Radically Happy

  • Genesis 14:1-14:24 Raiders of the Lost Patri-Arch

    Nasty names… hanging with evildoers… fascinating contrast… alliance… trained… acts immediately… succeeds… Melchizedek… auspicious name, abrupt appearance… spiritual perspective… character of Abram… transformational thinking (and acting)…

  • Genesis 13:1-13:18 Parking Lot

    back to the beginning… speaking terms with God… remind us like a beacon… is wealth always a blessing?… cake-cutting… what value is wealth other than to provide for your family?…not whim, but sovereign choice…

  • Genesis 12:4-12:20 Altar, He Go

    Abram departed… the LORD appeared… an altar… God revealed Himself… Egypt… felt outside God’s protection… wrong on so many levels… becomes a curse… missed our chance to transform the world

  • Genesis 12:1-12:3 The Abrahamic Covenant

    Abrahamic covenant…idea of transformation… great responsibility… guilt…Blessed by being able to bless… happiness consists of fulfillment, other-centeredness, justice, and expansion… liberating rather than guilt-inducing

  • Genesis 11:10-11:32 The Death of Haran

    The generations of Terah (delay)…Abram (exalted father)…Lot… Haran is the death of Terah, as well as his station of delay… Terah is barely a footnote in history… chickened out and missed the blessing…

  • Job 42:1-42:17 Job, Well Done

    Job clearly gets the point… God didn’t answer… wasn’t logical, but emotional… blow away Job’s false security, gave him real security… restore friendship as much as individuals… Did Job speak rightly?… with his head, but not his heart… day by day

  • Job 41:1-41:34 Leviathan’s Mean Feet

    the infamous leviathan… not a tame lion… casually treat something so dangerous… Have you lost all good sense?… knock him back to sanity… worship aligns us with the spiritual world… best technology is laughable… foolish mortal.

  • Job 40:15-40:24 Judging Behemoth

    …God glorying in behemoth… Job can’t even judge a beast, how dare he judge God? … ‘judge’ includes action as well as reason… more like Judge Dredd than anything else in modern literature… God, grant me the serenity of behemoth…

  • Job 40:1-40:14 Answer, Man

    the Lord answering Job… a command for Job to answer Him… shamed by God’s wisdom and compassion.. viewed himself as righteous in human terms.. a shadow of God’s… power, how and why it is used…

  • Job 39:1-39:30 The Glory of the Herd

    God’s questions as an assertion …as if He were the family doctor — or even a grandparent… that same care over unsupervised animals..Yes, God is humbling Job, but He’s doing it by pointing out how His love and compassion — and knowledge and power — transcend anything Job can imagine……

  • What in the World is God Doing?

    The following is an early draft of a document I am working on with Luis Bush of Transform World: Indonesia 2005. The goal is to provide a coherent yet non-dogmatic understanding of what transformation is. Several of the events or dates in this draft are fictitious, for illustration purposes, but…

  • The A Attitudes

    A while ago I was studying the beatitudes, and contrasting Jesus’ definition of happiness with what our society usually thinks makes us happy. I started thinking, what are the opposite attitudes Jesus is directly attacking in his sermon? That led to this…

  • Job 38:1-38:41 Re-viewing God

    repeat yesterday… integrating Reason, Emotion, and Intention … more about heart than mind… “God is God, and I am not.” …one whole, integrated God.. polytheism a splintered psyche… indescribably gentle, yet hard as stone…nothing compared to God’s care

  • Job 38:1-39:30 God Smacks Back

    …the Lord does respond… indignation… answer me… almost comical… God’s doing the interrogating… dramatic effect… testing Job’s understanding… I created wisdom — and you didn’t… takes it to a whole new level… Teach me humility…

  • Job 36:1-37:24 God Rules, Schools

    Elihu accepts Job’s premise but denies his conclusion… stunning… we have hope… turn to God to uncover sin …accept suffering as just and forsake evil… comes down to pride… Suddenly, it makes sense… He wants to teach us, to free and ultimately prosper us…

  • Job 35:1-35:16 Words Without Knowledge

    Job’s supposed claim that righteousness [is] of no profit… an important point: virtue is good for you… God is pleased by our righteousness, and grieved by our folly… why He is putting you through the wringer… the whole point is to challenge existing mental models…talking without understanding…how confused I am…

  • Job 34:1-34:37 Good Lord, Job

    …trying to build consensus… starts ripping into Job… judging God is another matter… Is God wicked? …just, sovereign, impartial, knows what’s going on… given all this, how can you complain? … something He wants to get rid of, though you can’t see…

  • Job 32:1-33:33 Take this, Job

    …the junior Elihu… burning anger… try the patience of Job… justify his own soul rather than God… active listening… hearing what Job says… God exceeds mortals… backs up with fascinating assertions…a redemptive rather than condemning view… mere rhetorical flourish?

  • Job 25:1-31:40 Job Done Right

    …how can man hope to be justified? …I am still punished though not wicked… money, sex & power; attitudes and behaviors; commission as well as omission…God has set him an impossible riddle, written in fire on his very bones, inscribed in pain on his flesh.

  • Job 22:1-24:25 Doing Justice

    …imply that Job believed goodness could impress God… perhaps Eliphaz’s most insightful complaint… desire to see God… does not consider God “sympathetic” …Does God punish the wicked, or doesn’t he? …a sort of koan… Job can’t meet God face-to-face… Teach me humility… give me courage