Credible sources

Not so very long ago, I heard a Bible teacher say, "Never quote anybody while he is still alive, because you never know where his life is going to head."

That didn't sit well with me, but it took me a long time to figure out exactly why.

Here's the deal:

Truth is truth.  Whether or not truth is spoken by a "reputable" person, if it is true, it is true.  The truth of a statement is not determined by the condition of the person who makes it.

Therefore, if you come across a good, well-worded explanation or description of something, I would say go ahead and quote it.  You may want to say something about the person you are quoting, as a caveat, if you are concerned that he has a tarnished reputation which might hinder someone's ability to accept what he has said.  Still, I think it is important to recognize truth as its own entity, not something that ebbs and sways according to the varying moral state of the person who uttered it.

For instance, the Rolling Stones had a song that said, "You can't always get what you want."  I'm not a fan of the Rolling Stones, but that's a true statement.

We have a book about fatherhood by a famous Christian leader who later had an affair.  His life failures do not automatically negate everything he wrote in his book about fatherhood.  He had very good advice for fathers.  In fact, after his affair, he repented, did everything he could to restore his relationship with his wife, and ultimately recovered both his wife and his ministry.  Will he fall again?  Maybe.  Will it falsify everything he ever taught if he does?  Why would it?

We all make mistakes.  Nobody is perfect.  Everybody sins.

What people write or teach needs to be measured against scripture, not accepted or rejected based on how virtuous the author/teacher/preacher is.

The prophet Jonah was a defiant man with a bitter heart.  He hated the people of Ninevah, and wanted them to go to hell.  God wanted the people of Ninevah to repent and be saved.  God sent Jonah to Ninevah.  It took a lot of work on God's part to get the cranky prophet to his preaching engagement, but Jonah finally arrived, preached, and saw the Ninevites come to repentance.  In the end, Jonah was angry that God accepted the Ninevites' repentance.  Jonah was not what we would call a "good" person, yet God used him to bring truth to a perishing people group.

And while we're at it, if we were going to disqualify people's writings based on their life failures, we'd have to throw away most of the book of Psalms, because King David was not a stellar moral example, by any means.  Not only did he commit adultery with Bathsheba, but he had her husband killed to try to cover it up after he'd impregnated her.  Yet, King David was called, "A man after God's own heart," and he wrote many of our most beautiful Psalms.  In vulnerable, raw honesty, David even wrote Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, which explain his experience with sin, confession, repentance and forgiveness.  This is also truth.

Truth is truth.  We live in a fallen world, daily battling the fleshly temptations that surge up in us.  We sometimes fail to be as alert as we need to be, and fall under the spell of Satan's deceptions, which always draw us into sin.  But our failure to recognize and live by truth does not change the nature of truth.

Please don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying that we should be undiscerning in the name of "grace" (I'm talking about a warped and misapplied grace), and accept anything anybody says.  I'm just pointing out that the truth of a teaching resides outside of the person who teaches it.  Ideally, all teachers would be perfectly consistent in practicing what they preach.  In reality, in a fallen world, this is impossible.  You need to sift and strain for truth, always, and avoid getting caught up in issues that might distract you from this.  Compare the teaching to the Word of God.  That is the proper measuring stick.

Remember, Satan can deceive you by distracting you from truth by toppling truth's messenger.  I think it's actually one of his favorite techniques, because he can use it to accomplish two goals simultaneously: He denigrates truth, while nurturing pride in the hearts of people who condemn its imperfect messengers.

Oat Crepes

Now and then, I take somebody else's good recipe, and simplify it.

This is such an instance.  This post is based off my cousin Laura's post about her oatmeal crepes, which you can find here.

I'm recording my own way of doing it, for my personal reference and convenience.

I love these, because they are gluten free, and they satisfy a craving for something "bready," and they are so easy.

Oat Crepes

1 egg
1/3 cup quick cooking (GF) oatmeal flakes
1/3 cup milk (or milk substitute, like almond milk)
a splash of vanilla
a shake of salt

Method:  Crack the egg into your blender.  Add the oats, milk, vanilla and salt.  Let these sit in the blender for a minute or two while you get out your frying pan and preheat it with some butter or coconut oil.  When the pan is hot, quickly run the blender for 20-30 seconds, until the mixture is fairly uniform and smooth.  Quickly pour half the batter into your hot pan and swirl to cover the bottom.  Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, then flip and cook 2-3 more minutes, until golden brown spots have appeared.  Slide onto a plate, fill, roll and eat quick, while it's hot.

* You do need to work quickly, and re-run the blender each time you add more batter to the pan, because the oats settle to the bottom of the mixture really fast.

* This recipe makes 2 crepes, which is the perfect amount for my personal breakfast.  You can easily double the recipe to serve 2 people, triple it to serve 3, and so on.

* These are delicious served with Greek yogurt and fresh berries.  Lately I've been loving them simple--with just butter and apricot preserves.  They are also good with Nutella and bananas, or even cinnamon sugar and butter.

The secret to finding joy

Seeking joy, or happiness, for itself
is like spreading your fingers wide
to try to keep the sun from setting.

(You have to enjoy the sun while it is up.)

Joy is a by-product,
not a goal in itself.
Joy comes when you do other things well;
it mysteriously arises
where you may have least expected it,
often because you least expected it.

Surprise and wonder often accompany true joy
--not the kind of surprise that comes with a crowd,
blasting noise and confetti--
but the kind that creeps in quietly,
stealing your breath away as it strokes your sternum.

The secret to joy

is a thankful heart.

Not assuming,
not feeling entitled,
but receiving with gratitude.

Giving thanks always and for everything 

to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

~Ephesians 5:20

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything 

by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 

let your requests be made known to God.

~Philippians 4:6

Giving thanks to the Father, 

who has qualified you 

to share in the the inheritance of the saints in light.

~Colossians 1:12

And whatever you do, in word or deed,

do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus

giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

~Colossians 3:17

Give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

~1 Thessalonians 5:18

I am thankful for my clock that ticks,
my dog that barks,
and our refrigerator that keeps our milk cold.

I am thankful for blue skies,
and also for rain,
and even snowflakes.
I'm thankful for the sun and the moon,
for fields of corn,
for lakes,
for trees,
for roads that I can travel to see people I love.

I'm thankful for old jeans,
new shoes,
warm socks,
and an overly bright pair of pink-striped gloves
that I bought thinking they would be hard to lose
(I was right--I'm thankful for that, too).

I'm thankful for colors:
pale pink, light blue, creamy yellow,
red, violet, green,
brown and black, and even orange.

I'm thankful for flavors:
sea salt, pepper and garlic,
cinnamon, butter and brown sugar,
the delectable tang of a juicy, ripe raspberry
and the luscious sweetness of a fragrant peach;
creamy chocolate, smooth coffee.

I'm thankful for the notes of a flute drifting over from my neighbor's windows,
the softness of a fuzzy blanket,
the smell of a freshly bathed baby.

I'm thankful that I can live and breathe,
walk up and down stairs
and drink water.

I am thankful for people:
family, friends, new babies, precious elders.
I'm thankful for holidays and celebrations
and Sundays to gather with the saints.

I'm thankful for books,
for stories,
for truth.

I'm thankful for beauty,
and I am thankful for hope.

I'm thankful for Jesus,
who has given me everything
when I deserved nothing,
forgiving me
instead of condemning me,
dying in my place
so I can live eternally in paradise.

These are very inexpensive fake flowers.  I am thankful for them, too.  They brighten my front porch during the long end of winter.  I will not apologize.  I will give thanks.

Joy.

Will all Israel be saved? (BSF Lesson #19)

Today someone asked me, "So, do you think all Israel will be saved?"

Without hesitation, I answered yes.  The Bible says very clearly that all Israel will be saved, in Romans 11:26.

The question is not whether all Israel will be saved.  The question is what Paul means when he says, "all Israel."

The book of Romans is all about salvation.  Paul's central teaching about salvation in Romans is this: People are saved by faith in Jesus Christ and not by keeping laws.  Specifically, Paul calls out the Jewish people again and again, warning them that they will not reach God through their obedience to the Law.

Now, this can be confusing to the casual observer, because faith in Jesus Christ is far more than mere mental assent to His existence, or even mental assent to the truth that He is God and that He died to make atonement for sin.  A person who has faith in Jesus Christ has experienced a supernatural infusion of spiritual life into his formerly spiritually dead heart.  The spiritual life that has entered his heart is none other than the divine presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ Himself (Colossians 1:27), and when the Holy Spirit lives in a person's heart, the person changes.  As the Bible says, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).  A person who has the Holy Spirit living in his heart will live a life of ever-increasing obedience.  Because his new heart leads him to do things that are righteous, it may look like he is "saved by observing the Law," but he is not!  He is saved by grace, and the new heart he has received enables him to walk in the way of God (or, as Romans 8:14 says, the sons of God are led by the Spirit).

The Apostle Paul has spent chapter after chapter in Romans explaining that one's relationship with God--whether a person is counted as one of the people of God, a child of God--depends on the condition of one's heart towards God.  In other words, it depends on faith, and not on outward acts.

Here are some points Paul has made:

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.  No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.  Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.  (Romans 2:29)

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.  (Romans 3:20)

[Abraham] is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.  And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.  (Romans 4:11b-12)

For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.  (Romans 9:6b)

And Paul wrote in other letters:

Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.  (Galatians 3:7)

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.  (Galatians 3:29)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Thus, it seems quite clear that when Paul writes, "And so, all Israel will be saved" (11:26), his point is that all the elect, to whom God has granted the gift of faith, whether Jew or Gentile, will be saved.  As I wrote when I dealt with Romans 9:

1.  Jews and non-Jews who have faith in Christ have salvation.
2.  Jews and non-Jews who do not have faith in Christ do not have salvation.

When Paul says "all Israel will be saved," he means that all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved.  "Israel" is comprised of those who believe.  I think Paul's personal astonishment was that believing Gentiles could be counted as part of Israel, and when he said, "all Israel," he used "all" to encompass the Gentiles whom he formerly never would have expected to be included as recipients of the blessings and promises of God.  The previous verse tells us, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in" (Romans 11:25b).  "All Israel" means the faithful, including the full number of the Gentiles who come to faith.

Now, you may be concerned about the whole idea of this hardening that Israel is experiencing.  It is somewhat troubling, on the surface.  Romans 11:8-9 is a sobering section of scripture, recalling an Old Testament theme about blind eyes and stopped ears (Deuteronomy 29:4, Isaiah 6:9-10, Isaiah 29:10, Isaiah 43:8, Psalm 69:22-26).

Remember though, we have been studying Romans:  We know that God is good, faithful, and full of mercy and love.

But God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:8)

He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?  (Romans 8:32)

God is not in the business of condemning.  God is in the business of saving, rescuing, and delivering.  God is not against us; He is for us!  (Romans 8:31)

I am reminded of the beautiful passage in John 3:

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.  Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.  (John 3:16-18)

God's purpose is never to trip people up and trick them into falling into sin so they will have to go to hell.  Never!!  That is the devil's goal, not God's!  John writes, "whoever does not believe stands condemned already."  This does not mean that we were all floating on a level playing field in neutral territory, and then Jesus came, and those who accepted Jesus were saved while those who rejected Jesus were condemned.  Not at all!  Rather, it means that we were all born in unbelief, and we were all "condemned already" until we experienced the saving work of Christ.  Christ came to save all of us, because we were already condemned under the sin of Adam (Romans 3:23, Romans 5:12).  We desperately needed a Savior, and that is why God sent His Son.

Romans 10, which we studied right before we got to Romans 11, talks in detail about the process of coming to belief:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can they preach unless they are sent?  (Romans 10:14-15a)

It all begins with someone being sent to bring truth, light, hope and freedom to the captives (Luke 4:16-21).

This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  (1 John 4:9-10)

Jesus was the the Original Sent One.  After Jesus completed His mission, He returned to the Father, and the Father sent the Holy Spirit:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  (John 14:26)

True believers are filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ and carry His presence wherever they go in the world, a witness and reflection of His glory.  God's people, true Israel, the true church, are messengers of salvation throughout the whole world.  God is always seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10), and He completes this purpose through His people who are tabernacles for His presence (1 Corinthians 6:19).

God is faithful.  God is good.  God is perfectly wise.  God is love.  God is almighty and has sovereign authority over everything.  We do not need to worry about what He is doing.  Romans 11 indicates that the hardening of Israel may be a temporary thing (Romans 11:23-24, and notice the word "until" in Romans 11:25).

Nobody will be saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ, but the ignition of faith is a mystery.  We have no way of predicting or controlling God's acts of grace in bringing dead hearts to life through faith.  The thief on the cross came to faith during the very last moments of his life (Luke 23:39-43).  God is full of mercy and compassion.

What of the fate of the descendants of the patriarchs? We do not have any say over anyone's fate, but we should always hope for the salvation of everyone.  If God hardens some for a period if time, in order to save others, we know that His ultimate goal is the salvation of many.  He is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9).  He desires the salvation of all men (1 Timothy 2:3-4).

Long, long ago in the Old Testament, God promised:

I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.  (Hosea 14:4)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.  (Ezekiel 36:25-28)

God heals the wayward hearts.  God Himself transforms hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.  He is the only one who can.  We can trust in God's purpose, His ways, and His timing.  Everything He does will be proven perfect and right.  Even if He hardens and blinds some people for a period of time, we can trust in His unfailing love.

Romans 11 actually tells us:

For God has bound all men over to disobedience so He may have mercy on them all.  (Romans 11:32)

I don't claim to understand exactly what that means: ". . . so He may have mercy on them all . . ."  But, you have to admit, it sounds very hopeful for us.

God's ways are not our our ways.  We should not try to figure out His psychology or predict how He will act.  We certainly have no right to judge what He does, especially since our experience is so limited, our lives only a tiny slice in the middle of the story.  We know little about the beginning of the story, and we know next to nothing about the end (except for the promise that God will one day utterly eradicate evil and bring His people home to paradise).

It was a shame that our BSF lesson stopped short of the doxology, because that really sums it all up:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been His counselor?  Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?  For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever!  Amen.   (Romans 11:33-36)

We don't know how He's going to do it all, but He is good, and it's going to be amazing.





*All quoted texts are from the NIV, and all emphases were added by me.

Power, Glory and Humility

I'm pondering my words for the year.

Power.

Glory.

Humility.

At first, I was thinking of them from the perspective that power and glory are God's, and humility is for me.  This is not a bad way to see it.

Yet, I was struck by how, together, these words tell the story of Jesus.

Jesus was full of power and glory.  Through Jesus, and by Jesus, and for Jesus, all things were created (Proverbs 8:23-31, John 1:3-4, Colossians 1:15-17).  He is the power behind all life and the glory of all that is good.

Yet, in humility, Jesus emptied Himself of divine glory,
became a man--the perfect God-man who never sinned--
and offered His life for the atonement of our sins (Philippians 2:6-8,  Hebrews 9:14, 1 John 2:2).

Of course, after He humbly finished his work for us, Jesus was raised to the right hand of the Father (Ephesians 1:19-21, Philippians 2:9, Hebrews 12:2).  Now Jesus lives in glory for all eternity, constantly interceding for us and defending us from accusations and attempted condemnation by the enemy of our souls (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:24-25).  Jesus has paid the price to redeem us (Titus 2:14, Revelation 5:9-10).  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who have run to the Savior (Romans 8:1).

Power and glory.  Jesus relinquished them for awhile, exchanged His heavenly robes of infinite light for a frail human body that could break and bleed.  Instead of remaining the Source, Jesus allowed Himself to become the perfect channel through which God would broadcast light and life into the world.  Through Him flowed as much power and glory as could be cloaked by the skin of one human male, which was plenty.  Jesus poured out a bounty of love, healing, wisdom and hope, all for the benefit of His beloved created ones.  In return, He endured insults, ridicule, hunger, fatigue, abandonment, betrayal and death.  Yet, by the miracle of grace, He triumphed.

Jesus' radical act of ultimate humility accomplished the purpose of God, once and for all.

How could you ever imagine that a King would conquer His enemy by walking right into enemy territory, laying down His life and dying?

Yet, this paradoxical action undid the power of sin.  We cannot totally understand it, but we can believe it.

And afterwards, Jesus returned to His glory, by the mighty power of God.  I can't understand this either; somehow the post-resurrection glory is even greater than the glory before Jesus died.

We haven't seen anything yet.

But wait, there's more.

God invites us into this glory, to share it with Him and to live with Him, in His presence, for all eternity (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

Did you get that?

He invites us into His glory.

How?  How can He even want to do this?  Why does He love us like this?  We do not deserve this.  We don't even appreciate it.  We can't comprehend the outrageousness of it.  Lots of people simply reject the truth altogether, as ridiculous.  They have a point.  It is ridiculous.  That God should love me enough to become a man and die for me is absolutely ridiculous.  But He does and He did.

Do you know what else is ridiculous?  It's ridiculous that so many believers take this all for granted.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus died for me.  Yes, I get to go to heaven.  We just assume.  We take it in stride.  Of course God loves us.  Of course Jesus died for us.  Of course we are going to go to heaven.

This is why we need humility.  Humility enables us to realize that the truth about Jesus is mind-boggling.  Humility allows the wonder of grace to wash over us like waves that take our breath away.  Humility helps us internalize some wisdom about who God is, and what He does not owe us but miraculously gives us anyway.  Humility allows us to experience gratitude and joy.  Humility results in joy.

So many things are paradoxical.

Power, glory, humility.

My verse for the year:

Yours, O Lord, 

is the greatness and the power and the glory 

and the victory and the majesty,

for all that is in the heavens 

and in the earth is Yours.

Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,

and You are exalted

as head above all.

~1 Chronicles 29:11

Lessons from sudoku

The Lord is teaching me humility, and it is hard.

It's hard for many reasons, one being because I didn't know how lacking I was in humility.  I thought I was a pretty humble person.  One thing He's showing me: thinking I was humble was a prideful attitude.

I pray that God will make me genuinely humble, and that this process will result in the beauty of Christ being magnified.  Although being humbled must by nature involve a certain amount of humiliation, I do pray that the Lord will humble me without shaming me.  Psalm 34:5 says, "Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame."  May it be to me, O Lord, because of Your mercy, faithfulness and goodness.

During this challenging journey toward humility, I hit a rough patch awhile back.  There was a week when I struggled in ways that are difficult for me to understand.  One day, I literally spent all day in bed doing sudoku.  I got up at one point, showered, put on clean pajamas, and went back to bed.  I was not sick, but I was mildly dizzy, had no appetite, and had no energy.  I kept doing sudoku puzzle after sudoku puzzle, sort of desperately clinging to the idea that if I could solve sudoku, my mind must still be functioning.

If you are not familiar with sudoku, I will describe it.  A standard sudoku puzzle is a grid of 81 squares, 9 x 9.  Thus, it is also a grid of nine 3 x 3 boxes of squares.  The trick is that each horizontal row of nine, each vertical column of nine, and each cubed box of nine must contain the digits 1-9.  They provide a grid with a few digits in place, and your job is to fill in the missing numbers.

These puzzles range from "easy" to "very difficult," depending on how many numbers are provided for you to start, and which numbers.

I generally start by examining each box of nine, going left to right, top to bottom, and figuring out if there are any numbers I can fill in, based on what information is available.  After a first pass through this way, it is sometimes worth making another pass through, if I picked up a number of digits the first time.  Sometimes in a cube, I can ascertain that a particular digit must be in one of two boxes in that cube.  If I can get that possibility down to 2, I mark the digit in the lower left corner of the boxes (moving to the right, if the box is one of two for various digits).  Then, if a different digit winds up belonging in one of those 2 boxes, I can know for sure that the other one is the box for the digit I've marked.  This works best at the beginning of the process and becomes confusing and easy to mess up as the process continues.

When that technique has been exhausted, I move on to examining individual squares, to figure out what they might be, based on what is already present in the row, column and box that contain the square.  At this point, I "mark up" the boxes by writing all the digits that could possibly be in the box in a very tiny row across the top.  In "easy" puzzles, I find that usually I can limit myself to marking up only boxes with 2, or maybe 3, possible digits, but in "very difficult" puzzles, I wind up with lots of marks in lots of boxes.  Sudoku requires a hearty eraser.

At the beginning of a puzzle, you can usually fill in a few boxes without too much trouble.  As you go along, it gets harder and harder, and you almost always hit a point where you feel stuck, and nothing is happening.  At this point, I find that the best thing to do is be patient, and just plug away, marking up boxes and looking up and down rows, across columns, and through cubes for anything you can eliminate as a possibility.  There is almost always a point at which you have thoroughly marked a puzzle, when you see something that makes the whole thing break loose: because this particular square is this number and not that number, then a long chain reaction ensues, resulting in the ultimate solution of the puzzle.  Thus, the final solution of the puzzle is almost always immensely satisfying as a rush of pieces fall into place.  No matter how long I may have agonized over a puzzle, once the solution breaks loose, I get a thrill that makes me want to dive right into another one.

Shawn mentioned that he thought I liked doing sudoku because I can solve a puzzle, reach a solution, tie everything up all neat and tidy.  Life isn't like that.  Life is out of control.  But, if I am patient, I can control and solve a sudoku puzzle.

Sudoku has encouraged me in patience and perseverance.  Once I did a Very Difficult one.  It took me three days (I'm not very smart-- but, of course, at that point I wasn't spending all day in bed with it; I was doing laundry, shopping for groceries, cooking and walking with my friends, so we are not talking about three solid days).  It took me three days, because once I got it marked up, I poked and checked and cross-checked and looked and thought, but I couldn't get to the place where a discovery broke loose the chain reaction.  I was simply stuck. Finally, on the third day, I decided that the only remaining tactic was to start trying options and see what happened.  I printed out some blank grids, and copied over what I had already solved.  Then, I started with the upper right cube, which was missing three numbers.  Based on what else was missing from the puzzle, the three missing numbers could be arranged three different ways.  I filled in one possibility and worked through the chain reaction that ensued.  It was not the right solution.  I started over with a fresh grid and a new combination.  That one didn't work either.  The third (and last possible) combination worked.  I solved the puzzle.  It wasn't beautiful.  It was a messy and painstaking solution.  But I figured it out.  Patience and perseverance got the job done.

Sudoku books have an answer key in the back.  I'm not going to lie.  Sometimes when I'm working a really hard puzzle, I'll run a check halfway through, to make sure the numbers I've already figured out are right.  I hate to invest hours of time into a puzzle with faulty data.  I make rules for myself, about how much I can look at the back.  My main rule is that I cannot place any number in the puzzle unless I myself can work out why it belongs in the box.  I also have a rule that I have to work forward.  I can figure out a number and then check it, but I can't look up a number and then work backwards to justify it.  Nevertheless, I think the answer key is a good resource, and in a way it is like having God's Word.  It's different, of course, because we should never restrict ourselves from reading and applying God's Word.  Yet, I think there is a valuable concept here, that God's Word is most valuable to us when we have experienced it, worked it out in real life, in practical ways.  Just reading the Bible academically and gaining head knowledge is sort of like looking up answers in advance for a sudoku puzzle.  On the other hand, taking the Word into our hearts and living by what we have learned is like working through a puzzle and then checking how it matches the answer key at the end.  Problem solving resources help us most when we are fully invested in working through the problem on a deep level.

When I first discovered my affection for sudoku, I thought it was because a solved puzzle contrasted so clearly against the messiness of real life.  However, as I pondered it, I realized that in the end, all the plans and purposes of the Lord will be revealed to be perfect.  I have faith that the answer key for my sudoku puzzle will reveal a valid solution, and I have a much greater faith and hope in Christ, that by His design and power, everything will be made right at the end of this age.  The time-space continuum of the universe is like a vast, multi-dimensional sudoku puzzle.  It's not a flat, 81-square grid on a piece of paper.  It's a living, moving puzzle of nearly infinite numbers and dimensions, contained in the Mind of God.  God has authority and dominion over every part of it, and He is patiently working out the kinks, fixing every defect caused by sin, always creating more beauty and grace.  His loving attention is perfectly effective.  He has a purpose and a plan for everything.  When the final chain-reaction of order unzips under the care of His fingertips, we will be delighted and astounded, overwhelmed by His glory.

It will be okay.  Everything is going to be okay.

Psalm 145:17

The Lord is righteous in all His ways

and loving toward all He has made.

Revelation 22:3-5

No longer will there be any curse.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city,

and His servants will serve Him.

They will see His face,

and His name will be on their foreheads.

There will be no more night.

They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,

for the Lord God will give them light.

And they will reign for ever and ever.