Everything we seem to initiate is already a response!

Even my desire for God's love is something I didn't create. My desires are fed by a Hope someone else gave me as a gift.

Yesterday I helped load $750 + worth of groceries for the homeless (Living Hope drive this weekend) from Costco to my friend's rig and then at Living Hope. They were thanking me, but what looked like my part of my doing was not at all. I didn't call my friend, he called me and invited me along for the adventure. I didn't help pay for any of the food (still thinking about that). I've been gone on vacation so I didn't even know about the food drive. What I keep thinking I'm initiating is almost always a response to something someone else has already done.

God so loved US (everyone in the whole wide world) that He GAVE his much loved son . . . to win us back! Read John 3:15-17. Even before He made this world, He was already thinking of us and in love with us and CHOSE US!

How would my life be different if I viewed everything as something I'm responding to - not making, creating, taking credit or blame for?

Here's my Thomas Kelly quote for the day: "In this humanist age we suppose we are initiators and God is the responder. But the Living Christ within us is the initiator, and we are the responders. God the Lover, the accuser, the revealer of light and darkness presses within us. 'Behold I stand at the door and knock.' And all our apparent initiative is already a response, a testimonial to His secret presence and working with in us."

"The secret places of the heart cease to be our noisy workshop. They become a holy sanctuary of adoration . . . where we are kept in perfect peace, if our minds be stayed on Him who has found us in the inward springs of our life."

Vacation Pictures & Intro to the "Deepest Little-Big Book"

So playing golf on the lake's "Old Course" is a must - Marcus and I played 5x, Gordon 4, and Laura 2x (Laura and I played near Spokane on the way home). Gordon squints at 8 a.m. - 1st tee. Marcus had several NOT-OB 300 yd drives (This one was a birdie - drove 315 and was on in 2 - par 5). The lake is just over the hill.

Laura got free lessons - She's so much fun to hang out with - We had a grand time!


Laura and I read every summer Thomas Kelly's little book, "A Testament of Devotion". This book was given to me as a gift by one of my favorite professors some 14 years after I graduated. The edition I have is an abridged, with some slight editing of a few words. It's a HarperCollins '92 publication (I've been trying to find another one like this - still can't). I think it's much better than the original (it's rare for me to say that).

Kelly died in 1942 unaware that two or three articles would be put together and go on to influence millions (Richard Foster says it changed his life). Like Watchman Nee and Oswald Chambers, Kelly had no idea that God would use him to set free so many caught up in Religion and Legalism.

I didn't read this 69 page book until some 6 years after it was given to me - I may read it every year until I die. Laura and I read it while on vacation at Flathead lake. We've read it together for the last six years.

Thomas Kelly was a professor who failed his second PhD and then went into deep depression. He visited Hitler's Germany in 1938. He taught Eastern Philosophy while growing a deep friendship with his forever friend and savior Jesus. He wrote of what we call today Quantum Physics. He understood how his Quaker roots led him to go beyond performance and outward obedience. He died of a heart attack at age 47. I'll let the following quotes on my blog (for the next few days) speak for the power of this book. I hope you like it.

Back from Vacation

Hello out there . . . I'm back from vacation. Our whole family spent a week at Flat Head Lake in Montana. I've been there for 30 or 31 summers. Laura's grandfather homesteaded this lake property and it's a wonderful time of swimming, water sports (jet skis, boating fun), and golf. I got to read and write, and do some great BBQ new stuff at the lake. Only 16 of us this year (a couple of guests and a few "friends for the day") but we had a blast. Laura and I ending up coming home by ourselves (wow, we still know how to have tons of fun after 33 years of M).

Got home Monday afternoon and then had to fly out Tue at 6:20 a.m. for Boise (my mother's husband had a heart attack). Everything's cool now and I'm back at work.

Hope to post some of the "best of Thomas Kelly" on my blog this week. Laura and I have been reading this "deepest little-big book" every summer for the past 5-6 years. It gets better every year. You can read it out loud in three settings. I'll also try to post some pics of the lake.