MacCallum

I workout at a small gym next door to an even smaller cemetery. The cemetery is behind a small house with a large garden. I go about 3-4 times a week at lunch, and when the weather is nice the bay door in the back of the gym is open. If you stick your head out to get some air you can see the cemetery and the garden separated by a chain link fence.

I always take a break just to look at those two ironic neighbors. Each having a planting of sorts, each peaceful and each very natural. I make it a point to remind myself of two things when engulfed in the mist of testosterone generated in the weight room.

First, growth is the natural state of God’s creation. Just as He planted a garden and asked Adam to tend it, we still live in that basic blessing. The blessing that growth happens.

And the second thing is that growth ends. It ends because we did not appreciate the fullness of it. Rather than tending and enjoying, the first of us wanted something more, but got something terribly different; something preternatural, that has become natural for the rest of us.

So between the cemetery and the garden I pause. It helps keep me balanced as I realize I can’t bench press what I used to.

From my new book, Put the Seat Down, a guy’s guide to the first year of marriage.

There are approximately 780,000 words in an English Bible depending on the translation. If the average person speaks at a rate of 175 words per minute, the Bible could be read aloud in 4457 minutes, or a little over 74 hours.

There are approximately 700,000 hours in your lifetime if you live to be 80 years old. That means you could read the whole Bible – out loud – in .01% of your life. ALL of God’s written words would have taken up only .01% of your existence on earth.

Or another way of looking at it: if you only lived to be 1 year old, and could read, you’d still spend less that 1% of that year reading the Bible.

Just thought it would be helpful to know all that when God asks, “What did you think of my book?”

This is a great substitute for the real thing if you are watching your carbs, but is works on its own too. The volume reduces dramatically as it is cooked, but this recipe will serve 4-5. It makes a great bed for curry chicken or spicy Indian dishes.

• 2 heads cauliflower, chopped into small pieces
• 1 small container of fresh mushrooms
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons dried tarragon (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
• salt to taste.

Grind raw cauliflower and mushrooms in a food processor until granular.  Mix thoroughly.  Heat olive oil in wok to medium / medium high.  Stir-fry cauliflower mixture uncovered, adding tarragon and salt to taste.  You may need to add olive oil as you cook to sear the mixture rather than steam it. Takes about 15 minutes or until browned.

Work is harder since the Fall of Man than it was originally designed to be. Here are the rules of work in case you were born so rich that you can’t even spell “labor”:

Gen. 3:17-19 …

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it

All the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you will eat the plants of the field;

By the sweat of your face

You will eat bread,

Till you return to the ground…

I’d like to be exempt from these rules. Popular theology even backs me up: God loves me, He’s my father; He is the giver of all good things; if I delight in Him, He will give me the “desires of my heart” and “nothing good does he withhold from those whose walk is upright.”

Things should come easier because of all this.

I want Christian magic!

I want it to work in my career and bring me wild and easy success. I want it to change the hearts of people who are mean to me. I want magic to save my distasteful neighbor without having to share the gospel. I want Christian magic to make my marriage better and raise my kids. I want magic to lose weight.

Wisely, God does not always give us what we think is best. He gives us something better than Christian magic. Or more accurately He gives us someone better. He gives us Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit. Then no matter how hard work or life gets, we have someone to walk through it with us. That’s more than magic – it’s miraculous.

• God can not forget your birthday.
• God can look at every person on earth and not envy a single one of them.
• God can not see you as you want to be seen.
• God can not avoid you.
• God can not grow tired of your asking Him for things.
• God can listen and not be thinking about what He wants to say next.
• God can not take out on you the hurt caused by another.
• God can not be surprised by your shallowness.
• God can not make your choices for you.

Romans 1:20 says:

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they [men everywhere] are without excuse.”

This is an interesting paradox that the invisible is seen. Renee Descartes describes a similar idea of the invisible being seen in the creation using the right triangle. In any right triangle its invisible “soul” is: a² + b² = c².  It is the invisible truth that pre-exists the drawing of any right triangle. It was only as Pythagoras studied the nature of the right triangle that the invisible truth was seen.

So it is with God, as we study what He has placed in front of us. We can “clearly see” at least two of His attributes from creation: “His eternal power” (He is outside of time) and “divine nature” (He is God and not man). These two features are what leave men without excuse throughout history. Men of all times and places can know they are not alone. And they can ask, what might a God like that be like…?