In my weekly Works & Wonders article, I combine a brief devotional with other interesting and uplifting bits and pieces I gleaned throughout the week. These can be stories, poems, songs, articles, quotes, and just about anything else I found especially enjoyable in the week. I hope you enjoy this week’s collection! It includes:
- The More You Have, the More You Want
- God Showed Me My True Identity
- Secrets of the Bees
- A Haven in the Kitchen
- Darkness Is My Closest Friend
- Jackie and Shadow
- The Far Side of the Moon
1.
Devotional: The More You Have, The More You Want
The renowned missionary David Brainerd once described a fascinating spiritual realization: “When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable and my thirstings after holiness more unquenchable.” He had discovered that delight causes a kind of cascade effect where the more he had, the more he craved. Though his enjoyment of God satisfied him in one sense, it left him with an even deeper longing in another. John Piper makes a similar observation, going so far as to label our joy in God as a good and noble kind of greed. “Our joy in God is insatiably greedy,” he says. “The more you have, the more you want. The more you see, the more you want to see. The more you feel, the more you want to feel.” Like any other form of greed, it cannot be sated, but always longs for more. And this is just as God intended it, so that the closer we draw to him, the closer we long to be, and the more joy we find in him, the more joy we long to experience. We never fully arrive on this side of heaven and are never fully satisfied, but always long for the fullness of joy that will be ours when we are finally face-to-face with the one we love.
2.
God Showed Me My True Identity
Christianity Today has been sharing testimonies, and recently included Kyla Gillespie’s. Kyla was born female, but spent six years living as a man. It was the love and kindness of Christians that eventually caused her to turn to the Lord and then return to living as a woman. Her story is both tragic and encouraging.
I started drowning my stresses in alcohol when I was 19. Blackouts, partying, gambling, and a trail of failed same-sex relationships followed. Before long, my faith was nearly nonexistent. I chose the life I thought I wanted above my relationship with God. But when alcohol fueled a dangerous downward spiral, I chose to enter a Christian recovery center.
I got sober there, but my battles with same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria continued. To try to win the war raging inside of me, I decided to transition from female to male. Two years later, after hormone therapy, surgeries, and sweeping lifestyle changes, I could finally pass unnoticed in the world as a man.
I changed my name from Kyla to Brycen. I had arrived. With each step of the process, I eagerly awaited the satisfaction and relief that would surely follow. But they never came. Altering my body hadn’t healed the brokenness inside.
Read: Born a Woman, I Spent Six Years Living as a Man. Then God Showed Me My True Identity. (Gift link) Also consider reading her new book TransFormed, which gives her story in much more detail. I reviewed it here.
3.
Secrets of the Bees
I stumbled across the two-part National Geographic series Secrets of the Bees and really enjoyed it. The videography is first-rate and allows the viewer to see and enjoy bees as never before. The filmmaker simply wants to celebrate these little creatures, show them off in all their beauty and endless activity, help us understand their ingenuity, and realize how integral they are to the world around us. It’s on Disney+ in Canada, but it may be available elsewhere in different countries.
Here’s the trailer just to give you a peek:
4.
A Haven in the Kitchen
The New York Times recently covered a neat story about people with autism finding their place in restaurant kitchens. It tells of “a new program, Chefs on the Spectrum, meant to train and place people with autism in fine-dining jobs.” This program and others have found that autistic adults sometimes have special talents that make them ideal kitchen workers.
That talent can take several forms. Some cooks on the spectrum are meticulously organized at their stations. Some have an exceptional recall of recipes, and others are especially diligent about safety protocols …
Some students in TACT’s culinary program perform with astonishing consistency. If a restaurant wants meat butchered into a certain cut, Mr. Fierro said, “they’re going to make them exactly the same way every single time.”
A common hallmark of autism is a cultivation of special interests, intense and passionate devotions to particular topics. For cooks on the spectrum, this can mean a penchant for intellectual spelunking into, say, the molecular structure of hydrocolloids, or the behavior of the molds that produce blue cheese and miso.
Read: For People With Autism, Can Restaurant Kitchens Be a Haven? (Gift link)
5.
Psalm 88 (Darkness Is My Closest Friend)
Greg LaFollette recently released a powerful, melodic, and haunting version of Psalm 88.
6.
Jackie and Shadow
Jackie and Shadow are probably the world’s most famous bald eagles. They nest near Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest in California and are constantly on camera. You can watch them right here or read the latest in the Eagle Log. As of the time I am writing, they have a pair of tiny chicks they are caring for. If you have a spare screen nearby, it’s kind of nice to just leave the video playing so you can check in on them from time to time. Just be sure to check your volume because, for all their virtues, bald eagles do not have a beautiful cry!
7.
The Far Side of the Moon
It was fun to track Artemis II as it pushed the frontiers of human accomplishment by taking human beings farther from Earth than ever before. Not surprisingly, social media was flooded with AI-generated junk claiming to be real. Thankfully, NASA released a definitive collection of the best genuine images on NASA’s Artemis II Lunar Flyby page. The photos, which are free to download, give us new reasons to marvel at the wonders of God in his creation.
The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.
In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upwards during the crater’s formation.
