The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity - it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound’s worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.

It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can smuggle itself into the very centre of our religious life. But you can see why. The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes directly from hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly.

I’m really happy for them.  And as we updated some of our other friends on their progress (we seemed to be the go-to people to ask), we got the same kind of feedback from several people: everything happened so fast for them, it’s obvious that God was at work.

If it’s quick & easy, then God must be behind it.

And if that’s true, I figure its companion must also be true: if it’s slow & painful, then God must not want it to happen.  We can dress it up in spiritual language (”God closed this door for a season” or whatever), or we can call it what it is.

We’re so lazy & selfish that unless God gives us something immediately and painlessly then we blame God for it not happening.

We tell God, “If you want this for us, then open the right doors.” And we sit & wait for an open door to be delivered to us. We have a bias toward lethargy & inaction, and we expect God to give us what we ask for in spite of our lack of effort.

Instead I want to tell God, “I’m going to run through a brick wall to get this, and if the wall doesn’t fall down then I’ll use a sledgehammer, and if it still doesn’t fall down I’ll use a bulldozer. And if you don’t want this for us, then make the wall keep standing.” I want a bias toward action & hard work.

God still decides if the wall stands or falls, but it’s a lot more honest & biblical to put forth the time and effort instead of expecting God to do all the heavy lifting for us.

It’s following in the footsteps of Joseph, who had a vision of being powerful in Egypt and kept working at it through slavery, false accusation, and years of prison.

It’s following in the footsteps of Moses, who had a vision of freeing God’s people from Egypt and waited 40 years in the desert, then kept bringing plagues until Pharoah relented.

It’s following in the footsteps of everyone everywhere who’s done anything of significance, and this selfish & lazy attitude is at the root of so many of our problems in schools, in homes, in churches, and elsewhere.

Our friends are closing on the sale of their house as I type this, and I’m really happy for their speedy success and even happier that they don’t confuse ease & speed with God’s blessing, but that God works as often through difficulty and failure.

I haven’t worked out as much as I’d hoped, but that’s mostly been due to our irregular schedule these last few weeks.  I’ve been playing some tennis (and still looking for a tennis partner - if you play & you’re in or around Burlington, let me know) and doing a lot of yard work.  My big win has been eating.  I’ve stuck pretty close to my goal of 1 sugary item per day when I work out and 0 sugary items per day when I don’t work out.  Amazing how much difference it makes when I cut out sweet tea refills, bowls of ice cream, and 10pm candy bars.

With the end of the Cyclones season I’m now back to coaching just one team, my 9-10 year old Payne Oil Grays (who currently stand 4-8 on the season and have won twice on walk-off bunt home runs (bunt to the pitcher, overthrow first, overthrow home) by the same kid, have beaten every team in our league but one, and have been beaten twice by the team that’s otherwise winless. What a season so far. We’re peaking at the right time, though, and I like our chances heading into our final two regular season games and the tournament.

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1. At the beginning of each month I’ll put 30 $1 bills (one for each day of the month) in the jar on top of our refrigerator.
2. The fun begins with giving the first 10% back to God, the real filler of the fun jar.
3. Throughout the month we’ll remove $1 from the fun jar whenever someone leaves a light on in a room, leaves a door open when they go outside, or uses the bathroom without flushing (why these? because they’re common, they’re specific, and they’re measurable without interpretation).
4. Whatever’s left over at the end of the month is fun money. We can use it to go out to eat, go bowling or to play Putt-Putt, go see a movie, or save it up for a bigger fun thing later.
5. Repeat each month.

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience (for us as well as the kids!). My predictions:

1. The girls will most often get dinged for leaving their bedroom light on when they come downstairs.
2. Cameron will most often get dinged for not flushing.
3. Cameron will get indignant and loud when the girls leave their light on but will make excuses when he doesn’t flush the toilet.
4. The girls will want instant gratification at the end of the month, but Cameron will want to save it (he’s already saying he wants to save it to buy a Nintendo Wii). Making those decisions should be a good learning experience.
5. Estimated money left at the end of June: $7. Looks like we’ll be getting that Wii in June 2011.

My current weight is 196. Here are my goals:

1. Work out at least 3 days per week.
2. Consume no more than 1 sugary thing per day on workout days and no sugary things on non-workout days.
3. Reduce my waist measurement to 36″.

The rules of the challenge state I must post an update each week. So here’s my report for this week, pre-muffintop challenge:

1. I worked out 0 days this week.
2. I’m sure I consumed at least 1 sugary thing each day. Today I had 3 sugary things (a McDonald’s sundae in the afternoon and a sweet tea & refill with dinner). Um, make that 4 because I licked the beater after Gretchen made cake frosting tonight.
3. My waist measurement is 40.5″.