Matt W Cook

I think one of the reasons many of us feel like we’re wasting our lives and devoting ourselves to futile things is because we are actually wasting our lives and devoting ourselves to futile things. Many of the things we do for recreation we don’t even enjoy anymore. Take television for example. Many people will sit in front of it for four hours a day. In doing so they lose whatever opportunities that lay in those four hours. For what? Most people don’t even enjoy it. That is, we have an urge to watch it, but in watching it we don’t actually get pleasure out of it.

Hobbies are good, I think, but we should pick them carefully. If we’re not careful with how we spend our free time I think we will end up doing neither what we should nor what we enjoy. But we could very well be doing both.

I have a lot of good ideas. Really, I mean it. You should see some of my ideas for this blog and my writing and what I’m doing over here. I mean, I’m just bursting with super-cool, wonderful, God-glorifying ideas. And I don’t just have the ideas, either. I have the means to pull them off. When I really sit down and think about it, I find that I could probably manage to pull off a handful of my greatest ideas at the same time. And some of my great ideas give results that lead to even greater ideas. I’ve no lack of ideas and I’ve no lack for the means to get them done.

But I still don’t seem to get them done.

I feel like there’s something missing. Like I’m a machine with a part out of whack. Right now I sit here and type and think of my wonderful ideas and I’m excited to get working toward their completion. But I’ve felt this way before, and my ideas are still no more than ideas. Why? Am I just lazy? I have the skills and resources to do these cool things, but they’re not getting done.

I think there’s something wrong with my will. It’s not quite as free as I’d like it to be because it changes and shifts like dunes in the Thar. I guess Jesus knew what he was talking about when he pointed out that whoever sins is a slave.

But the trap many Reformed-minded people like me fall into when thinking about this is a sort of ‘holy’ despair. We get to thinking that we are so depraved that we can’t do anything useful at all and we might as well sit around until the Spirit takes over and does what needs to be done. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s a fight, eh? So I guess I should fight.

Any ideas on how to fight? What do you do if you have a God-glorifying idea or project or dream that you have the ability to pull off, but not the will?

Cruising around the news and I ran across some interesting things that the new Pakistani government is up to. It looks like they’ve recently released a prominent Islamic militant leader whom they have held for seven years. The Taleban is saying it’s a great idea. I’m not so sure. Read up on it here and here.

We’re back in Sindh for a little bit. I really missed it here. Some people ask me what I like about the Interior Sindh. I have a hard time answering that. I mean, on the surface there really isn’t much attractive about it. It’s hot, dry, dirty, kinda smelly. But I love it. I think that the Sindh is kinda like a good beer. The first sip you take is awful. But if you take another and another, you start to notice that it grows on you. You can’t really say what it is you love about it, but you know you do. And so I love the Sindh. If I’m going to be living in Pakistan, there is no other place I’d rather be than in a tiny town out near the desert, sitting on a rope bed with a bowl of chai in my hand while the neighbors blast out Abida Parveen music. It’s just such a great place. Come on over and you’ll fall in love with it, too.

My wife’s aunt came over for a visit today. She’s a neat lady. Born and raised in a mud hut and still lives there. I read and speak better Urdu than she does, in fact. Anyway, Ruth asked her when she thought the baby would be born. The Aunt put her hand on Ruth’s belly, felt around a little and said, “Hmm, fifteen days.” We checked the countdown timer on the computer and, no kidding, her due date is exactly fifteen days away. Cool, eh?

Anyway, pray lots. See ya.

I hate keys, don’t you?

This morning we woke up and couldn’t find an important set of keys. Ever been in that situation? We searched for about an hour together and then Ruth had to run off with Joe on an errand, leaving me to continue the search alone. As I scoured the house my mind started wandering. I started thinking about all the time I was wasting crawling on my hands and knees, searching for these tiny metal thingys. I wondered what I could do to redeem the time.

And then I remembered that it is the Christian’s duty to do all things to the glory of God. Whether we eat or drink or scramble for keys. So I started wondering, how can I search for my keys in a way that honors and glorifies God?

1. Search with prayer – Rely on God as you search. Ask for help while you look. Not only that, but pray about whatever else comes on your mind. Searching for keys is a great time to catch up on prayer. Pray for your family, for the nations. In fact, every time you lose your keys, pray for Matt and Ruth!
2. Don’t get angry – It’s easy to snap while you’re looking for keys. Especially if you think it’s someone else’s fault that they are lost in the first place. But don’t give in to that.
3. Realize that all things work for you good – Even lost keys. You cannot know what things God wants to put in your life to help you to grow. You could not understand the reason he let you lose your keys even if he told you. But you can be assured that it’s a good reason. Maybe you need some quiet time. Maybe you’re careless and need a lesson. Maybe you shouldn’t be going out that very moment. There’s no way to tell, but rest in the fact that even your lost car keys are a part of his plan for the world.
4. Don’t get frustrated – Don’t view it as a futile exercise. Sometimes God stops us from doing the good things we want to do just because he wants us to learn something. Your frantic searching is actually a lesson from God.
5. Don’t be hopeless – losing keys sometimes feels that way because of the power we’ve put into those little pieces of metal. But don’t fall into the trap of placing your hope and trust on these keys. Don’t get hopeless if they seem to be gone. God is bigger than keys.

So I thought of these things and kept looking. It turned into a profitable time. Eventually I gave up and gave Ruth a call. It turns out she had been trying to call me since she left, but she wasn’t getting through. The keys, it seemed, we in her purse all the time. Joy.

I need a break. But from what?

It’s funny how tired we can get, even when we’re not working hard enough to be tired. I was going to make a big, long, deep and meaningful post about how we should get off our butts and do great things for Jesus. But it seems like a silly thing to do right now. Instead, I think I’m just going to go for a walk in the city and find some strangers to drink tea with.

And, as always, my son is the coolest dude in the world:

Here’s the first official picture of my not-quite-yet-second-born. Can you make it out??

Until the jungle suddenly disappeared and turned into a blazing desert. The campy-dino-critter, not used to living within a story made up by such cracked pots, decided it had had enough of all this strangeness and downright silliness that it promptly wrote itself out of existence. Shan and the Big Giant Head paused for a moment to reflect.

The moment lasted for about three days. At the end of the massive time of reflection they realized that the story they were living in was more than a little off based.
“What we need” Shan said, “is a decent sort of plot or goal or something.”
“True, true.” Said the Big Giant Head.
“Because without some overarching goal I don’t think we’re going to have a good time.”
“Well, dear Shan.” Said the head. “I think there might be a problem with that.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you see, your character can’t really handle any sort of true goal or quest. The problem is that your character is so painfully impotent that the last few sentences you just spoke are way above your ability. You should never have been able to make such coherent thoughts.”
“Ah, but you are forgetting our previous three days of reflection. I saved every scrap of coherency from the last three days and am using them now.”
“Ah, interesting. How long will they last?” Asked the head.
“Just another minute or two, which is why it is so important to get a simple, decent quest now, before the authors decide to do something silly to us again.”
“Are you such silly isn’t the best way to go?” Asked the head.
“I’ve been silly all my existence. I just wonder what it would be like to be…other than silly…or…”
“What’s wrong?”
Shan paused for a full minute. “Thoughts…is…slow…” He sputtered.
The head realized at this point that Shan’s momentarily out-of-character experience was at an end. He then designated himself the head head and headed into the desert.

Dunes rose and fell over the horizon like waves on a mighty, yellow sea. The sun was hot and high in the sky, a burning torch of painful fire among a cool lake of blue. Shan vomited.

Sorry for the delay. I was in Sanghar at my little salla’s engagement ceremony. I’ll post more about that in a day or two.

But back to the responses to this article. I’ve asked my brother-in-law, John, to handle number twelve. So heeeeeeere’s Johnny:

Here’s a transcript:

Argument: Christianity encourages acceptance of real evils while focusing on imaginary evils.

This argument is closely linked to the previous one. It is very true that Christians often focus on obscure, imaginary evils while ignoring the blazingly obvious ones. Poverty is the best example of this. In every country there are people living on the street and everyone agrees that this is a great evil. But very few people, Christians or not, do anything about it. It is a terrible shame on the church that we have failed to manifest the truths of the gospel through social kindness.

Jesus was very much concerned with the poor. Often he suggests that following him and helping the poor are almost synonymous. A Christian who is not concerned with the obvious social evils of this world is really not a Christian at all.

Also, when the Bible tells us to submit to the governing authorities it is not advocating acceptance of the status quo, rather it is condemning anarchy. Christians are meant to rock the boat, this is for certain, but not without a good reason.