All is Well

Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Sunday Sundries–Some Great Links this Week!

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1.  HERE’S a list of 100 books listed by the BBC.  The premise for this list is their believe that the average person will have only read 6 out of the 100 listed.  So check it out–how did you do?  Being the nerd that I am, I placed the list into a spreadsheet so I can track my reads off of this list.

2.  I love to sink my toes into sand, and I am homesick for Hawaii.  Checkout these grains of sand magnified by 250–beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.BoredPanda has posts about 50 unusual church facilities.  Some are beautiful, some are so strange.

I have personally been in #’s 27, 46 and 49, with #49 being my favorite

4.Took Tim to see Harry Potter this afternoon….the smalls and my oldest went to the midnight premiere, while Tim and I waited to use gift certificates at AMC.  But I needed to brush up on movies 1-7.5.  So I found this GREAT recap of all 7 movies in under 7 minutes.  How’d they do it?  “We have NO IDEA!”

 

5.  And I leave you tonight with something a bit melancholy.  Here is Big Bird singing “It isn’t Easy Being Green” at Jim Henson’s funeral.  Whew.

Great Deals on Piper, Eareckson Tada and the ESV Bible

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We at HelloSaver are always on the lookout for great books for our readers.  This week, you can download John Piper’s “Think”(Kindle Version) for only $2.99.  I’ve read this book, it’s not to be missed.

For FREE this month at ChristianAudio.com is Joni Eareckson Tada’s book “A Place of Healing”.  I’ve not read this book, but it looks very good.  Here’s a synopsis:

“Whether readers are enduring physical pain, financial loss, or relational grief, Joni invites them to process their suffering with her. Together, they will navigate the distance between God’s magnificent yes and heartbreaking no and find new hope for thriving in between.”

Here’s another fantastic Free Offer:  Crossway Publishers and Amazon have teamed up to offer the ESV Bible as a Kindle Download for FREE.  The ESV is the translation that I use for most of my scripture and school work.  Here’s what the Amazon site has to say about the ESV:

“The English Standard Version (ESV) Bible is an essentially literal Bible translation that combines word-for-word precision and accuracy with literary excellence, beauty, and depth of meaning.

The ESV Bible is equipped with an enhanced navigation feature. Kindle’s index feature can be used to navigate directly to any verse. This feature is not supported on the Kindle 1 or any Kindle applications.”

 

Related Posts

On Reading Biographies

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I love to read biographies.  John Piper has an excellent post today on WHY we should read Christian Biographies.  This is really great stuff.

Perhaps, Hebrews 11 is still the most compelling biblical mandate for reading Christian biography. Together with Hebrews 13:7 all those biographical lessons in faith seem like an overwhelming summons to keep finding such stories and “considering” them.

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (Hebrews 13:7).

But Philippians 3:17, together with 1 Corinthians 11:1, add something remarkable to the motivation. Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). And then in Philippians 3:17 he takes this out three generations beyond Christ.

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and fix your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” (Philippians 3:17).

Notice the sequence:

  1. Jesus lives the perfect life for imitation.
  2. Paul imitates Jesus.
  3. Others “walk according to the example they have in us.”
  4. Finally, we fix our eyes on those who follow Paul’s example.

What makes this so remarkable is that Paul says it is spiritually wise to consider not just Jesus’ life, and not just the lives of those who follow him, but also the lives of those who follow those who follow him.

This seems to imply that the line of inspiration and imitation goes on and on.
Indeed it does. And the centuries are laden with the lives of saved sinners whose failures and triumphs of grace are meant to inspire and strengthen and guide the rest of us.
So among all the other things you do to grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ (2 Peter 3:18), follow Paul’s summons to “fix your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”

For starters, here are ten of my favorites:

***UPDATE: Here is a very good article by Carl Truman on hagiographical biographies.

Small Libraries

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First, let me say that I love my Kindle on my computer and phone.  I’d love to have an iPad.  I love the idea of ebooks.

But one of my concerns with this emerging technology is the fear that public libraries will disappear.

I love a library.  I love everything about it—there is nothing like being surrounded by books and books and more books.  The peacefulness in a library is settling.  The idea that I can choose any book to read in that whole building, for free!!  makes me nearly giddy.  I love librarians–I love to shelve books, the orderliness to that, the systematic trustworthiness of the alphabet and of the Dewey Decimal System.  I love the Dewey Decimal System.

When I was young and would occasionally visit my grandparents home in Belle Rive, IL, I would often sneak off to the public library.  That place was magic to me.  It was two blocks from my grandparents home.  It was on “Main Street” which consisted of a post office, the library and some sort of store thing.  And a flag pole, I remember the flag pole.

This building was tiny, tiny, tiny.  One room.  No air conditioning.  And it smelled wonderful–musty and dusty and smart.  So smart.  The selection available was tiny, too.  I can almost picture the entire collection in my mind–not really, of course.  But the imprint is there.

I don’t want small, tiny libraries to disappear.

I came across this picture of one such library.  That prompted me to search for a picture of the library at Belle Rive,(population 371 in 2000!!!) but I had no luck.  But it was so very similar to the library below:

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