Phew, I made it!
Okay, I’m safe at work now. It’s only me and Dave here right now. One guy is sick and another is dealing with a flooded basement. The phone doesn’t ring at all. slooooow daaaaay.
So I visit one of my favorite sites. Red Hot Pawn. It’s an online chess site. I’m playing about six games right now. Come and join! All you need is an Email address and you can challenge anyone to a game. My username is ‘jedi knight matt’. Play chess with me!
Snow!
Oh the weather outside is frightful
And the fire is so delightful
But since off to work I go
Don’t let it snow, please no snow, no to snow.
Yeah, it snowed last night. I look out my window and I can’t see much of my car. It’s gonna be an adventure getting to work this morning, but hey, I love adventures. I’m batman! I only wish my car had a working heater.
Time to heat up the cook-mobile.
Baby’s first pictures!
The child has now been sitting in that womb for exactly 18 months (edit: er, weeks). We took a little trip down to the X-ray lab and got ourselves our first baby pictures. Check them out!
Over on the left you can see the child’s leg. It looks like she’s sucking her thumb too. How cute!
This is my favorite one. It looks like she’s waving! If you look closely you can make out five digits on the right hand (which is a good number to have).
Now this is the face. I have a bit of trouble making it out, though.
A sudden reality of the situation hit me when I watched the screen as the technician scanned for the baby. I actually saw her bring her hands to her face at one point. It seemed she was rubbing her eyes or something. (Just for disclaimer, although I call the baby a ‘she’, I don’t actually know the sex. It just seems funny calling her and ‘it’.)
One is forced to think on God. I often wonder what kind of a parent I’ll be, what kind of a child she’ll be, so many questions. But they’re all in His hand.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16
378 in The Hymnary
Rise up, O man of God!
Have done with lesser things;
Give heart and soul and mind and strength
To serve the King of kings.
I feel like making this into a sign and putting it over my bed. Have you ever sat down and realized that everything that’s not God is a lesser thing? All my games, books, work, reports, social life, food, drink, arguing, etc. is all a bunch of lesser things.
Won’t it be great when lesser things are placed where they belong? When we don’t have to struggle with our flesh and temptation anymore? That gets me so excited!
The sun is rising now and it’s in my eyes. Remember that part in Voyage of the Dawn Treader when they were sailing toward to end of the world and the sun was getting bigger and brighter all the time, but their sight was made stronger so they could handle it more and more? I think that Lewis was hinting at joy’s everlasting increase there. Can’t wait until I can stare unblinking at the One who made me…
Most people shouldn’t comment on how fat their wife is getting, but…
Check it out! That little lump in my wife’s belly is Matt’s (and Ruth’s) first kid! Those of you know my wife know how weird it is to see so much of her from the side like this. Her nickname at school was ‘chubby’ because, well, she’s not chubby. How exciting!
It gets more and more exciting as the days go by. It’s hard to believe that I made something that’s now growing in Ruth’s belly. God is so creative, eh?
I’ve been reading through Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. Those who suffer for righteousness’ sake seem to be given a glimpse in to heaven that the rest of us seem to miss. I suppose this is why/because God has ordained suffering to be one of the most powerful tools of sanctification. Some highlights thus far:
Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
[true grace] is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man his only true life.
Praise God for those who have gone on before us.
This just in…
In recent news, Todd the Anderson has his own blog. Read it.
It’s been a while…
Good morning friends! I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog, so forgive me my faithful readers (both of you)!
I’ve got a few points to get through today, bear with me.
1 – Pelagianism is rather silly.
’nuff said.
2 – Preaching is often more beneficial for the preacher, than for the congregation.
I preached over at a beautiful little assembly last night. About five miles east of the middle of nowhere stands a building with the words “Wallenstein Bible Chapel” on the side of it. I can’t remember the last time I met such a joyful, passionate, right-minded group of believers. They made me go 25 minutes over time with all the questions they were asking about Pakistan and the situation there. Praise God for putting encouraging people in our paths! It’s neat, that very morning I was feeling spiritually very dry and disheartened. In the Lord’s supper I read some of the Psalms where David cries out to God to rescue him for the awful pit he’s dug himself into. I prayed that and asked God to restore me to a right fellowship with Him. Sure enough, that evening God provided the encouragement I needed. Praise the Lord, yes?
3 – Isaac Watts + Sandra McCracken = A Good Thing.
I have found massive encouragement in the Caedmon’s Call version of the song Laden with Guilt. The words are by our hero Isaac Watts, who penned such hymns as Be Thou My Vision and Joy to the World. Here’s a section I want to high-light:
Laden with guilt and full of fears,
I fly to Thee my Lord,
And not a glimpse of hope appears,
But in thy written word
The volumes of my Father’s grace
Does all my griefs assuage
Here I behold my saviour’s face
In every page.
It’s so wonderful to remember that all we need to know from God we can find in His Word. Not a glimpse of hope appears, but in His written word.
4 – My cat’s an idiot
’nuff said.
5 – Yay for babies!
Specifically, mine! Ruth is getting more and more pregnant as the days go by. Her belly-button is slowly converting from and innie to an outie and she’s got quite a nice little gut on her now. I’ve had the awesome privilege of hearing the child’s heart-beat and next Monday we go in for an ultra-sound. Pray for us!
That’s it, I’m done for the night. Be good and have fun.
The Cook
Picture time!
This is the city that Ruth’s family lives in. A wonderful place to buy clothes and some of the best Tandoori chicken this side of Rajasthan! Very hot in the summer, but very dry too. Wonderfully hospitable people living here, I once was invited out for tea with a stranger while travelling around the market-place…that just doesn’t happen here!
I love the tribal people! This is a Marwari village (Ruth’s people group). So very friendly! You cannot leave a village without getting fed the best food they have. I think I even had my feet washed in this village. The kid in the orange is a real nice guy named Shvo. I didn’t know Marwari and he didn’t know English, but we hung out and talked anyway.
Ah! The in-laws! May I introduce my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, Davraj Joseph and Izzit. Such wonderful people! It was a little ackward being there the whole month because they don’t speak English (and I don’t do Urdu yet), but they made me feel welcome and a part of their family. I can’t wait until we all get back to see tham again!
Every disease has it’s symptoms, some are easier to see than others.
“Faith feeds on the Word of God. Without a steady diet it gets weaker and weaker. If you are dissatisfied with your Christian courage and joy and purity of heart, check the way you are feeding your faith.” – John Piper
I’m leaving. I’m taking my wife, kid and a group of people to a far away land soon. It’s a hot place, lots of people, a dozen languages I don’t understand, far away from every comfort I hold so dearly here. I often ask myself why I’m doing this at all. Sometimes I have no answer for that. Sometimes it seems like a huge burden that I never really bargained for. Of course, it only feels this way when I find myself far away from God and His Word.
When I starve myself from the Word of God I find myself thinking like the world more and more. My taste for spiritual things diminishes and my taste for carnal things increases. All of a sudden my desire to kick it off to Pakistan dies away and my desire for 8 hours of Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic flares up. I’m sick. There are symptoms that I get when I’m not constantly taking in spiritual food:
On the other hand, when I am consistent and devoted to the word and to prayer, I find my spirit refreshed and my courage returns. At this point I don’t need to ask why I’m going away, it’s so very clear and the answer fills me with delight. It’s more than a little stupid, eh? We know what brings us the most delight, and we run away from it most times. Humans aren’t rational creatures.
In other news, I’m a little frustrated. I can’t understand how some people can claim to have a high view of Christ, and yet deny the inerrancy of Scripture. This makes no sense to me. That’s all.
I’m done.
PS – lemme know some more symptoms of a poor devotional life and I’ll post them up too!
I guess if things weren’t so complicated, they’d be more simple…
Whenever Ruth and I chat with Muslims, we always seem to come to the same subject of conversation eventually. They want to know about the Trinity. The Qur’an tells them that Christians believe in three gods – Allah, Jesus and Mary. This is the only unforgivable sin in Islam, called shirk. So they want to know why we claim to worship one God, yet seem to worship two.
I really hate some of the analogies that Christianity has come up with to explain the Trinity. Like the apple one. “God is like an apple, three parts (skin, flesh and core), but still one apple.” GOD IS NOT LIKE AN APPLE! That’s just silly! It’s breaking God down into something that we can understand, explain and hold. We gotta be really careful when we’re trying to classify something that we cannot understand. Comparing God to an apple seems very irreverant. It’s not even an accurate picture (what happens when you peel an apple? Can you take one part of God away?)!
The Bible doesn’t explain the Trinity much at all. I get four main things when I read the Bible concerning the Godhead:
Cook
Matt W Cook 