Coming Up

I feel like my spirit is starting to lighten a bit. My daily prayer is for God to soften my heart toward Him. It's not that I'm hard-hearted toward Him so much that I'm just not enjoying Him like I should. I tend to focus on external things like reading the Bible more, singing praise songs, etc. However, I forgot just how much I need to pray for transformation. There are few better things than to have a heart that is soft and enjoying God.

I find that listening to good preaching really helps with this. I've started listening to more podcasts in the car. I've really been enjoying Mark Driscoll's sermons on Philippians and Nehemiah. I realize that much of the Reformed Community doesn't quite know what to make of Mark. On the one hand, he is a good expositor and clearly holds Scripture in high esteem. On the other hand, he makes some off-color metaphors that really rankle the fundie rank and file. I don't find him particularly offensive, but rather I find him quite refreshing. At least I tend to remember what he says when he preaches!

So far, my favorite story is one he tells about a friend who has problems, but is not a believer. Driscoll keeps telling him the answer is Jesus. No matter what problem he brings up Driscoll keeps telling him, "you need Jesus". He talks about problems his kids have and he gets the same line. Eventually the friend got upset and said that he was tired of hearing that and Driscoll told him that he'd better stop asking if he doesn't want to hear that. The point was that we have a choice to make -- do we offend the asker or do we offend God? That should be a no-brainer, right?