Tag Blogging

Prayer Before Study

Todd R 3 Comments

If you’re a writer, or creative in some other way, how do you prepare to work and dedicate the work to God?  Surely there are as many ways to do this as there are people doing it!  If you don’t already have a routine, the prayer below from St. Thomas Aquinas (originally in Latin) is an excellent place to start.  I use this “Prayer Before Study,” or some other form of it often, especially if I’m struggling to write.

“Ineffable Creator,
You are proclaimed the true font of light and wisdom,
and the primal origin raised high beyond all things.

Pour forth a ray of your brightness into the darkened places of my mind;
disperse from my soul the twofold darkness into which I was born:
sin and ignorance.

You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine my speech and pour forth upon my lips
the goodness of your blessing.

Grant to me keenness of mind,
capacity to remember,
skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret,
and eloquence in speech.

May you guide the beginning of my work,
direct its progress,
and bring it to completion.

You who are true God and true Man,
who live and reign, world without end. Amen.”

Happy 4th Blogiversary to Driving Toward Morning!

Todd R 2 Comments

Fellow travelers,

I can’t believe this blog has been going for 4 years as of today!  Thank you to all of my readers and subscribers.  Views have been steady to slightly up, even without counting the 250+ weird hits I got from somewhere in Germany the other day.

After a strong start to the year, life has been getting in the way of blogging recently and my pace of posts is down a bit, but the blog isn’t going anywhere.  I’ve posted 206 times since the last Blogiversary, compared with 229 the previous year.  As much as I’d love to have something on the blog every day it’s just not a realistic goal for me, even though I have almost a year’s worth of already-posted content saved up.

I’ll keep trying to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,”[1] and keep writing for as long as I can.  However, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”[2]  Only God knows what the future holds.

Thank you for coming along for the ride and please pray that God would guide me on the right path for year #5.

[1] Hebrews 10:24
[2] James 4:15

The Beautiful Letdown

Todd R 3 Comments

While this blog got its name from an old twenty øne piløts song called “Taxi Cab,” my second choice would be to use something from “The Beautiful Letdown” by Switchfoot.  The line – “set sail for the Kingdom come” – would have been a good blog title!

The theme of “The Beautiful Letdown” is that while we don’t like being let down or disappointed, it’s a beautiful and blessed thing when we are let down by the things of this world, because that is when we can find God.  In Jeremiah 3:21-23, God calls His people to turn back to Him from the many temptations of the world in striking language:

“A voice on the bare heights is heard,
            the weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons
because they have perverted their way;
            they have forgotten the LORD their God.
“Return, O faithless sons;
            I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Behold, we come to you,
            for you are the LORD our God.
Truly the hills are a delusion,
            the orgies on the mountains.
Truly in the LORD our God
            is the salvation of Israel.”

The language is striking because we don’t like being told that the things we worship are a delusion, and we don’t like being accused of spiritual adultery, but regardless, being let down from the delusions of the world is a beautiful thing, because it’s a requirement for knowing God more deeply.  Back to the Switchfoot song, the lyrics say it’s beautiful when we find out that “all the riches this world had to offer me would never do,” but that “we’re still chasing our tails and the rising sun.”  It also says its ok to be “painfully uncool” by the world’s standards because those are the wrong standards.  We are “the church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools.”

But perhaps my favorite part of the song is the bridge:

“Easy living, you’re not much like your name
Easy dying
Hey, you look just about the same
Won’t you please take me off your list
Easy living, please come on and let me down”

Wouldn’t it be nice to be “off the list” of messages from the world lying about how amazing it is, and how easy things would be if we just bought the right products and had the right lifestyle?  If only we floated along with the world’s idea of progress?  However, as C. S. Lewis wrote: “We all want progress…but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”  Being let down by the world is a good thing.

To listen to the full song, click on the video below.
To just read the full lyrics on genius.com, use this link: https://genius.com/Switchfoot-the-beautiful-letdown-lyrics

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” – Philippians 3:7-8

Driving Toward Morning’s 2024 in Books

Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

It’s become a tradition here to post what books I read during the year.  This year’s total was 16, down from over 20 each of the last 3 years.  A big part of the lower total was my struggle to get through The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim (1883).  At over 900 dense pages, I still haven’t finished it even though I started in late 2023.  It’s a fascinating biography of Jesus by one of the preeminent scholars of Jewish culture and literature of his time, but not an easy read sometimes.  Maybe in 2025 I can “close the book” on that one.

So, what books did I finish reading this year?

Fiction books:
Eight Tales of Terror by Edgar Allan Poe
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

I re-read Tolkien’s books every few years and they were as good as ever.  The only problem is that Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the trilogy, especially the part from Weathertop to the bridge of Khazad-Dum, so the story peaks too soon for me, but the rest is great as well.

Poe I read because I was looking for something easy to read and found it on our bookshelves.  It has some familiar and unfamiliar stories.

A few history books:
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
Last Hope Island by Lynne Olson
A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood by James P. Byrd
The Pirate Coast by Richard Zachs

I’ll read anything by Erik Larson, and since he released a new one, I had to read it.  The Demon of Unrest details the events before, during and after, the Battle of Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War.  I knew very little about it so I learned a lot.

Last year I read Byrd’s book about how the Bible was used during the American Revolutionary War.  This one is the same idea, but during the American Civil War (sensing a bit of theme here?).  Both books are very interesting and full of examples of misuse of the Bible, particularly individual verses taken out of context and turned into slogans.

A couple non-fiction:
Beyond Measure by James Vincent
Rescuing Socrates by Roosevelt Montas

Vincent’s book is an interesting history of measurement, including how many of our units were started.  One part I liked was why some countries use metric and others don’t.  Montas’ book is a defense of the use of the “Great Books” for education, for all students regardless of race or background.  He cycles through 4 authors – Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi – making a different case for each.

And one biography:
Darwin: Portrait of a Genius by Paul Johnson

The late Paul Johnson was one of my favorite historians and this one had been on my shelves for a few years.  Like with Larson, I’ll read anything by Johnson.  This was a brief and well-done biography covering Charles Darwin’s achievements, strengths and weaknesses (the part we don’t hear as much about).  Johnson is always opinionated and shares where he thinks Darwin’s theories are helpful and where they aren’t.

Plus several religious books:
In addition to regular Bible and study Bible reading, in 2024 I read:

The Reason for God by Tim Keller
3 books by Warren Wiersbe covering the “minor” prophets: Be Heroic (Haggai – Ezra), Be Amazed (Hosea – Malachi), and Be Concerned (Amos – Zephaniah).

I picked up Wiersbe’s entire “Be” series in 2021 as part of a digital subscription and am working through it over time.  A long time.  I like his overall approach, and the books are a great source of thoughtful stories and quotes.  I’ve covered 22 of the Bible’s 66 books so far!

In sum, 16 was less than usual for me in a year, but how many will I read in 2025?  Will I finally finish Edersheim, which I’m reading chunks of between other books?  Who knows…in the meantime, have you read any of these?  What books did you enjoy in 2024?

And speaking of reading, I want to thank all of you who take the time to read my blog. I set a new high in views in 2024, passing 2022 (2023 was slightly down).

What are We Willing to Leave on the Cutting Room Floor?

Todd R 1 Comment

From earliest times, debate has raged over whether God’s word can be taken literally.  Since the serpent asked, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”[1] people have debated if the world was created in 6 days.  If Moses really parted the Red Sea.  If Jonah really spent 3 days inside a great fish.  And so on.  Talk about whether the Bible means what it says often focuses on the miraculous events within.

But what about verses like Ephesians 4:29?  “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  When Paul wrote that, did he literally mean “no corrupting talk,” or just to aim for less crude language than the average person?  Did Paul mean each word needs to “fit the occasion,” or to repeat whatever catchphrase seems to work in most situations?  Did Paul mean everything we say should “give grace” to others, or is it ok if sometimes we want to look good or only appear gracious?  Do we need to always build up those who hear us?  Did Paul “actually say” what he wrote in Ephesians 4:29?

Failure to meet our ideals
does not mean that
we should change them.

We might reply that this is an impossible standard, but Jesus in Luke 18:19 said “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”  In that one statement, Jesus testifies that no one is good (everyone misses the mark), and also that He is God in the flesh, come to save us from failing to meet the standard.

So yes, Ephesians 4:29 should be taken literally, but we should also take literally that only Jesus can meet the standard, and that He did meet the standard.  Failure to meet our ideals does not mean they are the wrong ideals and that we should change them.  Holiness is holiness.

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy that “it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.”[2]

Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

In film editing, “the cutting room floor” refers to pieces of physical film that (in pre-digital times) were cut out of the movie and left lying on the floor.  When writing this blog, one of the hardest things to do is to cut out parts or phrases I care deeply about, but sometimes it’s necessary, because my words aren’t always Ephesians 4:29 words.  Finding these failures can be fruitful if I learn from them and move closer to the ideal.  In real-time, daily conversation it’s even harder, but to take Ephesians 4:29 literally, we all have to figuratively ask:

What are we willing to leave on the cutting room floor today?

[1] Genesis 3:1
[2] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (1908).  P. 163.