Here are recordings of my wife, Diane, discussing her new book, Bonsai Love, 23[xyz-ihs snippet=”Non-Breaking-Space”]Apr[xyz-ihs snippet=”Non-Breaking-Space”]2014 on Vancouver radio stations:
Here is the book launch invitation (click to enlarge):
From the desk of Jim Tucker
Here are recordings of my wife, Diane, discussing her new book, Bonsai Love, 23[xyz-ihs snippet=”Non-Breaking-Space”]Apr[xyz-ihs snippet=”Non-Breaking-Space”]2014 on Vancouver radio stations:
Here is the book launch invitation (click to enlarge):
Here’s a recording of my wife, Diane, discussing her new book, Bonsai Love, on CFRO radio:
Here’s a recording of my wife, Diane, discussing her new book, Bonsai Love, on CITR radio:
Midnight Commander is my preferred command line file management tool, and it runs on OS X.
Here are some key mappings I have found useful:
+ on keypad | Control + P |
– on keypad | Control + N |
Insert key | Control + T (thanks to this) |
Completion/M-tab | Escape, then Tab |
Slash on keypad | Fn + / |
* on keypad | Control + A |
Backspace key | Delete |
Delete key | Fn + Delete |
Home key | Fn + Left arrow (thanks to this) |
End key | Fn + Right arrow (thanks to this) |
Page up key | Fn + Up arrow (thanks to this) |
Page down key | Fn + Down arrow (thanks to this) |
Today, with the help of this post, I figured out how to use Command-M (to minimize apps to the dock) and Command-Tab (together with the Option key) to restore an app previously minimized to the dock.
My MacBook has been experiencing kernel panic daily this week.
Following Apple’s advice, I ran Disk Utility, and I discovered and repaired some damage.
Tim Keller writes:
Because God is both sovereign and suffering, we know our suffering always has meaning even though we cannot see it. We can trust him without understanding it all.
When one of my sons was around eight years old, he began to exert his will and resist his parents’ directions. One time I told him to do something and he said, “Dad, I’ll obey you and do this—but only if first you explain to me why I should do it.” I responded something like this: “If you obey me only because it makes sense to you, then that’s not obedience, it’s just agreement. The problem is that you are too young to understand most of the reasons why I want you do to this. Do it because you are eight and I’m thirty-eight—because you are a child and I’m an adult and your father.”
We can easily see why children need to trust their parents even when they do not understand them. How much more, then, should we trust God even though we do not understand him? It is not just that the differential in wisdom between him and us is infinitely greater than the difference between a child and a parent. It is not just that he is sovereign and allpowerful. We should also trust him because he earned our trust on the cross. So we can trust him even when he hasn’t shown us yet the reason why.
(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering)
Tim Keller writes:
…There are an increasing number of theologians who are so glad to emphasize the suffering of God that they lose the idea of divine sovereignty, depicting God as one who is not all-powerful and not able to stop suffering in the world.
Some might argue that suffering and pain are only ever caused by the Devil, or by our own foolishness and particular sins, or by the randomness that comes from living in a fallen world. However, if this were true, then God is certainly not sovereign; he is powerless to prevent the Devil or human beings from exerting their will. Then God is forever reacting with a “Plan B” in response to each action or decision brought about by humans or by the Devil.
Ronald Rittgers writes: “The idea that God has a causal relationship to adversity and misfortune is rejected by many contemporary theologians. The notion of God as co-sufferer is welcomed, but the idea of God as agent of suffering is shunned.” But, Rittgers adds, “the God who has no causal relationship to suffering is no God at all, certainly not the God of the Bible . . . who is both suffering and sovereign. Both beliefs were (and are) essential to the traditional Christian assertion that suffering ultimately has some meaning.”
Keller continues:
That is absolutely right. If God is out of control of history, then suffering is not part of any plan; it is random and senseless. …If God were somehow limited or out of control, his suffering would not be so radically voluntary — and therefore not so fully motivated by love.
(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 7)
Jesus’ suffering on the cross was foreordained, and part of God’s plan, not some random result of human history. God was in control of Christ’s crucifixion, just as he is in control of all human history, including every trial, pain, and experience of suffering that we encounter.
Tim Keller writes:
According to all branches of Christian theology, the ultimate purpose of life is to glorify God. That means that the first—but perhaps hardest to grasp—purpose for our suffering is the glory of God.
(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 7)
Implicitly or explicitly, many Christians act as though one or more things (not giving glory to God) are the ultimate purpose(s) for their lives: wealth, comfort, happiness, fame, even spiritual gifts. These other priorities are pressed into our world view because they pervade the culture around us.
…In 1 Peter 1:6-7, the apostle explains why his readers are “suffering grief in all kinds of trials.” “These have come.” he writes, “so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Our sufferings, if handled properly, bring the Lord glory.
This is a difficult truth for some to accept.
Many of the most popular churches today teach that God will make you happy, healthy, and prosperous, that he is there for your personal benefit. If we tacitly accept that view of things, we may find it offensive to hear someone say that tragedies and evil can honor and glorify God.
If we believe our purpose is to enjoy a “good” life, material wealth, health, and prosperity, we will come to see God as existing in order to supply those things for us. Suffering and pain have no useful place in such a mindset. To suggest that God would cause his children to suffer, and that suffering is actually an instrument God uses to refine his people’s character and to bring glory to himself — these statements are abhorrent to the one who adheres to a theology of health, wealth, prosperity, and blessing.
Tim Keller writes:
What do we mean, first, when we say that God is sovereign over history and therefore over suffering? The doctrine of the sovereignty of God in the Bible has sometimes been called compatibilism. The Bible teaches that God is completely in control of what happens in history and yet he exercises that control in such a way that human beings are responsible for their freely chosen actions and the results of those actions. Human freedom and God’s direction of historical events are therefore completely compatible. To put it most practically and vividly—if a man robs a bank, that moral evil is fully his responsibility, though it also is part of God’s plan.
It is crude but effective to think of this in percentages. We think that either God has planned something or that a human being has freely chose to do it —but both cannot be true at once. Perhaps we grant that the event is due 50 percent to God’s activity and 50 percent to human agency. Or maybe it is 80-20, or 20-80. But the Bible depicts history as 100 percent under God’s purposeful direction, and yet filled with human beings who are 100 percent responsible for their behavior—at once.
This way of thinking is counterintuitive to both ancient and modem ways of thinking. The Greek notion of “fate” or the Islamic notion of “kismet” are quite different from the Christian doctrine of God’s sovereignty. The Greek myth of Oedipus tells of the main character who, the oracle predicts, is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Though Oedipus and all around him do all they can to avoid this fate, all of their schemes to avoid this destiny only end up hastening it. The destined end is reached despite everyone’s choices.The Christian concept of God’s sovereignty is quite different. God’s plan works through our choices, not around or despite them. Our choices have consequences, and we are never forced by God to do anything—we always do what we most want to do. God works out his will perfectly through our willing actions.
The Bible everywhere presupposes this “compatibilism” between God’s plan and our actions, and at many places explicitly teaches it. In Isaiah 10, God calls Assyria “the rod of my anger” (v. 5). He says he is using Assyria to punish Israel for its sins, and yet he nonetheless holds Assyria responsible for what it is doing. “I send him [Assyria] against a godless nation [Israel],” says God, “but this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind, his purpose is to destroy” (v. 6-7). While God uses Assyria as his rod according to his wise and just plan, that nation’s inner motivation is not a passion for justice but merely a cruel and proud desire to dominate others. And so God will judge the instrument of his judgment. Assyria’s actions are part of God’s plan, and yet the Assyrians are held accountable for their free choices. It is a remarkable balance. On the one hand, evil is taken seriously as a reality. And yet there is an assurance that in the end, it can never triumph.
(Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Chapter 6)