Category: Life

This topic deserves more time than I can give right now, but what else is new? So, these three things in each person can be distinguished from one another, and yet each provides motives on its own that affect our decisions and actions. In case you missed the title of this post, the three things that affect our decisions and actions are reason, emotion and faith.

For example (and I mean that — a case study), in the discourse of Congress at the moment, there are some who are introducing legislation to deny Americans the natural rights protected by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the rights to keep arms (meaning to own or have them), and to bear arms (meaning to carry them in such a way as to be useful). As in any conversation between conflicting viewpoints, participants make arguments based upon reason, emotion, faith, or some combination. The fact that these proposals are being urgently pressed for adoption before the end of the month is an important clue showing what kind of arguments support them. In this case, the arguments are based upon strong emotions that are likely to dissipate over time.

Reason does not change over time, but sometimes it is clouded by faith or by emotion. Faith changes only as much as the foundation upon which it rests. If your faith is based on the Bible, it also remains unchanged over time and can be summarized in unchanging, written confessions of faith. Faith can also be clouded by reason or by emotion. Emotion changes constantly, depending upon many circumstances. It tends to overpower both reason and faith, which leads to bad decisions and bad theology or spirituality.

The value of emotions is not in the truth of the matter, but in the strength of a person’s commitment. With high emotions, it’s possible for a person to be strongly committed to anything, even when the thing makes no sense according to reason, or contradicts the basis of faith. With low emotions, a person is more able to reason clearly and act accordingly, or to remember the basis of faith and put that into action. For example, an emotion like sympathy can have a very good effect when it causes a person to act toward another person in selfless mercy. However, the same sympathy can also have a bad effect when applied by a judge or a jury to produce an unjust decision in court.

But let’s go back to the example of the opponents to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. By taking advantage of high emotion in the time following a terribly tragic event that has emotionally shocked the whole nation, they hope to advance their agenda of denying a basic civil right to millions of responsible owners of firearms, on the doubtful promise of greater security. Reason looks at the record of all such attempts in the past and concludes that this would work no better. Reason sees the places in the United States where this civil right is already denied, and calmly notices that rather than having increased safety and security, the residents have less of both. Meanwhile, reason notices the places where this civil right is protected, and notices that those citizens have more of the same safety and security being promised by these lawmakers in Congress. In short, reason tells us that these legislative proposals are dead wrong, even if they are motivated by a laudable desire to make people safer.

Emotion, on the other hand, provides very little guidance except that “something must be done!” Why? “We are not safe!” It’s comparable to the emotional motive of someone who refuses to fly on an airplane, because there have been news reports of crashes in the past with vivid color pictures. By pushing for a short-term final decision on these things, some people hope to manipulate the outcome against the better judgment (reason) of the citizens who are temporarily willing to trade their civil liberty for the empty promise of greater security. Strike while the iron is hot, as it were. Or, force a decision while emotion is still obscuring reason.

Faith, meanwhile, is already secure (for Christians) in the the certainty of God’s Word. Rather than fearing death, faith would have a Christian anticipate death with a kind of calm joy. We still cringe at the outbreaks of evil that take the lives of our fellow human beings, but they are not unexpected. Rather, these outbreaks confirm the basis of our faith: that everyone on Earth is in need of a Savior from the evil we carry within us. We still shudder at the pain we must suffer in our own lives, but in faith, we know it can be endured, and that Something far better awaits us afterward.

Emotion can either serve faith or it can obscure it. If made to serve faith, then the threat of violence or death, or the prospect of losing our most precious loved ones, does not diminish the quiet comfort we have in God’s promise of eternal life. We can feel terrible pain even while our attention is focused upon the certainty of God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and not even the pain can take away the joy that comes with that certainty.

If made to obscure faith, then emotion probably also obscures reason, for reason is not as powerful as faith, but sometimes it still contradicts faith. When faith is obscured by emotion or reason, then we are led to break the First Commandment, in which God commands us to “fear, love and trust” in Him above all things. In other words, to have no other gods — not even ourselves.

Those in sales tell us that when someone decides to make a major purchase, it’s almost always an emotional decision, rather than a rational decision. When political leaders with an agenda to deprive citizens of their civil rights wish to advance their agenda, they do so by appealing to emotion rather than reason. That’s not how things should be. How many bad purchases have been made that way? How much bad legislation has been passed that way? How many free societies have passed into tyranny that way?

For the Christian, faith can help to straighten things out, so that emotion and reason do not interfere with each other. One word for that may be “wisdom.” I think this has been one of the great blessings upon the United States through many parts of its history, especially in the drafting and adoption of the Constitution with its first ten amendments. May the faith of Christians continue to have such a positive influence.

Much more could be said about this trichotomy, but there is no time. If you wish, feel free to add something by way of a comment.

The first cancellation of the year in HR today. The localized weather in the Gorge is just amazing. Dry as a bone in TD, kind of wet in Mosier, snowy in HR, and more snowy still in Odell. The 4WD Excursion is exactly the right vehicle for this, and studded all-seasons are exactly the right tires. Some midwestern folk who see lots of snow and ice may not understand the difference it makes out here. Lots of midwestern towns are basically on flat land, with straight roads that intersect at right angles. When you add lots of elevation changes (hills) and curves that go with a more rugged landscape, a nice little 4-6 inch snowfall can become a serious hazard. The other thing the landscape does out here is channel the weather, so at times (not where I was today), you can get localized ice of various kinds that just shuts down practically everything, sometimes including emergency services. You don’t even need a freak storm for this, just the right combination of factors. If we don’t cancel an event drawing people who travel through several different kinds of terrain, there’s a much higher probability that someone will get hurt than there would be in many midwestern locales. Then night falls early, and the temperature drops…

Now on to something just as practical, and necessary, but much less pleasant. Instead of killer weather: killer people. We need to be ready for either. To that end, every law-abiding, responsible American above age 18 should watch this somewhat disturbing video. The first part is the worst, so if you get through that, the rest will be easy. I post this so that you might begin to think about these things, if you haven’t yet. There are people who would just as soon kill you as look at you, and you wouldn’t be doing them any favors by failing to defend yourself. Then there’s your family…

Babies are 7 months old. It’s time to climb back on that wagon.
Instead of re-reading the book again, I may have found enough in David
Allen’s Google talk.

This article linked from Drudge pits gay marriage interests against traditional Christian interests. A California state bill is seeking to eliminate a legal limit to the number of parents that a child can have.

Under Leno’s bill, if three or more people who acted as parents could not agree on custody, visitation and child support, a judge could split those things up among them.

SB 1476 is not meant to expand the definition of who can qualify as a parent, only to eliminate the limit of two per child.

Under current law, a parent can be a man who signs a voluntary declaration of paternity, for example. It also can be a man who was married and living with a child’s mother, or who took a baby into his home and represented the infant as his own.

Leno’s bill, which has passed the Senate and is now in the Assembly, would apply equally to men or women, and to straight or gay couples.

Examples of three-parent relationships that could be affected by SB 1476 include:

• A family in which a man began dating a woman while she was pregnant, then raised that child with her for seven years. The youth also had a parental relationship with the biological father.

• A same-sex couple who asked a close male friend to help them conceive, then decided that all three would raise the child.

• A divorce in which a woman and her second husband were the legal parents of a child, but the biological father maintained close ties as well.

I believe that there is a divine design to the way children are conceived. It takes a mother and a father. For those who may be confused about this, let me also specify that the mother is female and the father is male. Marriage is the context established in this design and upheld in societies for thousands of years for the conception, birth, and raising of children. This design is in the best interest of children and of society for a plethora of reasons, many of which have now been discovered by social scientists.

The three examples given in the excerpt above are therefore examples of something broken in the social relationships of those people. I grant that examples of brokenness abound in our culture. The detrimental effects of this are a root cause of many social ills that plague 21st Century America, and probably other western societies. Denial makes this no less true.

I have also seen the kind of brokenness where the natural parents of a child are less deserving, or less satisfactory as parents than someone else who may be unrelated. Sometimes a parent is such a danger or detriment to the well-being of his/her own child that a judge should be able to remove the child from his/her custody and allow the other person to become the effective parent of the child. Well, that kind of thing can already happen. It’s called adoption, and there are child-protective services to facilitate it.

So we recognize that things can be broken. But this effort to allow for more than two legal parents: how does that strengthen families? How does it benefit society? What does it do for children? What consequences might it have that Jim Sanders of the Sacramento Bee did not mention in his article?

Now, I notice that the Sacramento Bee has disabled comments on this article. It says at the bottom, “Comments on this story were closed because of hate speech.” No doubt someone will label my post as such. That’s a classic fallacy of argumentation called “ad hominem.” Instead of addressing the argument, you attack the messenger. It’s an attempt to avoid the argument (probably because you’re losing it) and silence the opposition. While God does condemn hatred of that which is not evil, we also need to recognize that He has other things to say, and we ought to hear Him. His design is good. Corruptions of His design are evil. Yet for all those corruptions, God has already provided justice through the death of His only-begotten Son, who now lives again to reign eternally. That means broken households, broken people, and broken societies can repent and receive God’s forgiveness. In the final analysis, that’s not hate speech. It’s love speech.

“A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, Is like the beasts that perish.”

My wife and I have now transitioned from sleeping in the living room with our newborns to sleeping in our own room (yay!) with our infants. Better rest is good, but of course any change comes with a learning and adjustment process for us all. One of the things I’ve learned in the last couple days is that I can either be up and dressed at 6 AM, or else I’ll be preoccupied with domestic activities (happy though they be) for about the next four hours, and find myself still in my pajamas at 10.

This is a blessing especially because it requires me to exercise self-discipline at a time when my physical state makes it particularly challenging. At that time, it’s hard to be content with the amount of rest I’ve been given through the night, but the reward is that I have a few productive pre-dawn hours when I can be ready for the day, while enjoying a sleeping baby on my arm.

It’s rare to have a glimpse of how God blesses us through the little crosses we bear, but I thank Him for that glimpse. Those crosses indeed become precious companions for the Christian, as they serve to discipline the flesh and focus our attention upon the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ.

At 9:15, Leah Ingrid Jacobsen was born (5 lb 14.5oz & 19.75in) by a C-section, since she wouldn’t move out of the way. At 9:16, Lucy Marie Jacobsen was born (6 lb 10.6 oz & longer) too. They’re both doing fine, and expecting credit card offers as soon as this post hits Facebook. Erica’s doing fine too, under the circumstances. Thanks for all the prayers and gifts, and praise be to God for His wondrous love!

What wondrous love is this, O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

This quote from Luther’s Genesis commentary was highlighted today in the Treasury of Daily Prayer from Concordia Publishing House. (Now, if only Libronix would run on Linux! It’s been months since the last time I booted up Windows, and now the only reason to do so is to get this quote from Luther’s Works! What’s more, the only Windows version I have is XP Professional, which Libronix is likely to forsake at any time. Thus, Logos and CPH provide another small trial to help me remain humble.)

For look at Paul, who says about himself (1 Cor. 2:3): “I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling.” Likewise (2 Cor. 7:5): “Fighting without and fear within.” Do you speak this way, Paul? This does not behoove that chosen instrument (cf. Acts 9:15) who has the promise that he should carry Christ’s name before the Gentiles, does it? Where are you going, Paul? Into the prison of hell, fear, and despair? Where are we going to remain if you have doubts and are almost diffident concerning your completely certain calling? But this is how it must happen even with the greatest saints. For the divine promises are not given to make us smug; but, as Paul says in another place: “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me” (2 Cor. 12:7). Why? “Lest the magnitude of the gifts of the grace and mercy of God elate me.” Therefore God sends wrestlings, trials, and struggles in order that from day to day we may understand and cling to the promises of God more clearly and certainly. This would not happen if the saints always practiced that heroic fortitude. Indeed, in the end they would become smug and lose the promise and every expectation. Therefore they must be disciplined, in order that they may retain faith, hope, and the expectation of the promises. And it is precisely this that edifies and consoles us, when we see that the patriarchs and the prophets were like us, that they were tried by weakness, by doubt, and almost by despair and the loss of faith.

What can be set forth to us that is more useful and more suitable for consolation than the example of Peter? He advances on the water to meet Christ. And when he stepped out of the boat, he first walked on the water to come to Jesus. As the evangelist says, he ran with great impetuosity, with heroic and special spirit, because he knew that Christ was there; and he had the Word and the promise of the Word for his petition: “If it be Thou, bid me come to Thee on the water” (Matt. 14:28). But soon, when a little wind blows, he wavers and sinks. What now? Where is that great spirit? Why did you doubt? But it pleased Christ that he should be tried in this way. For if he had not been tried, he would have been puffed up. But it is better to be tried than to be puffed up. For in this way the promises are retained, and in this way we learn to understand those sobs of the saints, as in Ps. 6:1: “O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy anger.” For David, too, was such a great man that God gave him the testimony: “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22; cf. 1 Sam. 13:14). Yet he prays in this way and struggles with the trials of unbelief and despair.

In this way we, too, have been called, and we have promises that are much clearer and more glorious than those the fathers had. Thus Peter praises this good fortune of ours when he says (2 Peter 1:19): “And we have the prophetic Word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” Grace and eternal life have been promised and offered to us in a much more glorious way than to them. For the Son has come, and all the promises have been fulfilled. We hear the Son Himself; we have the sacraments and absolution; and day and night the Gospel proclaims to us: “You are holy. You are holy. Your sins have been forgiven you. You are blessed, etc.” But what do we do? We still tremble, and we cling to our weakness throughout our life. But why are we not aroused by the example of the patriarchs, who believed to complete perfection? I reply that they, too, were weak, just as we are, although we have richer promises than they had. But it comes to pass as God’s voice says to Paul: “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). For God could not retain and fulfill His promises in us if He did not kill that stupid, proud, and smug flesh in us.

Luther, M. (1999, c1968). Vol. 5: Luther’s works, vol. 5 : Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 26-30 (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther’s Works (5:254). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

This is from an old Sunday school offering envelope:

It is a sad mistake to stay away from church even for a season. Many a Christian has lost his faith by starting to skip church services only occasionally. Loss of faith seldom comes from a blowout. It is usually from a slow leak.

“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together [in worship], as is the manner of some…” Hebrews 10:25