October 22nd, 2009 by Kyle French
In contrast to yesterday’s post, the 2006 New Attitude conference was very good. Especially beneficial has been the breakout sessions. Dave Harvey’s session on The Summons was very good. I found this poem he recited about an hour into the talk to be very… moving.
When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendour out –
God knows what He’s about!
Author Unknown
I contacted his church and was told that the poem came from the book, Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders, p. 184
Tags: Calling, Conferences, Dave Harvey, Leadership, New Attitude, Poem
Posted in Poetry | 3 Comments »
October 21st, 2009 by Kyle French
I’ve been listening the past few days to the Sovereign Grace Leadership Interview series with Josh Harris, CJ Mahaney, and Jeff Purswell. Frankly, I’m having a hard time of it. CJ keeps strongly asserting things that I just don’t believe with.
We’ll slide over the first interview, on The Pastor and His reading, where I had to stop and shout “What planet are you on?” over the general agreement everybody had that it takes careful scheduling to make sure that you get enough time in for reading. Seriously? Next they’ll remind me to make space for food.
The one that’s really getting to me now is The Pastor and His Soul, in which CJ Mahaney insists that I am directly, morally, responsible for the way I feel. I’ve always been of the opinion that feelings sometime present me with useful information, but that they’re just as likely to lie to me about the way things are. CJ tells pastors that if, over a period of time, they detect that their passion, their devotion to Christ is flagging, they need to take immediate and sometimes drastic action. Clear away hours in your schedule, study books and bible verses that have the appropriate effect on the way you feel. Find some way to adjust the way you feel about Jesus, immediately.
Two thoughts, off the top of my head –
- What about the “Dark night of the soul?” What about dry times? What about people who aren’t so blessed with strong happy emotions. Sometimes you’re just not feeling it. Some people are just preternaturally depressed. Am I guilty because I don’t feel devoted enough?
- Secondly, I know that this series is devoted to pastors, and there’s an imperative to pastors to make space in their schedule for devotions. That’s a privilege that pastors have. But if there’s a moral imperative to feel a certain way the predominant amount of the time, and if I can get that feeling right if I just spend enough time in prayer and reading the right kind of books, what does that say to the layman? “My pastor gets to feel a certain way because he gets to spend enough time in his prayer closet. Me, I don’t have that time at my disposal. I guess I’m just a second class Christian”?
Posted in Reviews, Theology | 1 Comment »
October 16th, 2009 by Kyle French
Below is the essay I was required to write as part of the application process for the Army Officer Candidate school. The title isn’t mine – it’s part of the guidelines for the essay. Of course I left out certain motivations, such as “to lift up and encourage the saints who are there,” and “we need the money.”
The first time I considered joining the Army was shortly after September 11, 2001. That was the first time it became spotlessly clear to me that every individual and every organization is responsible to God, not on the basis of their capacity, but their potential. Only America could be the “world’s policeman,” so America, by Providence, is – whether we want it or not. And therefore the role of defending civilization planted itself on our doorstep. Applied to myself as a Christian man, I have a responsibility to provide leadership and protection for my family, for my church, and for my country. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Army Officer, career, family
Posted in Essay, That Vision Thing | 1 Comment »
October 4th, 2009 by Kyle French
Since we have a little boy in the house, we are currently overrun with alphabet books of the usual kind: “As is for apple” with the appropriate picture attached. All very short and concrete. Well there’s only so much that a logophile can take, and I’ve had enough. We need more abstraction and obfuscation in our alphabet lists. So I’m declaring a little series of contests. First up: adjectives. Give me your best list.
Here are the rules:
- English only.
- All the words in your list must be valid adjectives.
- Three syllables, minimum.
- No neologisms.
- No dictionary use (on your honor!)
- Beg, borrow, or steal your entry from anyone, and anyone else’s list.
- Multiple submissions accepted.
Post your list in the comments section, or on your own site with a trackback here. The list with the most obscure entries (as judged by me) wins. I’ll announce a winner in a separate post.
To get the ball rolling, here’s my list below:
- is for abstemeous.
- is for beautific.
- is for cephalous.
- is for deleterious.
- is for egregious.
- is for fatuous.
- is for garrulous.
- is for hephestian.
- is for isotonic.
- is for jungian.
- is for keretinous.
- is for laconic.
- is for munificent.
- is for nefarious.
- is for onerous.
- is for pusillanimous.
- is for querulous.
- is for restitutionary.
- is for sardonic.
- is for typological.
- is for ubiquitous.
- is for vascular.
- is for wesleyan.
- is for xenological.
- is for Yugoslovian.
- is for zephyrous.
This is fun for everyone, but the following are officially tagged:
My mom, Valerie’s uncle John, Josh Jones, and Mark at pseudopolymath.com The rest of you… tag at will.
Posted in General | 5 Comments »
September 7th, 2009 by Kyle French
God’s purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower!
The house fell through. That’s the first thing you need to know. The second thing is that we’re going to have another baby.
When Gideon was confronted by an angel with the task of throwing out the Midianites, he asked for a turn of Providence to make his path clear: He’d throw out a lamb fleece with a challenge: one night, make the the dew fall on the fleece, but leave the ground dry. The second night, make the ground all dewy, and the fleece dry. There’s been a lot said lately against the use of “fleeces” in determining the will of God, but I find that, understood correctly, a fleece can be a very useful thing. In Gideon’s case, attacking the Midianites would have been a very, very foolish thing – apart from a miracle of God. So asking for a little token miracle in advance seems quite reasonable. Of course, most of us aren’t putting our necks on the line for a miracle, so asking for a sign on the same order of the miraculous would be a little presumptuous.
But what’s wrong with taking a few hints from Providence? For instance, if God makes a path clear for you to buy a house, it seems reasonable to conclude that you ought to live there for a year or two. In fact, only sheer bullheadedness would make you even consider taking up a chance to move. On the other hand, not buying a house… makes mobility more of an option. So it is clearly possible by a house to be fleeced. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Advice, army, baby, career, church, FHA, fleece, Gideon, God Moves, house, Providence
Posted in News, That Vision Thing | 5 Comments »
August 26th, 2009 by Kyle French
I’ve been cited in a newspaper article!
Posted in General | No Comments »
August 12th, 2009 by Kyle French
Okay. So I should have been blogging on the house all along. Apparently, buying a house is way more interesting than joining the army, because the response on the last post has been off the charts. (It probably also has to do with the fact that I specifically asked for advice – for which I am very grateful.)
But I wanted to address a line of thinking I’m having a hard time with, but which seems to be very popular. It’s the “lots of good fish in the sea” argument.
Skipping over for the moment the fact that I’m not sure I want to compare buying a house to finding a wife, and the fact that the “plenty of fish” model didn’t really help my romance life in the first place, the truth is there aren’t all that many good fish in our part of the ocean. There are lots of bad fish, and a few really rotten ones, and only one or two fish that are passably acceptable. “Good fish” are out of our range.
Whenever we talked about eventually buying a house Valerie and I have always imagined that we would get something in the average to fair condition range, something of a fixer-upper in need of a few modest repairs that could be done over time while we lived in the house. We’ve never been interested in “flipping,” or in new houses with springy carpets and crown molding.
We also have a limited purchase range, because of our school loan constraints. The money we have available for a mortgage payment is essentially the same as the market rate for a 2-bedroom apartment. Any more than that, and we don’t have anything extra for repairs or for paying down debt at an accelerated rate.
Within those limitations, it shouldn’t be a surprise that every house we’ve looked at has been a foreclosure, and all foreclosure homes have difficulties. It just so happens that this particular house is the best on the market for our price range at this time. There are no other fish. If we don’t buy this house, we rest for a few months, and then we rent. We save up, and try again the next year.
We do want to make sure we get the best possible deal in the process of buying the house, and there are legitimate concerns that absolutely must be corrected if we are to buy. If we really do come to the conclusion that the problems are not worth the risk, we are absolutely willing to just walk away. I can do that. Really.
But to return to the dating model, there’s a difference between amicably ending a relationship that is clearly not going to result in a happy marriage, and dumping a girl at the first sign of trouble. There are steps to go through, even in a buyer’s market, and I want to go through them.
Tags: buyer's market, flipping, good fish, house, mortgage, romance, sea, wife
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
August 11th, 2009 by Kyle French
Hi folks. I need some advise on this house we’re looking at buying.
When we first decided to make an offer on the house, we had an inspector come and inspect the house. Essentially the original house is in fine condition, apart from cosmetic needs like carpet and paint, but the addition, which is two floors and includes the entire kitchen, was in the words of the appraiser “all wrong.” There was wiring and plumbing funkiness, the wrong kind of insulation, wrong kind of studs, etc. But most importantly, we were told that 1/4 of the foundation under the addition was essentially nothing: cinder blocks on card board.
Our realtor advised us that a house with these kinds of problems would not pass FHA appraisal, so we got a contractor at our church to give us an estimate of what it would cost to brink the addition up to code. Estimate in hand, we proceeded with the FHA appraisal, with the expectation that the seller (a bank) would make whatever repairs necessary to pass FHA standards and sell the house.
Sunday we heard back from the appraiser that the house would need two things to qualify for our FHA loan: new flooring and new paint. No mention of any of our concerns about the addition. No mention of the foundation (or lack thereof). I don’t know if that means the appraiser just didn’t notice, if he considered it none of his concern, or if he thought the foundation was actually fine.
So my question: obviously, I’m not buying a house with no foundation. I think there’s a verse in the Bible about that. But I would like to buy this house. So how do I go about ensuring that the addition is in fact safe? Do I simply lay down at the seller that we’ll buy the house if they fix the foundation? Should we get the addition re-evaluated? I’m not sure what the proper way to proceed is, and I’m open to any suggestions.
Tags: appraisal, counsel, FHA, foundation, house, inspection
Posted in News | 11 Comments »
August 9th, 2009 by Kyle French
My greatest difficulty at present is that I am afflicted with too many ambitions. In the past 24 hours I have:
- Wanted to be a college professor,
- Felt called to prison ministry,
- Wished to start a Christian high-end grocery store,
- Debated whether to join the Army as enlisted or an officer,
- Imagined starting a young married couples ministry at my church,
- Re-structured my morning devotionals (twice),
- And planned a novel series.
Every one of these was a serious consideration, and not a passing whimsy. It’s like I’m suddenly seven again, except that I was never like this, even at seven.
What I can’t decide is whether this sort of ambitious discontent is from God or somewhere else.
Tags: army, college, couples ministry, devotionals, novel series, prison ministry, retail
Posted in That Vision Thing | 2 Comments »
July 31st, 2009 by Kyle French
I came home with all these documents about writing essays and getting recommendations, and with questions about how far my life could stretch at one time, and if it was worth it. 6-9 months is a long time. On top of that, the recruiter’s job is to make things happen. So just as I was deciding that officer school was perhaps a bad idea at this juncture, my recruiter came on location at my work in full camo and asked me to meet with his commander that evening to see if we could push through all the paperwork and have my review board by Wednesday. That was Monday. I balked, said it was too fast for my wife. They said it was okay. I scheduled a new day to finish my counseling at the MEPS. I couldn’t do it by Thursday, so I went for Tuesday. This time, no monkey business with the hotel.
Tuesday rolled around, and I got up at some ungodly hour, showered and dressed, and was standing in line with a new set of recruits at 6:00. I went in, documents above my head, put my things in a locker, and headed to the career counselor’s. She smiled at me, remembered my name, looked down at her appointment book and said, “What are you doing here?” The recruiter commander was called. There had been a mistake.
It turns out that Thursday, the one I couldn’t miss work for, was the last day to sign up for Army Reserves for the 2009 fiscal year. Apparently everybody has signed up for the reserves, what with this recession they got going on, and in my dalliance, I had missed the cut. See, this is the part where different departments having different information comes in. The recruiters didn’t know about the deadline until the deadline had passed. Who knows what the MEPS people knew. Thursday, when the recruiters had learned of it, my guy had given me a call to say not to show up on Tuesday. Except he didn’t. I mean, he called, but he didn’t say not to show up. What he did was to leave a message. The message he left was the same message he leaves every time he leaves a message – “Hi this is Sgt. B—-. Give me a call when you get this message.” Since it matched every other message I’d gotten from him, I didn’t realize it was a new message. I’d thought that it was the old message I’d received a week prior. So I’d deleted it. So now, no enlistment at all. The officer option was still open, but with the same misgivings about time.
But it’s not like the Army doesn’t want anybody more in the reserves for all time; just for 2009. So here’s what they did. I came in later and signed up for something called the Delayed Enlistment Program. It’s designed for college students, so they can enlist immediately upon graduation. We picked a career, and dates and locations for basic and tech school. It turned out, after careful research that the only openings available will be for medstaff and civil affairs, which is what I was looking toward in the first place. Of course, it’s all hypothetical, because the enlistment isn’t real. It’s a reservation. Come the new fiscal year, which starts in October, I’ll have to go to the MEPS and start all over again. With any luck, I can avoid the hotel this time.
Tags: Army Reserves, Delayed Enlistment Program, MEPS, OCS, recruiter
Posted in News | No Comments »