two weeks after Resolved, I’ll be heading back to L.A.(this time with my pastor) for the Shepherd’s Conference which runs from the 6th until the 10th of March. This is also a ministry of Grace Church and is geared towards pastors. I was at this conference last year and enjoyed it a great deal. This year the conference is adding a “Scholar’s Desk,” a stand-up desk outside the main auditorium. At the desk there will be assigned scholars and topics with two or three scholars on duty during all of the time slots. Anyone who cares to drop by will be able to ask any question about the given topic. Topics will include student ministries, expository preaching, counseling, and so on. Another of the topics will be blogging, and they’ve asked me to serve at the desk during this time. It is not often that “scholar” and “blogger” are used together, so I will definitely take advantage of this opportunity. It ought to be fun. Speakers at this year’s conference are largely the same as last year: John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Steve Lawson, Ligon Duncan and John Piper. While the conference officially extends until the Sunday, I will head home on the Saturday.

The next conference is just a few days later! The Ligonier Conference begins on the 15th and runs until the 17th. The speakers at this conference are R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, Al Mohler and Ravi Zacharias. I will make my way down to Orlando and take in this conference with my brother-in-law.

Amazingly enough, all three of these conferences have filled up and have closed registration. I believe Ligonier will be the biggest with about 5,000 in attendance. The fact that all of these conferences are filled attests to the growing interest in conferences. I suspect the Internet has done wonders in making it easier to publicize these conferences and draw people to them. And, of course, all three of them have a great lineup of speakers. By this time I’m assuming that John Piper will consider taking out a restraining order against the weird Canadian guy that seems to be following him from conference to conference.

After Ligonier I’ll have a few weeks off and will then head for Mississippi for the Twin Lakes Fellowship. This conference is a ministry of Ligon Duncan’s First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi and is unique in that it is small and relatively unknown. Still, it promises to be very interesting. Speakers will include Ligon Duncan, Derek Thomas and Thabiti Anyabwile. I do believe this will be the first conference I’ll go to by myself!

Next up is The Basics: A Pastor’s Conference, which is held in Cleveland, Ohio from May 7-9. It is associated with Alistair Begg’s Parkside Church. Keith and Kristyn Getty will be leading worship. Speaking will be Alistair Begg, Derek Thomas, Edward Lobb and Voddie Baucham. I know very little about Alistair Begg, Truth for Life and Parkside Church and am really looking forward to learning more about them.

The final conference of the spring is New Attitude which runs from May 26-29 and is held in Louisville, Kentucky. This conference targets much the same crowd as Resolved and is sponsored by Sovereign Grace Ministries. The topic, spiritual discernment, is near and dear to my heart. I have often questioned the wisdom of submitting my book and then, just weeks later, going to hear John Piper, Josh Harris, Al Mohler, Eric Simmons, Mark Dever and C.J. Mahaney discuss the very same topic! It could prove very humbling. Aileen will be coming to this conference with me (her first conference!) so it will be great to spend the weekend with her.

Where my spring is going to be very busy, the fall looks lighter. The only conference I’ve committed to is the Alpha & Omega conference. It begins in Seattle and then heads to a cruise ship for a tour up the coast of the Pacific Northwest. It looks like I am unlikely to be at this year’s Desiring God conference, one I have been at for the past two years. There are another couples of opportunities I am weighing, but it seems likely that it will be a quiet fall for me.

So there you have it. I am eager to make these liveblogging opportunities as useful and edifying as they can possibly be. I want to be able to serve both the conference organizers and the people who read this site and am eager for any insight into how I can do that. So please, if there are aspects of my previous attempts at liveblogging that you have hated or there are some things you would like me to improve, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

I am drawing ever-closer to the deadline to hand my book to the publisher. The current word count is somewhere around 43,000 and the page count around 140 (though obviously the page count can change a whole lot based on the spacing, font selection and so on). As work continues and as the book draws closer to completion, I am becoming increasingly excited and, even better, increasingly convinced that this book may actually have something to say (imagine that!).

There have been a lot of pretty neat God moments along the way. A few weeks ago I had decided to focus a day’s writing on a passage in Hebrews, but did not have a lot in the way of Hebrews resources. The mail showed up just a few minutes after I had sat down at my desk and, when I opened it up, found a review copy of a newly published commentary on Hebrews. It addressed head-on the issues I was writing about that day and proved very helpful to me. Just yesterday I decided to focus on a particular passage in Ephesians. Once again the mail showed up and there, courtesy of a publisher, was an Ephesians study guide that I had not ordered and had not expected. And once again it proved very helpful. Since this project began I’ve seen irrefutable evidence of God’s assistance with this project; I’ve seen it time and again. These little moments, these little moments of providence, have been greatly encouraging to me.

I anticipate that the manuscript will be ready for me to send to the publisher around six weeks from now (eight weeks at the lastest). That may be a tad ambitious, but I do hope I can make that deadline. However, for that to happen, I think I am going to need a lot of prayer. My spring live-blogging schedule begins in just two weeks (with a trip to California for the Resolved Conference) and between then and the end of March I’ll be making yet another trip to California for the Shepherd’s Conference, a trip to Orlando for Ligonier and a trip to Atlanta to visit my family. And, of course, I have a lot of web design projects underway with new ones set to begin soon. If this book is going to be completed, I’ll have to be very careful with my time, something that has always given me trouble. I am also going to have to steal some time from my paying job in order to work on the book which could potentially introduce financial difficulties (especially with a particularly horrendous tax bill facing me not too long from now, for such are the joys of being self-employed). Despite a busy schedule I’m confident that I can keep all of these balls in the air, but only with God’s help.

And so I’d ask for your prayers. Please pray that God will continue to bless my efforts in writing this book; pray that God will help me organize my time and use my time wisely; pray that God will keep me from cutting into my time with Him in order to work on other projects; pray that God would provide for us financially. I covet your prayers and thank you in advance for them!

Being a parent is wonderful. Parenting is filled with moments of joy and happiness and excitement and love. But it’s also filled with moments of almost overwhelming frustration. We’ve had plenty of great times and plenty of awfully frustrating times in the past few weeks. A couple of days ago Aileen and I were talking about the children (our two older children in particular) and I said, “You know, what I find most frustrating is that they seriously think we’re out to get them. They really think that we are always raining on their parades rather than looking out for their best interests.” And sure, there are times that we are acting selfishly, putting our own interests ahead of those of our children. But far more often than not, we are truly interested in protecting them, and most often we need to protect them from themselves—from their own silliness, willfulness or ignorance.

“No, really, pants that end four inches above your ankle look really, really silly!” “No, those are long johns, not pants. You wear them under your pants, not instead of pants!” “You do NOT want to eat that. Trust me!” And so often the response we get is anger or frustration rather than gratitude. If you are a parent you know exactly what I am referring to. Children are constantly doing, saying and attempting things that are going to put them in danger or perhaps even just make them look and feel ridiculous. We are constantly reacting to these things, trying to help them understand what is best for them—what will serve them rather than hurt them, what will be good for them rather than harm them. It is a constant battle to help them understand how to live in this world.

Over the past few days I have been reading the manuscript of a book that will be published later this year. It is a book dealing with relationships between men and women. It is quite atypical as these books go, focusing on complementarity and focusing on the gospel. In reading the book I was struck by how the sin of my children is really so similar to my own and to the sin that has plagued humanity for so many years.

You know the story of Genesis 3 as well as I do. That crafty serpent comes to Eve and says to her:

“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

God, the one who created the world, told Adam and Eve how they were to live in it. They were able to enjoy everything the world had to offer, but for one tree. The whole world was open to them but for this one small thing. But we all know how it happened. Satan convinced Adam and Eve that God was not really looking out for their best interests at all. No, God was being selfish to deny Adam and Eve the fruit from that tree. He was holding them back, keeping them from being like Him, knowing good and evil. And so they rebelled. They did things their way. They lost confidence in God’s benevolence and gobbled down the fruit. But no sooner had they eaten that fruit than they saw that they were naked. Their eyes were opened, the Bible says. Their hearts were shut. The wages of their sin would be death. I can’t help but wonder how long it took after they sank their teeth into the fruit that they saw some innocent little creature be pounced on and devoured before their eyes. How long before they saw blood flow and began to witness the carnage they had unleashed?

Since that day we have all rebelled against authority. We no longer believe in the benevolence of those who lead us. Children naturally assume that their parents are out to get them. Wives believe that their husbands are looking out for their own interests above anyone else’s. Citizens assume that governments are shortchanging us. And all of us believe that God is being less than forthcoming, less than loving. We believe that God is giving us something less than what is best. We react to his loving commands with groans and grumbles and frustration.

The frustration I feel with my children when they rebel against my concern and my love for them, must be only the faintest shadow of the frustration God feels towards me. They rebel against me in small ways while I rebel against Him in ways that are so much bigger and so much more significant. The sin of my children has given me opportunity to reflect on the state of my own heart and to repent of my sin of rebellion against God’s authority. Parenting is sometimes a delight and sometimes a frustration, but always an opportunity to learn and to grow. I’m grateful that God let me learn this lesson.

This thing called blogging is not nearly as easy as it looks, and this is especially true in a blog that receives a good deal of traffic. I suppose if you were to plot out the history of this blog in terms of its traffic, you would end up with a graph showing a slow but steady rise from the left of the graph (representing the time I began the site) to the right (representing today). I do not follow traffic all that closely and have never invested any time in streamlining this site for search engine optimization and the like. I just like to write and to attempt to encourage and interact with other believers. And yet a quick look at my site’s statistics shows that I should anticipate more than a million unique visits in 2007. Traffic continues to grow. And really I hate the word “traffic.” After all, each visit is made not only by a computer, but by a person. Traffic seems so dehumanizing. As the readership of this site has increased, so have the types of people who read it.

When a blog first starts out, there are typically only a few readers and the readers that do spend time at the site tend to agree with the author. When I first began writing at this site, it was only my family that read it. Eventually a few friends and friends of friends began to read it. But as it grew, people from further outside my circles began to show up. Soon it was being read by people I had never met and people whose theology was light years away from mine. As the readership grew, so did the number of theological perspectives. Needless to say, where there is a large number of perspectives, there will be a large number of disagreements.

So while today some people read the site because they tend to agree with my theological perspectives, others read it precisely because they do not. Some read it simply because they’ve heard about it and want to know what the fuss is about. Still others read it because they want to comment in the hope that people will follow a comment link back to their own blog. Some probably read it because Phil Johnson got it in his head to begin calling me “The World’s Most Famous Christian Blogger” and people who saw that title simply wanted to figure out who I am. Either way, where people used to read the site primarily because they felt some kind of affinity with me, people now read for any number of reasons.

This has introduced an interesting phenomenon and one I’ve only noticed recently. It seems that the site is now at the point that, no matter what I write, someone will disagree with me (and may just disagree vehemently). If I mention a contentious issue like the TNIV, I can be assured that someone will be bothered that I did not provide a blanket condemnation of the translation. But, of course, had I done so, others would have been bothered that I overstepped my bounds. This is inevitable, I realize. But it is requiring me to make adjustments to my mindset in regards to the blog. I am usually a person who shuns controversy and it is quite foreign to me to have to deal with people who strongly disagree with me.

I have also come to realize the importance of theological precision. I do not consider the vast majority of what I write to be systematic theology or even to be true teaching. Often I just reflect on what has been playing through my mind and make those reflections public. Yesterday, for example, I wrote about prayer and said that prayer is not something I do for me, but something I do for God. A few commenters noted this and disagreed with me, saying that there is nothing God needs from us. I do not wish to open this can of worms except to say that yesterday’s article was not meant to be a theology of prayer. Really it was more of a personal reflection upon the subject of prayer. The difference was clear in my mind and yet I suppose I failed to convey that. Either way, I’ve come to see that I need to attempt to ensure greater accuracy and precision. I may have to scale back a little bit on my personal reflections since, by definition, they do not always represent fully-formed theology. They are personal and perhaps are often better left that way.

There have been times in the past when this site has undergone something of a transition. What used to be a site that displayed photos of my family morphed into a site that was a little bit like a watchblog. And when I got tired of that game, it morphed into whatever it is now. I’ve got a feeling that another transition time is coming and that it is going to have to come if this site is to remain a useful resource. But to this point I am not sure what this transition involves. I probably won’t know until I can look back on it.

I do not say all of this to complain. It’s just that this is a new phenomenon to me and one that is going to take some adjustment. I suppose it comes with the territory and is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something I have become aware of and something I need to ensure I am equipped to deal with. So please be patient because I’m still learning.

Prayer Answered:

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was moved out of intensive care and into a private room at Baptist Hospital East this afternoon and continues to improve following complications from abdominal surgery that was performed Dec. 28.

Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern, said Mohler is in good spirits following a difficult weekend.

“I am extremely encouraged after having just left his room,” Moore said Monday afternoon. “He is eating, he is in good spirits and it looks as though the situation is completely under control at this point. He looks strong, is in remarkably good spirits and is even cracking jokes.

“Dr. Mohler is very appreciative of the prayers of God's people and the outpouring of support from the churches and from the community.”

Mohler was placed in intensive care Friday after developing blood clots in both lungs. After nearly a week of intense abdominal pain, he was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 27 and underwent surgery the following day.

While physicians reported that the procedure went well and that Mohler’s abdominal issues were remedied, the development of blood clots led doctors to move Mohler to the hospital's intensive care unit.

Moore asked that the seminary community and local churches continue to pray for Mohler and his family during the recovery. It is not yet known when Mohler will be released from the hospital, however Moore said the improvement in Mohler’s condition along with his high spirits were readily evident.

“He has a stack of books and articles in his bed along with a massive number of highlighters,” Moore said, “so the Albert Mohler I know is back.”

Prayer Requested:

Let’s continue to pray that God will heal Dr. Mohler and get him back to serving Him in his home, church and seminary.

As I continue to press on with writing The Discipline of Discernment and as I see the book starting to come together I am slowly beginning to consider some of the finer details. For example, I have decided to add a “Key Thought” to the end of each chapter. I always appreciate when authors are deliberate about ensuring that the reader has understood the purpose of each chapter (Bryan Chapell’s Praying Backwards is an excellent example of this) and that the reader understands the flow of the book (and I think Alex Chediak’s With One Voice does an admirable job in this regard). Because my argument builds from chapter-to-chapter I feel it is important that people understand each of the components and that they remember what has already been covered. Other details may include whether there will be an index, a Scripture index, and so on.

Another item I am considering is study questions or application questions. This would be a short list of five or ten questions at the end of each chapter that would allow people to think about the topic and begin to apply it to their lives. However, I am not convinced that such a guide would be worth the effort. I will, to my shame, admit that when I read a book it is very rare that I pause at the study questions. I would not be surprised to learn that most other people also pass over them.

And so I thought I would take this public. This is not to say that I will necessarily base my decision on the consensus view here, but more that I am simply interested in learning about your reading habits. And thus I ask: Do you read the study guides or application questions in the books you read? Do you consider the questions and answer them, or do you simply pass over them and move to the next chapter?