1 Timothy 6:18 and Ephesians 4:32

He keeps going. And yes, he does have other clothes. These are just his summer pj's.

I appreciate Matt's persistence.

Suddenly, she got camera shy.

The Law of Kindness

I recently finished the Law of Kindness by Mary Beeke. This book has some high recommendations. On the back cover, Sinclair Ferguson, Wayne Mack, and Derek Thomas all recommend this book. I am clearly not at their spiritual level in any way shape or form. I'm also not the kindest person as anyone who knows me will attest to.

However, with all that said, the book did not inspire me to greater levels of kindness. It was not a bad book nor did it have error. I simply don't recommend it. First, although the book was filled with Scripture references, it's style was more practical and logical. So Beeke gave reasons for being kind that made sense, and then provided Scripture to support her experiences and stories. There was nothing wrong with what she did. It just didn't seem particularly deep or theological.

Second, Beeke writes as one who has been influenced by psychology. It wasn't huge, but to me, she overemphasized the importance of personal history, the need for counseling (sometimes professional), and talks as though we all have potential for goodness and kindness (humanism). It struck me as odd because her husband is the president of a reformed seminary. Absent was the crucial reformed doctrine of the depravity of man. She talks about the Gospel, but it is not the only hope for people to be kind and the ultimate reason for kindness.

So maybe it wasn't the most theological deep treatise on kindness. It probably had a lot of practical insights into being kind, right? It talked a lot about kind acts, but they appeared pretty straightforward to me - talk in a kind way, say kind things, don't be mean or bully others, etc.

Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but The Law of Kindness was not my favorite book of the year. I'm sure Mrs. Beeke is much more kind than I will ever be. But my suspicion is that I would learn a lot more about being kind by spending an afternoon with her than reading her book.

Heat wave

For the past couple of weeks, it has been HOT here in KS. 90+ weather with the heat index over 100 and high humidity. But I'm not complaining. I'll take this any day over the winter!

Plus in the winter, you can't do this.Or wear this. Doesn't it all make perfect sense now?

John 13:34-35

My grand experiment is to find out how many verses a 7 year-old boy can keep in his head. Oh yeah, and God's Word is living, active, transforming, renewing His mind, and profitable for training in righteousness.

Go Lakers!

I'm a little behind on my blogging. But as many of you know, I am a HUGE Lakers fan. So I'm a bit late in posting about the 15th NBA championship my beloved Lakers won a week ago. I had to leave at 5:30am the next morning for SME so I didn't have a chance to blog about it until now.It's been 7 long years since the last championship. But do you know what's really fun about this one? I've had so much fun sharing it with Andrew who's also become a big Laker's fan.

SME

Last week, I was gone for our church's summer camp which is called Summer Main Event (SME). I was the speaker and gave 5 messages on the topic of God's will. It was a great camp and one young lady repented of her sins and put her faith in Christ for her salvation! It was very exciting - praise God!

Though we missed each other dearly, Sandy took care of things quite well and managed to keep the boys and girl busy.Emery went for her first haircut! Does she look excited or what?But it ended well. Cute!

Meanwhile Andrew went to basketball camp - he really loves it!

And Matt picked baseball to be his first sport. After prying him off mom's leg, he ended up going after the ball.

Branson

So we went to Branson, MO last week for vacation. We've never been there before. But we definitely enjoyed the lake.Andrew loves the sand!Matt loves being buried in the sand!And of course, Emery had to try it too!After a day at the beach, we had to clean up.Did I mention we had a great vacation?!

We're ba-ack!

Sorry for the long absence in the blogosphere, but we went on VACATION! And boy was it a GREAT vacation! We went with Sandy's parents.We celebrated Andrew's 7th birthday. I know, I know - how did he get to be 7 already? He is in a Star Wars and Lego phase so he got the perfect gift.We went swimming just about everyday. No, seriously, just about every day. The boys and girl started growing gills. Emery did her best to test the buoyancy of the life vest in every possible position known to little girls.Then we got pooped out and took lots of naps.It was a great family vacation!

VBS Part 2

Matt really likes VBS, can you tell?

Praise God we ended VBS by God's grace last night!

VBS

The kids have been enjoying Vacation Bible School since Sunday. They love the singing, the snacks, the crafts, the games and we love that they are learning that God's Word is the Book of Books, the only authority for all of life.

This is Andrew in the white shirt.