Month: April 2009

Fasting the Internet

Yeah, I know – Lent was last week. But with the way my new work schedule comes out, it looks like I have about 2½-3 discretionary hours every day, these hours coming first thing in the morning, since my evenings are really taken up with baby and wife. On the other hand, it’s been working out that reading through my blogs every day actually takes somewhere around an hour and a half. What with my tendency to pad my free time activities, there’s not much room for anything else, and it’s occurring to me that I have some things to do that might be more profitable during that time, such as perhaps jogging, Bible reading, prayer, and guitar.

“Cutting back” is not something that I do very well, and it’s especially so in the area of Internet use. I like to complete things, and Google Reader just lists every blog I read as it’s been updated. Once I start down the list, the urge is to go ahead and finish it. “Cutting back” meats cutting out some of the blogs, which I suppose may happen in time, but initially, it’s a huge time investment. Far easier just to cut out from the blog scene entirely for a while.

But who knows? Maybe more time in my Bible will result in more meaningful blogging, with fewer responses to other blogs.

With a thought to Psalm 50:21

I fear that Reformed Christians are often in danger of making the same mistake about the glory of God that most evangelicals tend to make about God’s love: Having managed somehow to distill the nature of God and all his plans and purposes under the unifying heading of a single word, we then proceed to demolish our own system by mis-characterizing that word according to human standards. Love degenerates into sentimental affection and glory into public acclaim, neither of which comes close to the true Biblical meaning of those terms.

The love of God is a frightening thing. The glory of God is often hidden.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
—Col 2:13-15