I never expected Charles Spurgeon — that cigar-smoking Calvinist preacher from the late 1800s — to take my breath away. Like so many of my great-grandfathers’ well-thumbed volumes that sit inherited and unread on my shelves, Spurgeon seemed a dusty relic, old before my grandparents were young.

Yet when I was pointed to an excerpt from one of his sermons, I found something unexpected: a full-throated delight in the natural world, an unashamed defense of the pleasures to be found all around us. It was Spurgeon who, before Chesterton and his “unutterable muddiness of mud” or Capon’s lamb for eight persons four times, first taught me to bite into an overripe world and let its juices dribble into my beard.

“The man who is altogether bad seldom delights in nature,” Spurgeon said. “One of the purest and most innocent of joys, apart from spiritual things, in which a man can indulge, is a joy in the works of God.”

This world isn’t a distraction from God, like some of those misguided, naysaying and pinch-faced neo-Puritans would have us believe, but a means of seeing and knowing and enjoying him better than we could were we to shutter our windows against the world in an act of mistaken piety.

No, Spurgeon reminds us that ours is a Christ who can be found “on the hills, and by the shores of the sea”; we “hear [our] Father’s voice in the thunder, and listen to the whispers of his love in the cadence of the sunlit waves.”

The sermon he preached on July 5, 1891, proclaims a view of the world in which creation points to and participates in the goodness of God. It carries within itself the loveliness and beauty of the Artist who made it and gifted it to us, his children. And it points beyond itself to the higher glories of the new birth, of creation made and remade.

Here was a view of the world better suited, I thought, to poetry than to sermon. No, perhaps not better suited — at least as suited to poetry. One that should be preached from a thousand pulpits, yes, but also one that could comfortably fit in the formalwear of metered verse.

In any case, I was determined to try. Spurgeon’s sermon had gripped me and would not let me go. When I looked out the car window on my morning commute or visited the local petting barn with my sons, I saw Christ there; every summertime trip to the beach or midwinter slide down the sledding hill had become a new vision of our Father’s wonder-full world. I heard Spurgeon’s voice urging me on. His words haunted me.

I’m not bold enough to think that my scribbled lines have reached Spurgeon’s heights. Please, when you’re finished here, read his homily yourself — this message is better heard straight from the churchman’s mouth. I pray that he gives you, as he did me, new eyes to see our great Savior in the world he made.

The Things of Earth

It is righteous, this pleasure in natural things:
in these star-speckled heavens – sky-scattered delights! –
in these meadows, pale garnished with daisies and kingcups;
in seas, where beasts creep from deeps darker than night’s
vasty pitch; in these woods, sounding round as with wing
beats swift minstrels mark time and, mid-carol, take flight.

They are madmen who marvel the mountains and say
of their chisel-chipped peaks – here brushed light, there daubed dark –
“No, I see here no God,” though the Maker’s mark’s made
in pinched clay. There is something of him in this art.
Only look: Lift your eyes from that beauty-blind way
to rejoice – echo: “Good” – as God praised from the start.

Oh, what gladness – what joy! – in the craft of his hands.
Hear our Christ in the hills – how he thundering raves!
Hear him whisper his hush at the sea’s pebbled strand,
where his cadence sings soft in the sun-stippled waves.
When admiring these works of our Father we stand
all the nearer, among them, to him. If we say,

then, that bulbs’ goblets gold, filled with sunlight in spring,
speak of life newly waking from winter-wrapped rest,
how much more must the sight of a man new-born bring
news of goodness and grace? How much more should a breast
choked with thorns, once – once withered with sin’s leeching sting –
give us joy when revived by Christ’s cross-borne caress?

How much more than the buds of the silver-leafed birch
bursting new should those walking, once-dead, now proclaim:
“Let this slum-become-temple, this whorehouse-turned-church –
this old life dawning new like the darkness turned day –
spur your praise!” Though there’s joy to be found when we search
shore and brake, glory’s more in creation remade.

NOTE: This poem and its introduction were published in 2015 under a different title by the Rabbit Room. I am reproducing the content here because the formatting at the Rabbit Room is all sorts of messed up. The poem, without the introduction, was was also previously posted here at Josh Bishop writes.

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I don’t often do this, but today’s post is simply going to be a full repost of someone else’s content. This sermon, titled “War! War! War!,” was preached by Charles Spurgeon on May 1, 1859, and the text was taken from the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Seminary.

“Fight the Lord’s battles.”—1 Samuel 18:17

We shall not take these words in their literal application, as coming from the lips of Saul, when he gave David his elder daughter, Merab, to wife; but shall accommodate the passage, and use it as an exhortation given to the church of Christ, and to every Soldier of Jesus: “Fight the Lord’s battles.” If this exhortation be not found in the selfsame words, coming from the lips of Jesus, nevertheless the whole tenor of the Word of God is to the same effect—“Fight the Lord’s battles.”

At the present crisis, the minds of men are exceedingly agitated with direful prospects of a terrible struggle. We know not whereunto this matter may grow. The signs of the times are dark and direful. We fear that the vials of God’s wrath are about to be poured out, and that the earth will be deluged with blood. As long as there remains a hope, let us pray for peace, nay, even in the time of war let us still beseech the throne of God, crying, that he would “send us peace in our days.”

The war will be looked upon by different persons with different feelings. The Italian will consider, all through the controversy, his own country; the Sardinian will be looking continually to the progress or to the defeat of his own nation; while the German, having sympathy with his own race, will be continually anxious to understand the state of affairs. There is one power however, which is not represented in the congress and which seems to be silent, because the ears of men are deaf to aught that it hath to say. To that power all our sympathies will be given, and our hearts will follow it with interest; and all through the war, the one question that we shall ask, will be “How will that kingdom prosper? “You all know to which kingdom I refer—it is the kingdom of Jesus Christ upon earth; that little one which is even at this time growing, and which is to become a thousand, which is to break in pieces all the monarchies of earth, and to seat itself upon their ruins, proclaiming universal liberty and peace, under the banner of Jesus Christ. I am sure that we shall think far more of the interests of religion than of anything else, and our prayer will be, “O Lord, do what thou wilt with the earthen pitchers of men’s monarchies, but let thy kingdom come, and let thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven!”

While, however, we shall anxiously watch the contest, it will be quite as well if we mingle in it ourselves. Not that this nation of England should touch it; God forbid. If tyrants fight, let them fight; let free men stand aloof. Why should England have aught to do with all the coming battles? As God has cut us off from Europe by a boisterous sea, so let us be kept apart from all the broils and turmoils into which tyrants and their slaves may fall. I speak now, after a spiritual manner, to the church of Christ. I say, “Let us mingle in the fray; let us have something to do. We cannot be neutral; we never have been. Our host is ever in hostility to sin and Satan. “My voice is still for war.” The senate of Christ’s church can never talk of peace. For thus it is written: “The Lord will have war.”

This will bring us to the text, and here I shall consider first of all, the Lord’s battles; we are not to fight our own; secondly, the Lord’s soldiers; and thirdly, the King’s command, “Fight the Lord’s battles.”

I.

First, THE LORD’S BATTLES, what are they? Not the garment rolled in blood, not the noise, and smoke, and din of human slaughter. These may be the devil’s battles, if you please, but not the Lord’s. They may be days of God’s vengeance but in their strife the servant of Jesus may not mingle. We stand aloof. Our kingdom is not of this world; else would God’s servants fight with sword and spear. Ours is a spiritual kingdom, and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds.

What are God’s battles? Let us here carefully distinguish between the battles of God, and our own. Oh, my brethren and sisters in Christ, it is not your business to fight your own battles, not even in defense of your own character. If you be maligned and slandered, let the slanderer alone. His malignity will but be increased by any attempt that you shall make to defend yourself. As a soldier of Christ you are to fight for your Master, not for yourself. You are not to carry on a private warfare for your own honor, but all your time and all your power is to be given to his defense and his war. You are not to have a word to speak for yourselves. Full often, when we get into little tempers, and our blood is roused, we are apt to think that we are fighting the cause of truth, when we are really maintaining our own pride. We imagine that we are defending our Master, but we are defending our own little selves. Too often the anger rises against an adversary not because his words reflect dishonor upon the glorious Christ, but because they dishonor us. Oh! let us not be so little as to fight our own battles! Depend upon it, the noblest means of conquest for a Christian in the matter of calumny and falsehood, is to stand still and see the salvation of God. Sheathe thine own sword, put away all thine own weapons, when thou comest to fight thine own battle, and let God fight for thee, and thou shalt be more than conqueror.

Again, we must recollect that there is such a thing as fighting the battles of our own sect, when we ought to be fighting God’s battles. We imagine that we are maintaining the church when we are only maintaining our section of it. I would always be very tender of the honor of the Christian body to which I belong, but I would rather see its honor stained, than that the glory of the entire church should be dimmed. Every soldier ought to love the peculiar legion in which he has enlisted, but better to see the colors of that legion rent to tatters, than to see the old standard of the cross trampled in the mire. Now I trust we are ready to say of our own denomination, Let its name perish, if Christ’s name shall get ought of glory thereby.” If the extinction of our sect should be the conquest of Christ and the promoting of his kingdom, then let it be wiped out of the book of record, and let not its name be heard any more. We should, I say, each of us defend the body to which we belong, for we have conscientiously joined it believing it to be the nearest to the old standard of the church of Christ, and God forbid that we should leave it for a worse. If we see a better, then would we sacrifice our prejudices to our convictions, but we cannot leave the old standard so long as we see it to be the very standard which floated in the hand of Paul, and which was handed by him through divers generations, through Chrysostom to Augustine, from Augustine to Calvin, and so on through the glorious race of mighty men who have not been ashamed of the gospel of Christ Jesus. But yet I say let our name. and let our sect, and let our denomination be absorbed, and let it sink, so that the battle of the Lord may but be well fought, and the time of Christ’s triumph hastened.

“Fight the Lord’s battles.” Then what are these? These are battles with sin and battles with error, and battles with war, and battles with worldliness. Fight ye these Christian. and ye shall have enough to do.

The Lord’s battle is first of all with sin. Seek grace to fight that battle in your own heart. Endeavour by divine grace to overcome those propensities which continually push you towards iniquity. On your knees wrestle against your besetting sins. As habits appear endeavor to break them by the battle-axe of strong resolution wielded by the arm of faith. Take all your lusts as they bestir themselves to the foot of the cross, and let the blood of Jesus fall upon those vipers and they must die. The blood of Christ shall spill the blood of sin. The death of Christ shall be the death of iniquity, the cross of Christ shall be the crucifixion of transgression. Labour with yourselves to drive the Canaanites out of your hearts. Spare none, let no petty lust escape. Put down pride and sloth, and lust, and unbelief and you have now a battle before you which may fill your hands, and more than fill them. Oh! cry unto God your strength, and look unto the hills from whence cometh your help, and then fight on again, and as each sin is overcome, each evil habit broken off, each lust denied go on to the rooting up of another, and the destruction of more of them, until ail being subdued, body soul and spirit shall be consecrated to Christ as a living sacrifice, purified by his Holy Spirit.

And while this battle is being fought, ay, and while it is still fighting, go out and fight with other men’s sins. Smite them first with the weapon of holy example. Be yourselves what you would have others be. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. Be yourselves clean ere ye can hope to be the purifiers of the world; and then, having first sought the blessing of God, go out into the world and bear your witness against sin. Let your testimony be unflinching; never let a sin pass under your eye without rebuke. Slay utterly young and old; let not one escape. Speak sometimes sternly if the sinner be hardened in his sin, speak gently, if it be his first offense, seeking not to break his head but to break the head of his iniquity—not to break his bones or wound his feelings, but to cut his sin in twain, and leave his iniquity dead before his eyes. Go ye forth where sin is the most rampant. Go down the dark alley, climb the creaking staircase; penetrate the dens of iniquity where the lion of the pit lies in his death lair, and go ye and pluck out of the mouth of the lion two legs and a piece of a ear, if that be all which you can save. Count it always your joy to follow the track of the lion, to beard him in his den, and fight him where he reigneth most secure. Protest daily, hourly, by act, by word, by pen, by tongue, against evil of every kind and shape. Be ye as burning and shining lights in the midst of darkness, and as two-edged swords in the midst of the hosts of sin. Why, a true Christian who lives near to God, and is filled with grace and is kept holy, may stand in the midst of sinners and do wonders. What a marvellous feat was that which Jonah did! There was the great city of Nineveh, having in it six score thousand souls that knew not their right hand from their left, and one man went against it—Jonah—and as he approached it he began to cry, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” He entered the city—perhaps he stood aghast for a moment at the multitude of its population, at its richness and splendor, but again he lilted up his sharp shrill voice, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” On he went, and the crowd increased around him as he passed through each street, but they heard nothing but the solemn monotony, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown;” and yet again, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” And on he went, that solitary man, till he caused convulsion in the midst of myriads, and the king on his throne robed himself in sackcloth and proclaimed a fast, a day of mourning and of sadness. Yet on he went, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” till all the people bowed before him, and that one man was the conqueror of the myriad. Ah! believer, if you will go out and do the same, if you will go into the streets, the lanes, the by-ways the houses, and into the privacies of men, and still with this continued cry against sin and iniquity, say to them, “Look unto the cross and live, look unto the cross and live.” Though there were but one earnest man in London who would continue that monotony of “Look unto the cross and live,” from end to end this city would shake, and the great leviathan metropolis would be made to tremble. Go forth then, believer, and cry against sin with all thy might.

And even so must we cry against error. It is the preacher’s business Sabbath after Sabbath, and week-day after week-day, to preach the whole gospel of God and to vindicate the truth as it is in Jesus from the opposition of man. Thousands are the heresies which now beset the church. O children of God! fight the Lord’s battles for truth. I am astonished, and yet more astonished when I come to turn it over, at the want of earnestness that there is in the Protestantism of the present age. How do you imagine that Cardinal Wiseman pays for all his splendours, and that the Romish church is supported? Fools and slow of heart, ye find them much of their wealth. If he is to preach in any place, who is it that crowds the chapel full, and pays for admission? The Protestants; and the Protestantism of England is the pay-master of the Pope. I am ashamed that sons of the Reformers who have Smithfield still in their midst unbuilt upon, should bow themselves before the beast, and give so much as a single farthing to the shrine of the devil’s firstborn son Take heed to yourselves, ye Protestants, lest ye be partakers of her plagues; touch her not, lest ye be defiled. Give a drachm to her, or a grain of incense to her censors, ye shall be partakers of her adulteries and partakers of her plagues. Every time you pass the house of Popery let a curse light upon her head: Thus saith the Lord: —“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”—Revelation 18:4-8. How soft some men’s minds are growing, how effeminate in the battle. I hear then speaking of Puseyism, —and what is that but Popery made worse than it was before by being more despicable and deceivable than even Popery itself. Do ye not hear men talk of the Puseyites in these days and say, “Ah! well, they differ a little from us.” Do not the evangelical party in the Church of England seem at the present moment to make common cause and party with the Puseyite? Else how is it that the great preachings have been alternatively conducted by High and Low Church? It is all very well with that Church when it is separated from her heretical sons, and a great gulf fixed, but all that helps to bridge that gulf must mar her glory and destroy her power. We must have no truce, no treaty with Rome. War! war to the knife with her! Peace there cannot be. She cannot have peace with us—we cannot have peace with her. She hates the true Church, and we can only say that the hatred is reciprocated. We would not lay a hand upon her priests; we would not touch a hair of their heads. Let them be free; but their doctrine we would destroy from the face of the earth as the doctrine of devils. So let it perish, O God, and let that evil thing become as the fat of lambs. Into smoke let it consume: yea into smoke let it consume away.

We must fight the Lord’s battles against this giant error, whichever shape it takes; and so must we do with every error that pollutes the church. Slay it utterly; let none escape. “Fight the Lord’s battles.” Even though it be an error that is in an Evangelical Church, yet must we smite it. I love all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, but, nevertheless, I cannot have any truce any treaty with divers errors that have crept into the church, nor would I have you regard them with complacency. We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one another’s error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes. Let us all be true to one another, and true to Christ; and as soon as we perceive an error, though it be but as the shadow of one, let us root it out and drive it from us, lest it plague the whole body, and put leprosy into the entire fabric of the church. No peace with sin. No peace with falsehood. War, war, war without deliberation: war for ever with error and deceit!

And yet again, it is the Christian’s duty always to have war with war. To have bitterness in our hearts against any man that lives is to serve Satan. We must speak very hardly and sternly against error, and against sin; but against men we have not a word to say, though it were the Pope himself: I have no enmity in my heart against him as a man, but as anti-Christ. With men the Christian is one. Are we not every man’s brother? “God hath made of one flesh all people that dwell upon the face of the earth.” The cause of Christ is the cause of humanity. We are friends to all, and are enemies to none. We do not speak evil, even of the false prophet himself; as a man, but, as a false prophet. we are his sworn opponents. Now, Christians, ye have a difficult battle to fight, because ye fight with all evil and hostility between man and man: you are to be peacemakers. Go wherever you may, if you see a quarrel you are to abate it. You are to pluck firebrands out of the fire, and strive to quench them in the waters of lovingkindness. It is your mission to bring the nations together, and weld them into one. It is yours to make man love man, to make him no more the devourer of his kind. This you can only do by being the friends of purity. Peace with error is war with man: but war with error is peace with man. Smite error, smite sin, and you have done your best to promote happiness and union among mankind. Oh, go, Christian, in the Spirit’s strength, and smite your own anger—put that to the death, smite your own pride—level that, and then smite every other man’s anger. Make peace wherever you can; scatter peace with both your hands. Let this be the very air you breathe; let nothing drop from your lip but words of healing, words of tenderness, words which shall abate the strife and noise of this poor distracted world. And now you have a battle before you, —a battle against sin and against error, and then, also, a battle against strife, —the battle of love.

II.

And now FOR THE LORD’S SOLDIERS: who are they that are to fight the Lord’s battle? Not everybody. The Lord has his army, his church: who are they? The Lord’s soldiers are all of his own choosing. He has chosen them out of the world; and they are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. But if you want to know the Lord’s soldiers, I will tell you how you may ascertain whether you are one. When the Lord Jesus enlists a soldier in his church, the first thing he does with him is, he tells him that he must first take off every rag of the old garments that he was wont to wear. “Now,” saith Jesus to him, “thy rags must be relinquished; thy sins and thy self-righteousness must both be forsaken. Here is the regimental, here is the inner garment of my imputed righteousness, and here is the outward garment of divine sanctification. Put on these, and thou art mine. But in thine own robes, I will have nothing to do with thee, thou shalt still continue an heir of wrath, and I will not enlist thee among the heirs of grace.” As soon as a man has his rags taken off, it Christ has enlisted him, the next thing he is required to do is, to wash. He is washed, from head to foot, in a matchless bath of blood; and when washed, he is arrayed, and clothed upon with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This done, he is taken into the midst of the army and introduced to his comrades, and he is led to love the whole army. “Well,” says one, “I love my own rank.” Do you? Then you do not belong to it, if you do not love the other ranks too. He who is a true soldier of Christ, wears his regimentals, and he loves the whole army. He keeps to his own regiment, and he likes its banner—the flag that has braved so often the battle and the storm; still he loves the whole army, however much the colors may differ. He loves all them that serve the Lord Jesus Christ. “By this also ye shall know whether ye be his disciples, if ye love one another, even as Christ has loved you.”

Once brought into the army, there is one mark whereby you may know Christ’s soldier, namely, that he is not his own. If you meet him, he will say, “From head to foot I belong to my Captain, every inch of me; and what is more, I have given up goods and chattels, wife and children, time and talents, everything to him. I am not my own, I am bought with a price.” He is a consecrated man. Come, then, put these questions to yourselves. Have you been washed in the blood of Christ? Do you boast in the imputed righteousness of Christ? And are you clothed about with the sanctification of his Spirit? Have you given up everything for his cause, and for the love you bear his name are you willing to live or willing to die, as he shall please, if you may but promote his honor? Well, then, you are his soldier, and therefore I shall not need to draw any further lines of distinction; but go to the third point, which is—

III.

THE EXHORTATION—“Fight!” “Fight the Lord’s battles.” If you are the soldier of the heavenly King; “To arms! To arms!” “Fight the Lord’s battles.”

Here I would observe, that there are some people who are very fond of looking on, and not fighting. Perhaps five out of every six of our church do little but look on. You go to see them, and you say, “Well, what is your church doing?” “Well, we bless God, we are doing a great deal; we have a Sabbath-school, with so many children; our minister preaches so many times, and so many members have been added to the churches. The sick are visited; the poor are relieved.” And you stop them, and say, “Well, friend, I am glad to hear that you are doing so much; but which work is it that you take? Do you teach in the Sabbath school?” “No.” “Do you preach in the street?” “No.” “Do you visit the sick?” “No.” Do you assist in the discipline of the church?” “No.” “Do you contribute to the poor?” “No.” Yet I thought you said you were doing so much. Stand out, sir, if you please, you are doing nothing at all. Be ashamed! Your master does not say, “Look on at the Lord’s battles;” but “Fight” them. “Ah,” says one. “but then, you know, I contribute towards the support of the ministers he has to do that.” Oh! I see, you have made a mistake; you thought that you belonged to the English government, and not to Christ’s government. You have been paying for a substitute, have you? You are not going to fight in person; you are paying, to keep a substitute to fight for you. Ah, ye have made a great mistake here. Christ will have all his soldiers fight. Why, I am not kept to do the fighting for you: I wilt endeavor to encourage you, and nerve you to the battle; but as to doing your duty, no, I thank you. The Romanist may believe that his priest does the work for him; I do not believe any such thing in my case, nor in the case of your ministers. Christ did not serve you by proxy, and you cannot serve him by proxy. No, “he his own self bare our sins in his own body,” and you must work for Christ in your own body, your own self, with your own heart and with your own hands. I do hate that religion which another man can do for you. Depend upon it, it is good for nothing. True religion is a personal thing. O soldiers of the heavenly King, leave not our lieutenants and your officers to fight alone. Come on with us; we wave our swords in front. Come comrades, on! we are ready to mount the call, or lead the forlorn hope. Will you desert us? Come up the ladder with us. Let us show the enemy what Christian blood can do, and at the sword’s point let us drive our foes before us. If you leave us to do all it will all be undone; we want all to do something, all to be laboring for Christ. Here, then, is the exhortation to each individual Christian—“Fight the Lord’s battles.”

And now, I will read you over the code martial—the rules which Christ, the Captain, would have you obey in fighting his battles.

Regulation I.

NO COMMUNICATION NOR UNION WITH THE ENEMY!

“Ye are not of the world.” No truce, no league, no treaty, are you to make with the enemies of Christ. Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing.”

Regulation II.

NO QUARTER TO BE GIVEN OR TAKEN!

You are not to say to the world, “There! Believe me to be better than I am”—and do not ever believe the world to be better than it is? Do not ask it to excuse you; do not excuse it. No parley with it whatever. If it praises you, do not care for its praise; if it scorns you laugh in its face. Have nought to do with its pretended friendship. Ask nothing at its hands; let it be crucified to you, and you to it.

Regulation III.

NO WEAPONS OR AMMUNITION TAKEN FROM THE ENEMY ARE TO BE USED BY IMMANUEL’S SOLDIERS, BUT ARE TO BE UTTERLY BURNED WITH FIRE!

If you beat them, and you find their guns lying on the ground, spike them and melt them; never fire them off: —that is to say, never fight Christ’s battles with the devil’s weapons. If your enemy gets angry do not get angry with him; if he slanders you, do not slander him. One of the devil’s long guns is slander: spike it and melt it; do not attempt to use it against the enemy. All kinds of bitterness—these are firebrands of death which Satan hurls against us: never hurl them back at him. Remember you Master. “When he was reviled he reviled not again.” Never meddle with the enemy’s weapons, even if you can. If you think you can crush him by his own mode of warfare, do not do it. It was all very well for David to cut off Goliath’s head with his own sword; but it would not have done for him to try that, until he had first of all split his head open with a stone. Try to get a stone out of the brook of truth, and throw it with the sling of faith, but have nothing to do with Goliath’s sword; you will cut your fingers with it, and get no honor.

Regulation IV.

NO FEAR, TREMBLING, OR COWARDICE!

“The children of Ephraim, being armed, turned their backs in the day of battles” but Christ wants no cowardice of you. Fear not. Remember, if any man be ashamed of Christ in this generation, of him will Christ be ashamed in the day when he comes in the glory of his Father and all his holy angels. “I say unto you, fear not him that can kill the body, but after that hath no more that he can do; but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell; I say unto you, fear him.”

Regulation V.

NO SLUMBERING, REST, EASE, OR SURRENDER!

Be always at it, all at it, constantly at it, with all your might at it. No rest. Your resting time is to come, in the grave. Be always fighting the enemy. Ask every day for grace to win a victory, and each night sleep not unless you can feel that you have done something in the cause of Christ—have helped to carry the standard a little further into the midst of the enemy’s ranks. Oh! if we did but attend to these regulations how much might be done! But because we forget them, the cause of Christ is retarded and the victory is along.

And now, before I send you away, I would call out Christ’s soldiers, and drill them for a minute or two. I see sometimes the captains marching their soldiers to and fro, and you may laugh and say they are doing nothing; but mark, all that manoeuvering, that forming into squares, and so forth, has its practical effect when they come into the field of battle. Suffer me, then, to put the Christian through his postures.

The first posture the Christian ought to take, and in which he ought. to be very well practiced, is this. DOWN UPON BOTH KNEES, HANDS UP, AND EYES UP TO HEAVEN! No posture like that. It is called the posture of prayer. When Christ’s church has been beaten every way else, it has at last taken to its knees, and then the whole army of the enemy has fled before us, for on its knees Christ’s church is more than conqueror. The praying legion is a legion of heroes. He who understands this posture has learned the first part of the heavenly drill.

The next posture is: FEET FAST, HANDS STILL, AND EYES UP! A hard posture that, though it looks very easy. “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” I have known many men who could practice the first position who could not practice the: second. Perhaps that was the hardest thing that the children of Israel ever did. When they had the sea before them and Pharoah behind them, they were commanded to stand still. But if you must learn to stand still when you are provoked, to be silent when you are mocked, to wait under adverse providences, and still believe that in the darkest hour the sun is not dead, but will shine out again. Patient waiting for Christ’s coming, may we all learn this.

Another posture is this: QUICK MARCH, CONTINUALLY GOING ONWARD! Ah! there are some Christians who are constantly sleeping on their guns; but they do not understand the posture of going onward. Quick march! Many Christians seem to be better skilled in the goose step of lifting up one foot after another and putting them down in the same place, rather than going onwards. Oh! I would we all knew how to progress—to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Never think you are doing anything unless you are getting forwarder—have more love, more hope, more joy, and are extending your sphere of usefulness. Soldiers of Christ, Quick march!” Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward.” Let them not go back; let them not stand still. On, on, on, soldiers of Christ! Go forward!

Another posture is one that is very hard to learn indeed. It is what no soldier, I think, was ever told to do by his captain, except the soldier of Christ: EYES SHUT, AND EARS SHUT, AND HEART SHUT! That is when you go through Vanity Fair. Eyes shut, so as not to look upon temptation; ears shut, so as not to regard either the praise or the scoffs of the world; and heart shut against evil, with the great stone of precept. “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Roll a stone at the door of your heart, that sin may not come out of it. That is a hard posture; but you will never fight the battles of the Lord till you know how to maintain that.

And then there is another posture: FEET FIRM, SWORD IN HAND. EYES OPEN; LOOKING AT YOUR ENEMY, WATCHING EVERY FEINT THAT HE MAKES, AND WATCHING TOO YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO LET FLY AT HIM SWORD IN HAND! That posture you must maintain every day. Guard against the darts of the enemy; hold up your shield, and be ready to run on him and give him a deadly wound. I need not explain that. You that have to do with business, you that are in the ministry, You that are serving God as deacons and elders, you know how often you have to ward off the dart and look well at your enemy, and meet him sword in hand, ready to rush in whenever your time shall come. Let no opportunity—let no occasion pass by. Wound your enemy whenever you can; slay sin, slay error, and destroy bitterness, as often as ye have opportunity so to do.

There is one other posture, which is a very happy one for the child of God to take up and I would have you remember to-day. HANDS WIDE OPEN, AND HEART WIDE OPEN, WHEN YOU ARE HELPING YOUR BRETHREN, a hand ready to give whate’er the church needs, and an eye ready to look up for help when you cannot give help with your hand, and ready to guide the hand whenever help is wanting; and a heart open to hear the tale of another’s want, to “rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.”

Above all, the best posture for Christ’s church, is that of PATIENT WAITING FOR THE ADVENT OF CHRIST, a looking-forward for his glorious appearance, who must come and will not tarry, but who will get unto himself the victory.

Now, it you will go to your houses, and if divine grace shall help you to put yourselves through this form of drill, you will be mighty in the day of battle to put down the enemy.

And now suffer the word of exhortation, very brief, but hot and earnest. O Christian men and women, the more ye think of it the more will ye be ashamed or yourselves, and of the present church, that we do so little for Christ. Some eighteen hundred years ago, there were a handful of men and women in an upper room; and that handful! of men and women were so devoted to their master end so true to his cause, that within a hundred years they had overrun every nation of the habitable globe; yea, within fifty years they had preached the gospel in every land. And now look at this great host gathered here to-day. Probably there are not less than two or three thousand members of Christian churches, besides this mixed multitude and now what will you do in fifty years time? What does the church do in any year of its existence? Why, hardly anything at all. I sometimes wonder how long God will allow the church to be cooped up in England. I fear that we shall never see the world converted, till this country is invaded. If it should ever happen that our hearths and homes should be invaded, and that we should be scattered, north, south, east and west, all through the world, it will be the grandest thing that ever happened for the church of Christ. I would go down on my knees and pray night and day that it may not happen for the nation’s sake; but nevertheless I sometimes think that the greatest disaster that can ever occur to our nation, will be the only way in which Christ’s church will be spread. Look at it. Here you have your churches in almost every street, and despite the destitution of London, it is not destitute if you compare it with the nations of the world. Oh, ought we not as ministers of Christ to pour out in legions? and ought not our people to go everywhere in the habitable world, in ones, and twos, and threes, preaching the gospel? But would you have us leave wife, and house, and children? I would not have you do it; but if ye would do it then would Christ’s power be seen, and then would the might of the church return to it once again. They were men without purse or scrip that went everywhere preaching the word, and God was with them, and the world heard them and was converted. Now we cannot go if we are not sent, and perhaps it is only reasonable that flesh and blood should not ask more; but still if the life of God were in the church, it would never stop in England long; it would send forth its bands and legions, rolling along in one tremendous stream; a new crusade would be preached against the heathen nations, and the sword of the Lord and of Gideon would smite the stoutest of our foemen, and Christ would reign, and his unsuffering kingdom then would come. Oh that the church had power with men, and power with God! Dear brothers and sisters, look out and see what you can do, every one of you. Do something to-day. Do not let this Sunday go without every one of you trying to be the means of winning a soul to God. Go to your Sunday Schools this afternoon; go to your preaching stations; go to your tract district each one in his sphere; go to your families, your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters; go home and do something to-day. “Fight the Lord’s battles.” You can do nothing of yourselves; but God will be with you. If you have the will to serve him, he will give you the power. Go today, and seek to heal some breach, to put away some enmity, to slay some sin, or to drive out some error; and God being with you this shall be a happier day to your soul, and a holier day to the world than you have seen in all your experience before.

I will have one blow, and then you may go. Sinner! I remember that thou art here this morning as well as the saint. Sinner! thou art not Christ’s soldier; thou art a soldier of Satan; thou wilt have thy pay soon, man, when thou hast worn thy sword out, and worn thine arm out in fighting against Christ. Thou shalt have thy pay. Look at it and tremble. “The wages of sin is death,” and damnation too. Will you take these two, or will you now renounce the black old tyrant, and enlist under the banner of Christ? O that God would give you the earnest money of free grace, and enlist you now as a soldier of the cross. Remember, Christ takes the very dregs to be his soldiers. Every man that was in debt, and every man that was discontented, came to David, and he became a captain over them. Now, if you are in debt this morning to God’s law, and cannot pay, if you are discontented with the devil’s service, jaded and worn out with pleasure, come to Christ, and he will receive you, make you a soldier of the cross, and a follower of the Lamb. God be with you and bless you, from this day forth, even for ever!

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An Altar of Remembrance

for Mike & Kay Barry on January 5, 2024

You placed the first stone when you pledged “I do”
and together ran headlong across the threshold
that makes one life, one flesh, from what was two —
not knowing what the long years since that day would hold.
Not knowing then the countless homes you’d build
on countless, unguessed avenues around the nation,
where in every place you served the church, the ill,
each other through your ministering vocations.
Not knowing then the laughter, tears you’d share,
the daily pains and joys you’d give and bear for each,
shared moments when you’d breathe enchanted air,
those lone and lonely times the dream seemed out of reach.
Not knowing then your daughters’ lovely faces
or, later, how they’d settle husbands, children, homes
to plant and grow your line in far-off places.
And still you laid through all the changing years your stones.
Not knowing then you’d bend to nearly breaking
but choose instead the harder, narrow path of staying,
reknit together stronger through remaking —
and hand-in-hand you’d gather still more stones for laying.
Not knowing that your road would lead you home,
back across the Jordan to the Texas promised land,
where your marriage built of living stones
as an altar of remembering now stands.

Full fifty stones, now, gathered through the years,
and when your children’s children’s children ask in wonder,
“What do these stones mean?” we’ll say with grateful tears:
These stones before you are a memory forever;
these fifty tell the tale of two made one —
a sermon made of lives God’s mighty hand has blessed.
Look! See here before you what the Lord has done.
Look, and nevermore forget Christ’s faithfulness.

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Several times in the past few years I’ve joined a group of men in some pretty rigorous periods of fasting and discipline. I’ve participated in Exodus 90 once or twice (I honestly can’t remember which), and we observed Saint Michael’s Lent through the same program — both of them were remarkable, though difficult, experiences. It’s the same with my regular Lenten fasts, too: They’re not easy, but they’re good.

Every time I get past the end of a fast, I realize how much I miss it. I don’t say that to make myself sound holier-than-thou (“Look how much I love fasting!”), only to admit that I’ve learned I need some sort of external discipline — I lack self-discipline, and I need the structure and order of the church’s spiritual practices to keep me on the right path. It’s not a pride thing; it’s an acknowledgment that I’m weak and, when left to my own devices, wayward.

So I put together a Rule of Life to guide my, well… my life. A lot of it is based on rhythms and disciplines tied to the church calendar, although I also tried to address my own particular circumstances, difficulties, weaknesses, and strengths.

Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to others if I share it. If you like what you see here, consider putting together your own Rule!

A few quick notes before getting to my Rule:

• First, this is adapted from the Rule of Life and the Self-Examination found in the St. Bernard Breviary. I’m certain that much of the content comes directly from that text, and I don’t at all want to imply that everything here is original to me. Some of the sentences, especially in the sections on prayer, fasting, and feasting, are taken directly from the Breviary. (Related, I have adapted and used it entirely without permission; should the Anglican Liturgy Press object on grounds of copyright, I will gladly delete this post.)
  

• Second, I consider this Rule to be aspirational, which is another way of saying that I’m not very good at keeping it. This articulates the way I want to live and the way I believe I should live — not the way I actually do live. Some days and weeks are better than others, but I don’t think I’ve ever finished a week and looked back to say, “Nailed it.” And I don’t expect I ever will.
  

• Third, I’m also sharing this so the people in my life can hold me accountable to it. If you see me behaving or living in ways that violate my Rule, and especially if you see me doing so habitually or as part of a lifestyle pattern — please tell me! (This is especially true for those of you who know me IRL.)

My Rule of Life

☩

I WILL PRAY Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer at a set time Monday through Friday, and as possible on Saturday and Sunday. If for some reason I am prevented from praying the office at the established time, I will at least pray the appointed psalms or an abbreviated office as soon as I am able.

☩

HUNGRY FOR THE things of God, I will FAST according to the rhythms of the Church Year. In particular, I will fast from all food, not eating until the following morning, on:

• Ash Wednesday and Good Friday

I will abstain from all food until 5 p.m. on:

• All Wednesdays and Fridays of the year (excluding feast days and festal seasons)

And I will additionally restrict food in some way:

• Daily during Lent, and especially during Holy Week

• On Ember Days

• As seems appropriate for dedicated times of discipline and prayer

I will never consume an inordinate amount of alcohol, such as hinders the ability to pray and remain watchful. Except on Sundays and feast days, I will not drink alone.

☩

I WILL FEAST on the Word of God by spending a minimum of 30 minutes in meditation on Holy Scripture at least once a week (in addition to the daily Scripture readings of the office). I also commit to the lifelong work of the Psalter: memorization and internalization through constant reading and recitation.

I will feast on the body and blood of Christ by celebrating the Eucharist at least twice monthly.

I will order my feasting at table according to the rhythms of the Church Year. In particular, I will keep the following feasts and their vigils with special solemnity and festivity:

• Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and All Saints’ Day

I will adopt a celebratory posture, forgoing abstention:

• On all Sundays of the year

• During the 12 days of Christmas and the Octave of Easter

• On lesser feast days, provided they do not unduly interfere with periods of fasting and discipline

• As seems appropriate for times of celebration and fellowship

I will lead my family in creating an atmosphere of hospitality, inviting others into our home for a meal at least once a month.

☩

AWARE OF MY natural tendency to live in an unordered manner, I will DISCIPLINE my life, with particular attention to my body, time, and finances.

I vigorously commit to the highest standard of sexual chastity in thought and deed. I will keep the marriage vow unto death.

Because staying healthy and fit is an act of charity toward those who depend on me, I will exercise at least four times a week.

Except when fasting or feasting, my regular diet will be moderate and temperate — neither excessively indulgent nor unnecessarily sparse (i.e., healthy food, modest helpings, no seconds, few snacks).

To resist distraction and the neglect of my duties, I will minimize social media and smartphone use.

I will make an honest effort to go to bed every night between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m., that I may be rested and alert for Morning Prayer and the demands of the day. Under no circumstance will I go to bed later than midnight.

I will honor every Sunday as a day of Sabbath rest. I will not put off until Sunday work that can be done during the week.

I will pursue financial responsibility by maintaining a healthy family budget, contributing to our savings and investments, and giving generously to the work of the Church and to those in need.

☩

I WILL TEND diligently to the roles, tasks, and responsibilities that God has assigned to me.

As a husband, I will treat my wife at all times with affection, gentleness, and care. I will lead her with tenderness, sacrificially seeking her good and the good of our family. I will not neglect to provide for her needs and reasonable wishes. I will take the initiative to schedule dates at least twice a month. And I commit to praying both with her and for her every day.

As a father, I will give my sons my time, attention, and affection. I will spend uninterrupted one-on-one time with each son every other week. For the rest of my life, I commit to encouraging them in their interests and pursuits, cheering for their accomplishments, and providing guidance, practical support, and Christian formation.

As a churchman, I will not neglect to attend weekly worship when able. I will serve my local congregation with my time, talents, and treasure. I will pray for and encourage my pastors. I will not be satisfied with religious routine rather than true worship, and I will never treat Christian objects in a superstitious way.

In my career, I will work industriously, arriving on time and performing my tasks with focus and productive discipline, not in a distracted or neglectful manner.

In my household, I will help make our home a place of safety, security, order, rest, and peace. I will assume the responsibilities of home maintenance and repair, and will unbegrudgingly help with household chores and domestic tasks.

☩

BECAUSE GOD IS the source of all truth, goodness, and beauty, I will LOVE what is TRUE, GOOD, and BEAUTIFUL.

I will hold to the Bible as the ultimate measure of truth to guide, guard, and form my faith and life. Where the Bible seems unclear, I will trust the voice of the historic Church for interpretation. I will not believe any doctrine contrary to the teaching of Christianity.

I will write, speak, and teach only what I believe to be true, and I will be especially mindful to speak truthfully when fear or cowardice tempt me to compromise. I will fear the opinion of God more than the opinions of men: So far as I am able, I will live not by lies.

Aware that loveless speech can tend toward cruelty, my truth-speaking will always be tempered by charity and intended for the good of others.

I will live with integrity, so that both my interior life and my public conduct truly match my profession of faith and do not bring shame or scandal to the name of Christ or his Church.

Within the reasonable limits of our budget, I will fill our home and our days with beautiful things: art, music, quality goods and craftsmanship, peace and order, laughter. Beauty will be a first-order priority — not an afterthought.

☩

CONVINCED THAT EVERY good gift comes from the hand of God and is intended for his glory and for our joy, I will ENJOY with enthusiasm the life God has given me.

I will not complain against God, who has blessed me far more than I deserve; and I will not neglect to thank God for what he has given.

I will strive to make the tenor of my life one of merriment; my demeanor will be conspicuously jovial. I will be joyful in all circumstances, for the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Even in seasons of stress or busyness, then, I will make time for the small pleasures that bring me joy: to read, write poetry, smoke pipes, drink beer, and fellowship with friends.

I will eat, drink, and be merry, for yesterday I was dead!

☩

I WILL EXAMINE my life according to this Rule regularly and will share my experience accountably with my Christian brothers.

I will habitually use the Daily Examen, confessing my sins to God, apologizing quickly and sincerely to those against whom I have sinned, and relentlessly pursuing repentance.

At least once a year, I will retreat overnight for undistracted prayer, Scripture, examination, repentance, and spiritual work, guided by:

• Self-Examination (St. Bernard’s Breviary)

• The Akathist ‘Glory to God for All Things’

• The Great Litany

# # #

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It’s set to the tune of “Oak and Ash and Thorn” — if you want a good sense of the song’s “vibe,” you can listen to The Longest Johns’ recording of “Oak and Ash and Thorn” on YouTube.

Cup And Cross And Crown

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Cup and Cross and Crown

Jesus Christ was sacrificed one week in Jerusalem-town.
Sinners were saved when everything changed by Cup and Cross and Crown.

Refrain
Sing Cup and Cross and Crown, good sirs,
Tell it the whole world around.
Surely we’ll sing of no greater thing
Than Cup and Cross and Crown.

The bitter Cup was filled to the top with wine for the Passover feast.
“My blood,” Christ said, “My body, this bread. Take, and drink, and eat.”
But one didn’t stay and left to betray, Judas ran to the temple grounds.
Satan wouldn’t’ve dared if he’d been prepared for Cup and Cross and Crown.

Refrain x2

Hammer and nails and cat o‘ nine tails, the Cross and the thorns on His head,
King of the Jews, for me and for you, He suffered, thirst, and bled.
The Son of God died, a spear pierced His side, and blood and water came down.
To die as a man was part of God’s plan for Cup and Cross and Crown.

Refrain x2

A borrowed tomb, the airless gloom, the Devil thought he had won,
But the stone rolled away, and out of that grave shone the light of the risen Son.
After three days, His body was raised, the Father gave Him the Crown.
The Lord Jesus reigns, all glory and praise for Cup and Cross and Crown!

Refrain x4

Play it on Spotify

Many thanks to Michael E. Owens for the arrangement and setting! You can find more of his Christian sea shanty recordings on Spotify: Shanties Reborn, vol. 1 and Shanties Reborn, vol. 2.

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“Breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah.”
—C.S. Lewis

Or, if you must have fuller context:

“‘Breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah,’ said the Horse.”
—C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy1

Why is this my favorite C.S. Lewis quote, or one of them? Because it delights me, is all. Puts a smile on my face. I will not explain further.

“It needs to be on a t-shirt,” I said — so I threw together a design. “It needs to be on stickers, too,” I said. So I put it on Redbubble, where you can now buy stickers, t-shirts, mugs, and all sorts of fun things.

Find my shop at breehy-hinny-brinny-hoohy-hah.com, and I’m not even joking.

I mean, I am having fun, and it’s definitely a joke — but I’m also not joking: that’s the real URL. You’re welcome.

Every single penny of the proceeds will go toward my beer money. And, just in case giving me money for beer bothers you, here’s another of my favorite quotes from Saint Clive:

“Another things that annoys me is when people say, ‘Why did you give that man money? He’ll probably go and drink it.’ My reply is, ‘But if I kept it, I should have probably drunk it.’”
—C.S. Lewis

Cheers!

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What Joy Will Greet Us In That Place

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What Joy Will Greet Us In That Place

What joy will greet us in that place
When we with unveiled stare
See in our savior’s ageless face
Our glory mirrored there.

What joy! when we, no longer slaves
To flesh and sin and death,
Exchange this Egypt’s burning rays
For Canaan’s endless rest.

What joy! when sorrows sting no more;
What joy! when death has died;
What joy! in every loss restored,
In tears no longer cried.

What joy! when we, the Bride of Christ,
Made splendid by his love,
Are clothed in festal, spotless white
And seated high above.

What joy! to join with saints around
A sea of glass aflame;
What joy! when praises loud resound
To glorify his name.

What joy! to drink the waters deep
That from God’s temple flow;
What joy! to eat from Eden’s tree,
What joy! to fully know.

We’ve pallid joy while yet we grieve
And toil and long on earth,
Impatient waiting to receive
True joy from death — then birth.

Lord, bring us safe to Zion’s shore
And grant to us at last
That joy that lives forevermore,
That joy that will not pass.

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Christ preached New England’s Pilgrim fields
from pulpit and with musket ball;
the light of Christ from Old North Church
shined clear to Independence Hall.

Christ westward crossed the fruited plain;
Christ bled to free the Southern slaves;
Christ led the million marching men
who dreamed Christ’s dream with MLK.

What now is this Christ-haunted land?
How long will we deny our Lord?
Where are the men who build and fight?
Where is my shovel? Where my sword?

By grace, we’ll build New Christendom:
from sea to shining sea he reigns!
His kingdom come, his will be done
in these United States again.

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Becca’s Epilepsy

My wife, Becca, was diagnosed with epilepsy almost nine years ago, when she was 35 years old. Turns out she had been having v. small, misdiagnosed seizures since she was in college, but we didn’t learn that until her seizures got much worse in 2017; she had her first GTC/grand mal that November. She was sitting sideways in a kitchen chair, and I was giving her a back rub. She fell backwards, and I caught her and held her and panicked and prayed and called 911 after she stopped convulsing.

Since then, she’s had hundreds of partial seizures (we call these “focal seizures” because they’re focused in one part of her brain), six GTC or grand mal seizures (these are the big, full-body, drop-to-the-ground convulsions that everyone thinks of when they think of seizures), and countless additional, tiny auras — countless because there are so uncountably many of them.

Since this started, we’ve been in four different hospitals, including Mayo Clinic. Thankfully, the doctors have finally figured out how to stop most of her worst seizures with a concoction of pharmaceuticals. Most of the seizures, but not all of them: Last week, she had another seizure and again can’t drive.

This has been unbelievably hard for all of us, and especially for Becca. She’s her driver’s license several times, driving (in total) just over two years of the last eight. Her memory has become noticeably bad; her seizures originate in her left temporal lobe, which houses language and memory function. She’s confused a lot. She’s been unable to hold a job. Even one seizure can knock us all back on our heels and rearrange our plans for several days while Becca is tired and sore and foggy. So far, she’s been spared the worst, though: She keeps her balance and can stay standing during her focal seizures, and I’ve been there to catch her for all of her grand mals; she hasn’t injured herself during a seizure, and her quality of life is remarkably good overall.

Still, we’re anxious and on edge all. the. time. We’ve had to get used to saying new words, like “postictal” and “disabled.” The kids have seen more than any kid should see, and they’ve been responsible in ways that no kid should be responsible. We’re all tired and, to be honest, we’re scared.

I’m crazy proud of Becca. It isn’t easy, and both of us have v. bad days, but I’m proud of her. She’s a champion. She’s been through a lot. She handles it with grace and humor, and she’ll be the first to tell you that’s probably because she’s entirely and blissfully unaware of her seizures.

The picture on the left, above, is from one of her two stays at the hospital’s epilepsy monitoring unit. They hooked her up to machines for five days of 24-hour live video surveillance and digital monitoring, then took her off her meds and waited for the seizures to come so they could record them and rush her down the hall for brain imaging. And the picture on the right is of our drive home just a couple days later; I snapped it at a stop light after we left the hospital. Look how beautiful she is! And look how happy we seem. If I didn’t know what she’d just been through, I almost wouldn’t believe it.

Please Excuse a Little Theology

Of course, we couldn’t make it through this without Christ holding onto us. We don’t know why this is happening, but we do trust that God is using it for good. We’ve already seen that in so many ways. It’s been my experience that suffering has brought us closer to God and that we more clearly feel and know and understand the sustaining love and comfort of Christ through this.

The truth is, my ultimate hope for Becca is not that she will be healed of epilepsy. I wholeheartedly believe that God can heal her epilepsy in this life, and I plead with him in faith every day to do so; I am confident he will heal her fully, in the next life if not in this one. But I do not place my hope or my comfort in her physical healing or in her victory over epilepsy. The Lord Jesus Christ has made it possible for her to have life and have it abundantly, even while having seizures.

Any expectation of a coming breakthrough in Becca’s health is thin and watery gruel compared to the bountiful feast of the gospel — the sure and certain promise that God is near her in her suffering, that God has through Christ made satisfaction for her sins and will one day make her whole, that he is working even in this disability for his glory and for her good, and that she will look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living even if she has epileptic fits until the day God calls her home, where she will behold at last her savior’s face. This is the glorious hope of the gospel, the good news that a hurting and broken world needs to hear.

If you don’t yet know the saving love of God, please don’t wait: repent of your sins and trust in Jesus, who delights to save sinners like you and like me.

None of this theology is to say that it’s easy — only that we know God is good, and we trust that he’s using even epilepsy to accomplish his good purposes. In the meantime, please pray that we would have the faith to say, with Job, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 2:10; 1:21). And, while you’re at it, please pray, with Moses, “O God, please heal her — please” (Numbers 12:13).

What You Can Do

If you have even a few minutes to learn the basics of seizure first aid — Stay, Safe, Side — you can do so at epilepsy.com/firstaid. Learning how to respond in the event of a seizure can be helpful for the more than 3 million people in the U.S. who have epilepsy.

And, of course, Becca and I covet your prayers.

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“I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud.”
—G.K. Chesterton

Lord, help me to be more like this.

C.S. Lewis on Bicycles

To be fair, this is actually C.S. Lewis relaying what his friend said about bicycles in one of their conversations. Still, Lewis wrote the words down, and they’re worth reading.

“Talking about bicycles,” said my friend, “I have been through the four ages. I can remember a time in early childhood when a bicycle meant nothing to me: it was just part of the huge meaningless background of grown-up gadgets against which life went on. Then came a time when to have a bicycle, and to have learned to ride it, and to be at last spinning along on one’s own, early in the morning, under trees, in and out of the shadows, was like entering Paradise. That apparently effortless and frictionless gliding — more like swimming than any other motion, but really most like the discovery of a fifth element — that seemed to have solved the secret of life. Now one would begin to be happy. But, of course, I soon reached the third period. Pedaling to and fro from school (it was one of those journeys that feel up-hill both ways) in all weathers, soon revealed the prose of cycling. The bicycle, itself, became to me what his oar is to a galley slave.”

“But what was the fourth age?” I asked.

“I am in it now, or rather I am frequently in it. I have had to go back to cycling lately now that there’s no car. And the jobs I use it for are often dull enough. But again and again the mere fact of riding brings back a delicious whiff of memory. I recover the feelings of the second age. What’s more, I see how true they were — how philosophical, even. For it really is a remarkably pleasant motion.”

G.K. Chesterton on Cheese

Here’s G.K. Chesterton, in a longer passage from which comes his often-quoted quip, “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

My forthcoming work in five volumes, `The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to springle these pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet that I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: ‘If all the trees were bread and cheese’ — which is indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in an exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it rhymes to ‘breeze’ and ‘seas’ (an essential point); that it is emphatic in sound is admitted even by the civilization of the modern cities. For their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often say ‘Cheese it!’ or even ‘Quite the cheese.’ The substance itself is imaginative. It is ancient — sometimes in the individual case, always in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall.

But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilization differs from that paltry and mechanical civilization that holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and the bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella — artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us say, we compare cheese to soap (that vastly inferior substance), we shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith’s Soap or Brown’s Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians have soap it is Smith’s Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown’s Soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead identity, never that soft play of variation which exists in things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire builders go mad. But you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese.

When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate restaurant, where I knew I could get a great many things besides bread and cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits—to one who had eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits—to one who had proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.”

Okay, one more on cheese

Chesterton’s piece puts me in mind, of another cheese-y quote, one of my all-time favorites — this one from Rod Dreher, who takes a sacramental approach:

Some people wrongly make an idol of food, or of art, or of sport, or such things. This we must avoid, but we also must avoid the opposite thing, which is to denigrate the body and the material world by assuming that all pleasure derived from the enjoyment of creation is illicit, or at least suspect. When I taste a good cheese, for example, it makes me not only happy, but joyful. The happiness comes from this thought: “How delicious this is!” The joy comes from this thought: “How wonderful to live in a world where such happiness can come from such simple things!” For Christians who see the world through a sacramental lens, the divine expresses itself in part through matter. For those with eyes to see, the cheeses in the picture are radiant with the glory of God. For me, when I taste something extraordinarily good, my first impulse is to say a prayer of thanksgiving. I know not everyone is like this, but for me, moments like this are theophanies — a sudden disclosure of God’s presence in the world, and a reminder that however much boredom and pain we have to bear, God is still present with us, and will disclose Himself in His creation, if we are open to it, and grateful for it.

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We acknowledge that we are located on land that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. The world is his and everything in it, and every land under the whole heaven belongs to him. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills — and he also owns the thousand thousand hills. He determines the boundaries of the nations and gives them their land, that all people might seek him and worship him.

So we give thanks to God for the use of his land by his providence through the hands of our ancestors. He has planted us in this land, and we ask that we may never again be uprooted out of the land he has given us. We pray that everything done on this land, including what we do here tonight, will bring honor and glory to its rightful king. And we dedicate this event, like this land, to the Lord Jesus Christ. To God our Savior be all greatness, glory, majesty, dominion, authority, and splendor through Jesus Christ our Lord before all time, and now, and for all eternity — on this land and on all lands. Amen.

☩

I encourage you to read the Christian Land Acknowledgement aloud at any event whatsoever, without attribution and free of charge. You are also welcome to reproduce the Christian Land Acknowledgement in writing, whether print or digital — but if you do, please attribute it to Josh Bishop as follows: © 2026 Josh Bishop, used with permission.

This has been crossposted to Christ Is Lord.

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I.

From in the neighbor’s house, warm lamplight,
overflowing in a homey amber glow,
extends its pleasant beams into the night,
spilling from a row of green-wreathed windows
to paint a quaint, Kinkadian sight:
The panes cast golden, scalene squares on snow
that falling all day long has gathered white
and freshly billowed on the ground below.

II.

And all at once the midnight sky turns bright
in brilliant, sunless dawn: A hundred score
of close-come stars — no, angels! — recite
their song to shepherds in their fields: Glory
to God! Still, these simple shepherds can’t quite
grasp what all this means — no, not before
they witness Joseph lifting high the light
of the world from a bloody, straw-strewn floor.

III.

We must’ve caught and torn a piece of night
sky when we cut our tree from Prince’s farm.
Look how the strings of incandescent lights
approximate inside our home the charm
of cloudless winter evenings, crisp and bright.
We’ve seen through leafless branches these same stars
while walking on the snowy streets in moonlight,
hand-in-mittened-hand to keep us warm.

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A gentle snow is falling slow outside
the windows. Pine and nutmeg, orange and clove
like incense scent the pleasant air inside.
There’s apple cider mulling on the stove,
and gentle snow is falling slow outside.

We deck the halls with baubles, lights, and bells,
a wrap of burlap garland, potpourri.
The vinyl spins, and Perry Como tells
the Noël tale, while on our fresh-cut tree,
we’re hanging Christmas baubles, lights, and bells.

The newborn Christ is watching from the crèche,
where Mary in her virgin arms holds close
the ageless Son of God in infant flesh.
He came for us, this babe in swaddling clothes,
the newborn Christ who’s watching from the crèche.

For us — for this — Emmanuel has come:
for common Christmas joys, goodwill to men,
the sentimental pleasures of our home,
for peace on earth, hot chocolate from a tin —
for all of this, and more, our Lord has come.

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I believe that the kingdom of God is like a fresh-cut evergreen tree hung with baubles and lights, like eggnog and hot cocoa, like waking up to stockings stuffed full, like carols at church, like the smell of ginger and orange and cinnamon and almond and clove, like a dog in deep snow, like a single star that lights up the night, like new pajamas, like the candles of an Advent wreath, like heaps of presents, like a winter fire, like mistletoe and holly, like seeing Santa at the market downtown, like the crèche on the mantle, like garland on the lamppost, like red-kettle bellringing, like sledding with children, like candy canes, like magic.

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Bishop’s Commonplace Hodgepodgery

Christ Is Lord

Two Roman soldiers stand in Bethlehem,
half-hidden in the shadows as, not far
from where they leer, and unaware of them,
a virgin mother labors in a barn.
In just a few short years, these streets will run
with babies’ blood; these soldiers’ hands will hew
the limbs of weeping Rachel’s thousand sons.
Tonight, though, Herod’s men stand by while through
the dark there dawns an unforeseen shining
of aural light, a glorious chorus
that sings the coming of the crowning King.
They cannot know this babe is born for us
and that, despite the worst of Herod’s plans,
this baby’s blood can cleanse their bloodstained hands.

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The kids left a glass and a plate piled high
But Santa just pulls on his beard with a sigh
It’s a been a long night, still there’s hours to go
And he’d rather have beer and tobacco

Oh, milk is okay if you don’t drive a sleigh
But a cold one would warm Santa’s toes
And cookies are fine if you’re staying inside
But a corncob would thaw Santa’s nose

Rudolph got oats from the neighbor next door
And Santa’s already had cookies galore
The last thing he wants is an after-school snack
O, give Santa some beer and tobacco

His pipe can’t be packed full of ready-rubbed holly
And milk won’t make anyone’s cheeks red or jolly
Kids, put down the chocolate chip cookies this year
Please leave Santa tobacco and beer

Santa’s eyes never twinkle so bright as they do
When he’s half a bowl in while he’s sipping a brew
Eat the cookies yourself, kids, I promise I know
Santa really wants beer and tobacco

❦

When my boys were young and they believed in Santa Claus, we left a plate of cookies and milk out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve — but I always tried to convince them that he actually wanted beer and tobacco instead. And so this poem was born.

A couple of years ago, a friend, Dan Mogck, set the poem to some original music, using the third stanza as a refrain. You can (and should!) listen to it here:

I absolutely love what Dan did — but I still think there’s room for a high-quality, festive, radio-friendly recording. Something with sleigh bells, maybe, and trumpets and electric guitar. You know, something I could send to the local radio station. (If you’re interested, please let me know — or just have at it!)

Now that my sons conveniently no longer believe in Santa, we still leave out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve — and yes, we also leave out tobacco and beer. In the morning, the boys eat the cookies. After we open the presents, I settle into my chair with a just-unwrapped book and I enjoy my morning while drinking Santa’s beer to the bottom and smoking a bowl of Santa’s tobacco. (Christmas morning is the one time a year that I smoke in the house.) It’s just about perfect.

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My favorite thing about Christmas is the waiting. It wasn’t always that way: When I was a kid, my favorite thing was opening my presents. (We didn’t do Santa, so the presents came from mom and dad.) As I grow older, though, I could sit with the waiting for what feels like forever — because I know for a certainty that the waiting will pay off. The seasonal anticipation builds to a climax that happened in history more than 2,000 years ago.

This is the irony of Advent: Every year, even as we wait for Christ’s return, the church also waits again for something that has already happened. It’s a waiting described by Isaac Wimberly in one of my favorite Christmas tracks as a “groaning… growing generation after generation.” He continues:

They longed for him, they yearned for him, they waited for him on the edge of their seats. On the edge of where excitement and containment meet, they waited. Like a child watches out the window for a father to return from work, they waited. Like a groom stares at the double doors at the back of the church, they waited… they waited.

I never waited for Christmas like that.

Sure, I wanted the toys and the presents. Sure, I fell asleep at night wondering what my stocking would hold in the morning. But waiting like that? A longing? A yearning? No, that didn’t happen until, at almost 30 years old, I read the Bible chronologically, in the order that the events took place through history instead of the order that Crossway prints it. The narrative arc was smooth and steady, moving from beginning to end in a time-bound, historical progression.

And while I can’t pretend to know the Israelites’ anticipation as they waited and prayed for the promised messiah, about three-quarters of the way through I began to feel for the first time something of their longing. I couldn’t wait for Christ to enter the story. I began to understand in a new way their cries: How long, O Lord? How long? How long? How long? Over and over and over again, waiting for the promise to come. If I didn’t already know how the story ends, the suspense would’ve killed me. It was the first time I truly yearned for Christmas.

But my kids? My kids wait like that. They anticipate Christmas in a way that they won’t otherwise know until they’re old enough to grasp everything Christmas means — the depths of their own sin, their offense before a holy God, and their insurmountable need for the Savior who was this night born into the world to die on their behalf.

Their waiting is real, in other words, even if the object isn’t. The magic is real, even if Santa Claus is just a cut-rate, stage show illusionist. Santa provides a taste of the anticipation and fulfillment of Christmas — cheap and artificial, to be sure, but a taste — before my children are old enough to genuinely understand the deeper magic of Bethlehem and Calvary.

It’s a little bit like sipping brown bottle root beer before drinking proper ale, like soap and water in a bubble pipe before savoring a bowlful of Old Toby. It’s a wobbly ride on training wheels to the neighbor’s driveway before careening down that hill with a blind drive and a patch of gravel on the curve at the bottom.

Like Beowulf and St. George and Bilbo Baggins and Lucy Pevensie, Santa Claus is a hardworking plowman who turns the soil of my children’s imaginations. When G.K. Chesterton was a child, he believed that Santa Claus filled his stockings during the night. Years later, he wrote:

I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.

The secret that Chesterton discovered, and taught me, is that Santa is a story that prepares our hearts and imaginations for the magic and the glory and the unbelievable truth of Christ and the world he created. He may not give my boys their Christmas presents, but Santa does give them the gifts of wonder and awe and excitement and anticipation and waiting fulfilled.

To be sure, there are a lot of things that are untrue about the Santa story, and these are the things Santa naysayers get quite right: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist, for example.

But here’s something deeply true about the Santa story: Magic happened on that long-ago night, and magic still happens — on Christmas night and on all nights, every time a life is born and born again, made and made new.

And this: On one night millennia past, all the children of the world woke up and rubbed the sleep from their eyes and stumbled downstairs to find they had been given an undeserved, immeasurable gift.

On that night, a joy was birthed into the world that I’m afraid most grownups have largely forgotten. In fact, I’d venture to say that we haven’t felt that kind of joy since we were, oh, about 7 years old.

❦

I’ve been republishing this piece every year since I first wrote it more than a decade ago, and I still believe it as much as I did then. In fact, I think I now believe it even more. My sons were ages 6 and 2 when I wrote it; now, at 17 and 13, they no longer believe in Santa — but they still believe in the magic of Christmas.

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Bishop’s Commonplace Hodgepodgery

Christ Is Lord

The year’s first snow should look more like the flakes
in snowglobes or in Hallmark’s Christmas flicks
than this, a dingy slop of wet sleet thick
with slush and gross with leaves that lie unraked
throughout the yard. Their tannins stain the snow
like yellow piss. We’ll have to wait a few
more weeks — a month, perhaps — before the truly
picturesque snow falls. It will, I know,
because it always has before. And when
it does, the lamppost in our yard will stretch
its charming beams like fingers out to catch
and hold each gently falling snowflake. Then
the snow (at last, a faultless wintry sight!)
will blanket all, like Christ our sins, in white.

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Ben Johnson has his Celia’s love,
Lord Byron his nighttime belle,
and Marvell, though his mistress coy,
loves more than time can tell.

Browning loves to her soul’s far reach,
Shakespeare’s love is as summer’s day,
and Marlowe’s shepherd loves his nymph
though she push his love away.

But Burns may keep his red, red rose,
and Poe his Annabel Lee,
for I have a love that’s lovelier still,
and oh! how my love loves me!

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“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.”
—Psalm 73:28a (NASB)

If you were to make a list of the good things God could give you, what would you put at the very top?

A new job? A little extra cash? (Not enough to be filthy rich or anything so vulgar as that, but enough to be a little more comfortable?) A certain relationship? The healthier body and better looks of your youth? The respect of others?

Often when we read Romans 8:28 — “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” — we flip through our Christmas Wish Book catalog pages, dog-earing and circling from a menu of options like those above, scratching a wish list of the good things God could give us.

But when we look at Romans 8:28 through the lens of Psalm 73:28 — “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good” (NASB) — we see a far better thing altogether. We could say it this way: God will work all things to be near to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Can you imagine a better promise than that? Can you imagine a gooder good? The God of the universe, the one who scattered the stars in the sky and the sand along the shore like a boy tossing a pocketful of stones — that God will be near to you. To you!

C.S. Lewis wrote, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Are we just fooling about with health and wealth and success and relationships — our material comforts and felt needs — when the nearness of God is offered to us? If so, we are far too easily pleased.

Are you rich? God will be near to you. Are you poor? God will be near to you. Are you in pain or need? God will meet your pain and need not with promises that your pain will be small and your need will be short, but with the better promise and inestimable gift of himself. Are you in comfort and health? God will meet you there, too, with something far greater than anything so fleeting as that. His nearness is your good, even now.

If you are in Christ, God is near to you, and he is working all things in your life to bring you nearer still.

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