deTheos

55 reasons why I love my Sauce - on our 5th

Celebrating 5 glorious years of marriage

Five years ago today Kari Zyp and I exchanged vows, and then I got to kiss the love of my life for the very first time. What an amazing time it has been, my Sauce. We’ve had our adventures: moving 7 times, living in two states, both following the call to seminary as students, raising Dutch, continuing to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, and being able to know, love and enjoy Him oh so much more because of one another.

Sauce, I love you! I told you back then that I want to plunge the depths of who you are, and that passion has not and will not fade. You are cherished and loved!

Because 5 is not enough to convey how much my Sauce is worth (well, nor is 55!) …

1. She loves Jesus
2. She loves me
3. She was created to be a wonderful Mommy and is more than our boy Dutch (and baby #2 on the way) could ask for
4. She thinks
5. When someone asks if I can share my wisdom with them, I respond, "No, I’m not sharing my wife."
6. She is my best wisdom
7. She searches and swims in the deep things of God
8. She realizes that our pursuit of joy and God’s passion for His glory are not at odds — He is our Joy!
9. Her identity is not wrapped up in what she does
10. She is "in Christ" and walking in the Spirit in all of life
11. She loathes the separation of the Sacred and the Secular
12. She’s not afraid to say "No" to many good things
13. Her words drip with wisdom and grace
14. She waited for me, and gave me a second chance, even when I broke her heart 6.5 years ago
15. She does something once, right, and then moves on
16. She enjoys reading as the greatest form of entertainment
17. She doesn’t waste words
18. She is a woman of exceptional character
19. She is so consistent and faithful that I often say I feel rebuked yet encouraged trying to catch up
20. She has many young women "caught up in her wake"
21. She loves to solve issues quickly with grace-filled resolutions
22. She is God-centered in all her ways
23. She is a far better djembe player than she will admit
24. She is graceful and dancing, and patient with her clumsy husband
25. She perseveres always
26. She loves when I lead spiritually (yet is so strong in Christ that it seems like she doesn’t require my initiative)
27. She’s willing to think and feel with God in the fullness of her being, all the appropriate emotions (as found in the Psalms)
28. She’s quick to forgive
29. She’s coached me through a few somewhat humiliating yet totally humorous public situations
30. She likes it when I call her good nicknames and returns the favor (my Sauce!)
31. She is a devoted friend
32. She recycles
33. She’s is an ever-grateful daughter to her parents
34. She’s willing to do crazy thinks like live with them for over a year (this past year)
35. She puts up with me, and the quirks I’ve managed to pass down to the Dutcher
36. A better wife none could ever find
37. She makes each day of marriage better than the previous
38. She still has the joy and perspective of a newly marred bride, mingled with the wisdom of a mature woman beyond her years
39. People of all ages listen to her (and ought to)
40. She is a giver not a taker
41. She makes me want to eat vegetables
42. She is the greatest chef I’ve ever met (sorry Mom, you set the bar high!)
43. She can turn nothing into something absolutely delicious
44. She holds her finger below her nose in just a certain way while deep in thought
45. She loves to take walks together
46. She makes me happy
47. More than that, she makes me holy
48. She journeyed with me and lived in the windowless cave
49. She never stops working and serving
50. All of her hobbies are completely constructive and others-directed
51. She is not a consumer
52. She somehow manages every penny we have and stretches them every month
53. She’s always up to mischief
54. She lets me interrupt her
55. Being with her is like being all by myself, only better

(Had to cut off quite a few just to keep the list short.)

Happy anniversary my Saucy Sauce!

Posted in Blog, Family, Holidays, Jeff, Joy, Kari, Love | No Comments »

Intellectual conviction or pride?

“What we suffer from … is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays, the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought to not doubt — the Divine Reason.” (emphasis mine)
–(G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City, NY: Image Books Doubleday and Company, 1959, orig. 1924), p. 31, quoted by John Piper, Battling Unbelief (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2007), pp. 41-42.)

Read some of Kari’s thoughts on that and surrounding content in that chapter in Battling Unbelief.

—
By the way, we should allow the Truth to humble us

Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Gospel, Quotes, Teaching, Theology | No Comments »

Brainerd speaks

Christian Audio has made available a great free resource this month:

The Life of David Brainerd (Unabridged) by Jonathan Edwards as a free audiobook.

• Be sure to use the coupon code OCT2007

I cannot recommend this book more highly. In fact, if I ever get my copy back, after someone borrowed it :-), I will read this book again, and again, and again. For now, I’ll listen to it.

This book was chiefly compiled and expanded from Brainerd’s own daily journal by Jonathan Edwards, who was affected mightily by the young missionary. Although Brainerd died at the young age of 29 — of tuberculosis in Edwards’ house — his passion and deep communion with God has since been contagious for more than two centuries of missionaries. Get to know David Brainerd! (And remember, he isn’t a quick read. Be patient, mull over what he says, and apply it to your heart and soul.)

Another great resource: John Piper biographical message (1990):
Oh, That I May Never Loiter On My Heavenly Journey! Reflections on the Life and Ministry of David Brainerd

Also, a book: The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, a William Cowper, and David Brainerd (The Swans Are Not Silent, 2)

A few quotes from Brainerd’s journal:

And if you would glorify God, or answer his just expectations from you, and make your own soul happy in this and the coming world, observe these few directions; though not from a father, yet from a brother who is touched with a tender concern for your present and future happiness.

First, Resolve upon, and daily endeavour to practise, a life of seriousness and strict sobriety.

Further, Take heed that you faithfully perform the business you have to do in theworld, from a regard to the commands of God; and not from an ambitious desire of being esteemed better than others.

Once more, Never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on him for assistance, yea, for all strength and grace.

We should always look upon ourselves as God’s servants, placed in God’s world, to do his work; and accordingly labour faithfully for him; not with a design to grow rich and great, but to glorify God, and do all the good we possibly can.

When you cease from labour, fill up your time in reading, meditation, and prayer: and while your hands are labouring, let your heart be employed, as much as possible, in divine thoughts.

Worldly pleasures, such as flow from greatness, riches, honours, and sensual gratifications, are infinitely worse than none.

Posted in Blog, Books, Faithfulness, God-centered, Listening, Ministry, Quotes, Reading | 1 Comment »

God is the Gospel

“….all the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God more fully. Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven - none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him.” (God is the Gospel, by John Piper, p. 47)

[Read other posts related to GOD is the Gospel]

Posted in Blog, God-centered, Gospel, Quotes, Reading, Theology | No Comments »

Religion v. Gospel

We must not think of the Gospel as merely our ticket to Heaven. We must see it is all of life, as in living out the Gospel, and seeing everything through the Gospel.

Darrin Patrick and The Journey Church, have provided the following, in the model of Tim Keller (download as PDF):

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Posted in Gospel, Sanctification, Theology | No Comments »