Best of the Carnival

Here are my picks for "Best of the Carnival."

Chad at Plaidberry posts, Keeping it Real:

This is a Savior, afterall, who shared in the human experience, including even those times of isolation, sadness, and temptation. If our Lord did not shy away from expressing his subjection to such hardships, why should we? Personally, I think that accusations of hypocrisy will melt away once we become truly genuine and vulnerable.

I wrote the following comment to Chad that reflects my take on this.
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Chad,

Thank you for posting this call to humility. My wife and I as new Christians struggled for many years to reconcile the attitudes of the believers around us and their behaviors.

We came to faith through recovery and 12 step, and have even run Christian based 12 step recovery groups. Yet with many of our erstwhile Christian "friends," we felt pity and a patronizing dismissing of our ways of relating and communicating vulnerability.

They chose not to be vulnerable with their fellow believers. When life turned difficult, many spun totally out of control, as if they were wholly unprepared for the consequence of unresolved damaged emotions (and sin).

This is not to fault them, but it was sad, and we needed to keep searching for a true fellowship, which we found :) Praise God.

But this notion of acknowledging that we are sometimes very far from God (not Him from us, but us from Him) is both very hard to accept, but very freeing to admit.

Thanks Chad. Difficult, but necessary message.

Ella’s Dad at Ragged Edges posts James, Abraham, Andrea Yates:

Talk about your ragged edges; this is about as raggedy as they get. I know that if I heard a voice or felt an intuitive prompting to kill my daughter, Ella, I would ascribe the source of this command to somewhere, anywhere, other than Heaven. But as far as Abraham is concerned, I don’t know how to synthesize this text with what else I know God to be. How can James’ plain prescription against seeing God as the source of temptation to do evil be true if God, indeed, tempted Abraham to kill his own son in order to pass a test? I just don’t know, although I do know that simply playing with the words so that Abraham was “tested,” not “tempted,” as this study guide on James does, is completely unsatisfying.

Check out his post. I am going to prepare an answer for this tomorrow and send it to Ella's Dad, who I have come to know while blogging.

Bruce at Spruce Goose posts Blogging: Some Inside Thoughts:

If the "arrows" on my blog site don't point to Jesus then I am making a big mistake and should stop blogging. Someone ( I think it was James Denney) once said, "No one can, at the same time, show himself to be clever and glorify Jesus Christ."

I am convicted with this one. I had a conversation tonight with Mrs. Dadmanly, and I was sharing just these thoughts. I can't keep chasing traffic or links, because when I do, I'm not writing. And I'm certainly not tuned to God. Everything we've ever done, all our growth as Christians, all our steps of faith have been in response to what He leads.

He has led us to every new thing, given us new gifts just as we needed them, and provided all the opportunities we needed to grow and thrive in the center of His will. This work of blogging is not the final work, and may not be anything more than training or practice. I need to rededicate myself to seeking first His kingdom, His word, daily contact with Him, and then He will take care of the rest. Not Instapundit. Not NZ Bear. Not even Greyhawk, although I ask God to bless his efforts on our behalf.