Between my freshman and sophomore years at Clemson University, I worked the midnight to 8:00 a.m. shift for Texize (https://texize.com/), a manufacturer of cleaning products. I’ll never forget my first night. Along one wall of the large building we were working in was an open bay door, and I thought, “Wow. I can keep an eye on that door and watch the sun come up…or at least watch it get light outside.”

So I kept looking, 4am, nothing. 5am, nothing. 6am, nothing. Still pitch black. I thought, “That’s odd. Surely it’s light by now.” Finally, around 7:30am, I looked at another wall and another large open bay door, and it was broad daylight. Only then did I walk over to my first door and discover that it was open but so was the door to the boxcar that was parked right outside, waiting to be loaded!

You can’t see the light if you’re looking in the wrong place.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8.12, NKJV)

This morning, August 15, 2025, 7:15 a.m., as I sit on my sofa in Colorado, President Trump is on his way to Alaska to meet President Putin to talk about Ukraine. CNN reports in an email:

The Air Force Once flight carrying US President Donald Trump has left Joint Base Andrews, bound for Alaska, where he will hold a crucial summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

Trump will participate in a bilateral program at 3 p.m. ET and is expected to depart Anchorage back to Washington at 9:45 p.m. ET, according to the White House’s daily guidance.

What can we do? We can pray. I quoted Isaiah 64.4 yesterday:

For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him.

The principle is clear:

The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. (Proverbs 21.1, NKJV)

President Trump has Jesus’ blessing for this mission:

Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5.9, NKJV)

And our instructions are clear:

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. (1 Timothy 2.1, 2, NKJV)

Please join me (and hopefully thousands of others) in prayer.

A friend who would call herself a follower of wicca or some other earth-centered religion posted her credo which included statements like:

• You call him God; I call it the universe
• You call it prayer; I call it meditation

She ends with:

• It’s the same… We are all one. I see the separation and the lies and the separation IS THE LIE.

About the same time I read that post, I read Psalm 86.

Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord; Nor are there any works like Your works. All nations whom You have made Shall come and worship before You, O Lord, And shall glorify Your name. For You are great, and do wondrous things; You alone are God. (Psalm 86.8 – 10, NKJV)

“You call it prayer; I call it meditation” is not the same thing as asking the God of the universe (not “the universe”) to do something. The Bible teaches a living, active God who does things:

Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence— As fire burns brushwood, As fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things for which we did not look, You came down, The mountains shook at Your presence. For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him. (Isaiah 64.1 – 4, NKJV, emphasis mine)

Also, there is no paragraph that starts this way:

You say that Jesus of Nazareth is the son of God who came back to life after being put to death. I say…

It’s hard to come up with an alternate view of Jesus and call it “the same.”

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4.12, NKJV)

Back to Psalm 86, here’s a prayer:

Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. (Psalm 86.11, NKJV)

It’s not my truth and your truth, it’s God’s truth.

PS (repeated) If you’re following the reading plan of going through the Poetry section of the Old Testament, you may have discovered (or will shortly discover) an error. I had divided Psalm 88 into two parts. Oops. It’s Psalm 89 that needed to be divided into two parts. This is the corrected version.

I love Psalm 84. Here’s the opening:

How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home, And the swallow a nest for herself, Where she may lay her young— Even Your altars, O LORD of hosts, My King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; They will still be praising You. Selah (Psalm 84.1 – 4, NKJV)

The psalmist must have observed a sparrow’s nest and a swallow’s nest in the temple area. I looked it up hoping to find a photo, but there are reams of paper written on this subject, most very technical and negative: “How could there be birds in the temple? They would make it unclean.”

Nothing like a theologian to throw a wet blanket on a beautiful text. Besides, to say there couldn’t be birds in the vast area of the Temple Court is to deny what the text says.

I finally found something that confirmed what I was thinking/feeling:

The image is from verse 3, the image of sparrows and swallows making nests in the temple courts. 

What I like about the image is how, very plausibly, it places the poet in the temple courts at the time of composition. You can imagine the poet sitting in the temple with the intent to compose a song. The poet begins with expected lines, extolling the temple as home, as the resting place our hearts are yearning for. The poet then pauses and begins to think about what should come next in the song.

And then an unexpected image. Birds nesting in the temple. Where did this image come from?

The origin seems obvious enough. As the poet’s eyes take in the temple courts, heart searching for the next lines, the poet looks up at the sky and notices the birds overhead, flying to and fro from their nests high up in the nooks and crannies of the temple. The poet watches the birds meditatively. And then the flash of recognition–Look, even the birds long to live here! – Dr. Richard Beck

The psalm goes on:

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, They make it a spring; The rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; Each one appears before God in Zion. (Psalm 84.5 – 7, NKJV)

And it concludes with…

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man who trusts in You! (Psalm 84.10 – 12, NKJV)

I like it: “No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

Amen.

PS If you’re following the reading plan of going through the Poetry section of the Old Testament, you may have discovered (or will shortly discover) an error. I had divided Psalm 88 into two parts. Oops. It’s Psalm 89 that needed to be divided into two parts. This is the corrected version.

Yesterday, Psalm 82 reminded us that some things don’t change: there seems always to be oppression of the poor (and God doesn’t like it!).

Something else doesn’t change. Israel’s neighbors want to wipe them out. I googled “The stated purpose of Hamas,” and this came up with no problem:

Since its creation in December 1987, Hamas has invoked militant interpretations of Islam to spearhead a Sunni extremist movement committed to destroying Israel. – “Doctrine of Hamas,” https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas

The names of the players have changed, but not the playbook:

They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” For they have consulted together with one consent; They form a confederacy against You … Edom … Ishmaelites … Moab … Hagrites … Gebal … Ammon … Amalek … Philistia … Tyre … Assyria. (Psalm 83.3 – 8, NKJV)

I think only Tyre still exists as a city.

If the nations were really good at forming confederacies, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, etc., would be enough, you’d think, to wipe out Israel.

The prayer hasn’t changed either:

So pursue them with Your tempest, And frighten them with Your storm. Fill their faces with shame, That they may seek Your name, O LORD. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; Yes, let them be put to shame and perish, That they may know that You, whose name alone is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth. (Psalm 83.15 – 18, NKJV)

And Israel is still here. More importantly, “…You, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.”

With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. (Matthew 6.9, 10, MSG)

The LORD of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. (Isaiah 8.13, NKJV)

I haven’t seen this paragraph before:

God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods [“judges” – God judges the judges. On what criterion?].

How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked? Selah

Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; Free them from the hand of the wicked.  (Psalm 82.1 – 4, NKJV)

Some things (maybe most things!) don’t change. We are still oppressing the poor, and sometimes immigration enforcement is just that.

And if the judges fail?

I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” (Psalm 82.6, 7, NKJV)

God always has the last word.

Yesterday I used a speech by the Dean of the College of Music at the University of Colorado as an illustration of an organization that was committed to making a difference outside itself. Not a “self-licking ice cream cone.” Please review if you missed that.

Yesterday I emphasized his point that they were providing services, i.e., music, to the campus, the local community, underserved areas of the state, and worldwide through their trained graduates.

Today I want to focus on that training.

We are dedicated to individualized and small group instruction. – Dr. Daniel Sher, Dean of the College of Music, University of Colorado, 2006.

To actually make music, to produce students who are “excellent”, there must be individualized and small group instruction. Having the students attend recitals put on by the faculty wouldn’t do anything. Faculty are committed not to exercising their gifts of music but to helping the students develop theirs.

And not just music majors. I talked with one student, a young man who had participated in the African Dance number. He was an anthropology major. Yet he was an equal contributor.

In the church, often the closest person to that ideal is the choir director who might have a fantastic singing voice but who is rarely heard singing himself. He gives his life not to exercising his gift to produce music but helping other people exercise their gifts to produce music. At the other end of that spectrum are the average adult Sunday School teachers. They are so busy exercising their gift of teaching that no development occurs in anyone else.

But Paul taught Timothy, recorded in 2 Timothy 2.2, that there are no permanent students. The students are to be taught in such a way that they “will also be qualified to teach others.”

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

I think the College of Music is an example of how that can be done. To paraphrase a metaphor I wrote about earlier about General Contractors versus Trade Schools, if our mission was making music, would the church be a concert hall or a music school? I believe music school is the right answer. But too many churches are, as David Platt wrote: “A performance at a place with programs put on by professionals.”

Jesus was about training and sending:

Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19, NKJV)

Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach… (Mark 3.14, NKJV)

Have you heard that expression? We used it in the Air Force to describe organizations that seemed to exist only for themselves, providing no useful service. “They’re just a self-licking ice cream cone.” Not a good thing.

Nearly 20 years ago, my son-in-law, Cody Gifford, was earning his PhD in instrumental music conducting at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He took me to a function which included a speech by the then Dean of the College of Music, Dr. Daniel Sher. I was so taken with the speech that I told Dr. Sher I intended to write an article about it. Dr. Sher just reached into his suit jacket pocket and handed me his script. (I’m finally writing the article!)

Here’s the relevant portion of the speech. See if you see what I heard…

What makes us so successful is that we are a community committed to excellence in music. We are dedicated to individualized and small group instruction, to programs that are artistically sensitive and intellectually rigorous, through a teaching and learning atmosphere that is permeated by a spirit of collaboration and teamwork.

Through our 350 concerts each year, 95% of them free to the public, we present opera, orchestra, concert band, chorus, world music ensembles, and solo recitals. We are a major cultural resource for our community. Through our Marching Band and Athletic Pep bands, we are the heart and soul of the spirit life of the campus.

Beyond the campus and our local community, we are committed to outreach to culturally underserved populations on the eastern plains, in the mountain regions and the K-12 system throughout our state.

Beyond our state, faculty, students and our alums are contributing at the highest level in the profession in performance, scholarly research and publication, teaching, and arts administration. – Daniel Sher, October 20, 2006

I don’t think I’ll get through this in one blog, but here are the first things that jumped out at me:

He described themselves as a successful community committed to excellence in music

• To be judged “successful” you must have a goal and a means by which to assess how well you’ve achieved that goal. He goes on in the speech to describe their activities and achievements
• It is a community, but “community” is not the goal
• It’s a community committed to excellence in music
  • Not a community committed to themselves
  • Not just committed to getting by, but to excellence

And they’re not performing music to listen to themselves, they are having an impact in four areas:

• Local community (concerts, recitals, opera, etc.)
• Campus itself with Marching Band and Pep Bands—the “heart and soul” of the spirit life of the campus
• Outreach in the state to underserved areas east and west
• Impact everywhere as grads go out, competent to serve

As I say, definitely not a self-licking ice cream cone.

By contrast, Robert Lewis describes in his book Church of Irresistible Influence the time he was in the mayor’s office and saw a book about their home town, Little Rock, Arkansas. Robert flipped through the book and observed, “There are no churches in this book.” And instead of getting angry with the mayor, he realized that the churches were all self-licking ice cream cones (my phrase). “If all the churches disappeared tomorrow, who outside the churches would notice?”

A goal for churches? Contribute to the world outside the church.

Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful. (Titus 3.14, NAS)

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5.16, ESV)

More to come. Stay tuned.

I just finished An Alien at St Wilfred’s by Adrian Plass, the British humorist. I read his The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, age 37 1/2 when it first came out in 1987. Unlike Alien…, Diary is still in print. Strongly recommend Diary and anything else by Adrian Plass. Brilliant. Insightful Dry sense of humor.

Alien was written in 1992 and is about an angel who appeared to a vicar at St Wilfred’s Anglican Church. The book ends with an insight into John 21, Jesus’ appearance to the disciples on the seashore, that’s too good not to pass on.

On page 188, in the last chapter, during a period of intense prayer, the Lord gave the vicar seven practical things to work on:

• Organization
• Diet
• Alcohol
• Exercise
• Rest
• Time with God
• Bible reading

The vicar was disappointed because these felt too practical, too ordinary to be of God. When he shared them with his small group who had been meeting with the angel, the angel asked him to think about Peter in John 21. Peter jumped into the water to see Jesus. (I wrote about Peter’s frenzy in January 2022.) They still had unfinished business between them. Why was Peter so anxious to see Jesus? Answer: because he loved him. And who was Jesus? Group members responded:

• The son of God
• The Savior of the world
• The one who made everything

And what was this Jesus, the Son of God, Savior of the world, the One who made everything, doing when Peter arrived on shore, dripping wet? Answer?

Fixing breakfast for his friends.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” (John 21.9 – 12, ESV)

Practical. Ordinary.

A key concept of some of the prayers in the psalms in the 70s and 80s (Book III is Psalms 73 – 89) is a prayer for God to work today as he did in the past. I get the feeling that Israel is in captivity, and things aren’t looking so good. For example:

Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Selah (Psalm 77.7 – 9, NKJV)

The solution is to remember what God is capable of:

And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” I will remember the works of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all Your work, And talk of Your deeds…Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, And Your footsteps were not known. You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalm 77.10 – 12, 19, NKJV)

“I will remember the works of the LORD…” The theme continues into Psalm 78 with an admonition to teach the children:

We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. (Psalm 78.4, NKJV)

God’s works. I was discussing with a friend a lady in his small group who attributed her successful travel to two graduations in two disparate places to God. “God was on fire.” My friend’s preferred take was maybe Southwest was on fire.

But we agreed that attributing the successful trip to God might not be a bad outlook. Recognize what God is (or may be) doing in the world and share it with the children.

For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments; (Psalm 78.5 – 7, NKJV)

Maybe “Focus on the Family” that I wrote about recently is HOW we get the mission done.

By contrast…

The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They did not keep the covenant of God; They refused to walk in His law, And forgot His works And His wonders that He had shown them. (Psalm 78.9 – 11, NKJV)

Equipped but not obedient. And they “forgot His works…” Therefore, they were useless in battle. Sad. A picture of many in our churches.