ODB and ODJ =)

ODB 4th January


A Lover of God


In a brief biography of St. Francis of Assisi, G. K. Chesterton begins with a glimpse into the heart of this unique and compassionate man born in the 12th century. Chesterton writes: “As St. Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ. . . . The reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very wild one, until he understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair.”
When Jesus was asked to name the greatest command in the Law, He replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). The questioner wanted to test Jesus, but the Lord answered him with the key element in pleasing God. First and foremost, our relationship with Him is a matter of the heart.
If we see God as a taskmaster and consider obedience to Him as a burden, then we have joined those of whom the Lord said, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4).
The way of joy is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind.


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ODJ 4th January


We've Got Answers


While in college, I volunteered at a center that provided emergency housing assistance. One winter day, a distraught woman called to complain about her negligent landlord. She couldn’t stay in her rental home because of severe maintenance problems. In a panic, she asked what she could do to care for her children in the cold weather. I gave the standard answer, which was to move into a hotel until the problem was resolved. Under our state’s consumer protection laws, she could bill the landlord. But she angrily hung up on me, believing I had failed to take her seriously.


I may have known the textbook response to that woman’s question, but I didn’t grasp her real need. She needed someone to comprehend her fear and desperation. She needed to feel she was not alone in her dilemma. I had done nothing to address her heartfelt cry.


In the Bible, Job stands as a paragon of patience. He too had a heartfelt cry. He had lost everything in a cosmic game no human being could comprehend (see Job 1:1–2:13). And he had friends with thoughtless textbook answers.


“Can you solve the mysteries of God?” asked his friend Zophar, drunk on his own self-righteousness (Job 11:7). “If only you would prepare your heart and lift up your hands to Him in prayer!” (Job 11:13). Naturally, that only elicited a bitter retort from Job. “You people really know everything, don’t you? And when you die, wisdom will die with you!” (Job 12:1-2).


We malign Job’s friends for their failure to see the big picture. But I’m no different. I’m quick with answers to questions I’ve never faced.


“You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers,” says an advertising campaign. For life’s big questions, people do want and need answers. Most of all, they want to know someone truly cares.

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