The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

Wow! This book is perhaps one of the most simply-spoken, profound gospel presentations I have ever heard.

Central to this book is the idea that we are not just prodigal sons, but God is also a prodigal God. In other words, we not only radically rebelled against God and sinfully turned away from him, but that He was all the more radical for taking us back. No matter our idolization of other things--in the case of the prodigal son in Luke 15, the son idolized pleasure and living the good life--God radically accepts us in the depths of our sin and receives us back with a welcome-home party of great proportions. In fact, as I learned, the father in the parable risked his family's name to celebrate the return of his lost, sinful son.

Keller starts to get radical himself when we deepens the discussion, defining the elder son with just as much "lostness" as the younger. We often forget, as he points out, that a self-righteousness will no more save us than losing our righteousness, or dignity, as the younger son does. I found this to be the most revolutionary truth of the book. I will let Keller explain:

"Here, then, is Jesus's radical redefinition of what is wrong with us. Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules. Jesus, though, shows us that a man who has violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as spiritually lost as the most profligate, immoral person. Why? Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life." (pg 43)

I found this book a fascinating, quick read. I would recommend this book to absolutely everyone. It presents the gospel in such fresh way that you cannot not change after reading it.

-ae

10 Million Words Blog - Tim Challies

I recently discovered Tim Challies' new blog entitled "10 Million Words" which you can find here. You can also go to his original blog entitled "Informing the Reforming" here. Challies is an evangelical blogger and author.

His newest blog's undertaking is to read every top-15 non-fiction book on the New York Times bestseller list throughout all of 2010. If accomplished, as you can guess, this will add up to more than 10 million words read and an average of 3 books read each week. According to Challies' overall goal of the project, "I am interested in the cultural and worldview implications of all of these books. They will provide, I’m sure, a snapshot of where America is at as she enters a new decade."

Personally, I think this is a fascinating idea and I am anxious to see how this blog unfolds. I have been following it for about 2 weeks, and so far, it has indeed proven to be really interesting.

- ae

Humility: True Greatness - C.J. Mahaney

I recently enjoyed my read-through of "Humility" by C.J. Mahaney and I wanted to say a couple of words.

I found this to be a quick but powerful read on the severity of pride as sin and the necessity of humility before the Lord. The central Scripture that this book is centered on is James 4:6b, which says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Mahaney does a good job of taking us exactly where we need to go to rid of our pride--the humbling display of God's grace through Jesus on the cross. If we are to mortify the sin of pride, we must do so out of the power of the cross, for Christ rescued us from our sin by being our very ransom:

"the emphasis of the ransom image is on our sorry state--indeed our captivity in sin--which made the act of divine rescue necessary...So to hear the Savior speak the word ransom and understand it rightly is to be freshly reminded and affected by our own serious and sorry state, our miserable lostness and wretched bondage to sin. We cannot free ourselves from pride and selfish ambition: a divine rescue is absolutley necessary." (pg 51-52)

As C.J regularly teaches (esp. in "The Cross-Centered Life"), our lives must focus on the cross of Christ through every life situation. He does a great job of portraying this truth throughout "Humility."

-ae

Back to the Blogosphere

Well, friends, I recently got the itch to start blogging again, so here I am. After reflecting a bit on what I should blog about, I came to the conclusion that I would blog short "blurbs" of thoughts and quotes from books that I am reading. Sure, I could tell you about my life, but isn't that what my Twitter is for anyway?

My goals through this blog:

1. For this blog to give all glory and credit to Jesus Christ, my Lord
2. Review and comment on books I am reading with the hope of sparking interest in books you might find worth reading
3. For reviews to be "short and sweet," giving just a taste, leaving the rest for you to discover
   
4. To have some fun with this, not taking myself too seriously

That should do it. I hope you enjoy reading and be sure to comment and add your thoughts along the way.

Happy Reading!

-ae

A Day in the Life

Well, friends and family, my time here is winding down. It has been quite the experience, to say the least, and there is definitely some sadness in me as I sit and write even this. It is Friday in the big city and I have a week and two days left of Granada. My plan is to bore myself with Granada as to get the full effect--lots of wandering, lots of tapas, lots of discotecas until breakfast time :)

I do have one last trip planned, my pilgrimage to Aledo, Spain, being from the hometown of Aledo, Illinois. I am heading over with Peter, a friend on the program, for the adventure and it will be all in Spanish, so I am looking forward to the crazy situations we will get ourselves into in this town of only 1000 people.


It is especially bittersweet over here as we start to say goodbyes. Wednesday was our last day of class, which was spent just taking pictures with our teachers. The above is my phonetics class with Nerea, the director's wife. She has a white shirt on in the middle.

Wednesday was probably the highlight of my trip for me. Mainly, it was wonderful because we had a farewell dinner with each other. Not only was it the first 4-course meal of my life, it was wonderful company. I sat with Nerea and Miguel-Angelo (our director pictured above) and was able to converse in Spanish throughout the dinner, which was very encouraging. Then, after our three hour dinner, some of the teachers went to the bars/discos with us, which was, without a doubt, very high-spirited and uplifting.


Who knew the computer guy, Alex, could get down. You be the judge as to which Alex is the best dressed here.

The teachers called it a night at about 2:30am, and I at about 3:30am as about half of the students headed to a discoteca from the club we had just been at. It was a great end to the semester, for sure.
________

I look forward to seeing you all very soon. I get home May 12, so give me a call.


Musical Inspiration for This Blog:

1) Ingrid Michaelson
2) Greg Lasswell


Prayer Requests:

1) Praise for the most I have learned from God in a semester yet--mainly in regards to being taken out of my comfort zone in every imaginable way.

2) Pray for a spiritual conversation I had recently with one of the guys I might not see again. Please ask me about it!


Saludos Cordiales,

Alex

A Lil' Mountaineering in Chamonix

I did some hiking in the French Alps near Chamonix. I even took the above picture and this video as proof! The picture is looking down on Chamonix from Mont Aiguille du Midi near Mont Blanc. Notice, we were above the clouds and not in an airplane. It was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced and the highlight of my Spring Break trip, which included Paris, mind you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxgAxWF6Iw

- alé

Trapesin'

“Oi,” or “hoh” as the Spaniards say when they are slightly out of sorts. It has been much too long since an update. But, as to not disappoint, ya está (~here it is), comfortably situated in my room ready to blog away…listening to Jack’s Mannequin for those that are into the inspiration sort of thing, and more so for the fearless few still reading this ol’ thing…eating natilla con galleta (pudding with cookies) for those that just like food.

I feel like I have been all over the place the last 4 weekends, which, in fact, I have been. For Spring/Easter break I traveled all around Europe with the parents, then to Morocco and lastly hiking in the Sierra Nevadas I went, respectively; but, I will save the latter two for a later blog. My parents' visit takes precedence as I know they are still reading :)

We had a wonderful time together to say the least. In short we traveled, or “trapesed” as my mom liked to say during our trip,—a term adopted from my late grandfather—all over Western Europe. I was first hired to be their tour guide around Granada, which was fun for me and a lot of exercise for us all. There are a lot of hills here, and it doesn’t help when you get lost, hehe. I lost my tip as tour guide on that one. Let’s just say to know the name of the restaurant helps when looking for it. But hey, we found it and “Tragaluz” turned out to be a pleasant dine with succulent dishes like cinnamon and sugar chicken and apple duckling, seen in the above picture. Our full day was spent at the Alhambra, which I didn’t know before I came, let alone that the Alhambra existed, is the number one attraction in Spain!

To Madrid we then went. Again, like Granada, we only had a day and a half to experience the sites, but it provided to be sufficient. The first half day we ventured to the Reina Sofia (seen here), which houses 20th century art, including such artists as Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso, who was also on exhibition there. I learned that I don’t much care for Picasso, which I’m pretty sure my dad also learned, who would go up to a modern painting, give it about 3 seconds of consideration, and then move on to the next. Little did he know we had 4 more museums to go!

The next day we saw some of the major, famous places of the capital. After spending some time in the Prado, we visited Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, and el Palacio. Even with such short time, I did feel we got a decent effect of Madrid.

I think I will stop there for now, with much more to come. My parents and I had a lot of togetherness over the 12 days, so there is a lot more to say!

Currently Liking:

Podcast—PTI (Pardon the Interruption), Tony Kornhauser and Michael Wilbon are saving my life, keeping me up on things, especially on my 20 minute walk to school, four times a day, haha.

Music—Tristan Prettyman’s “T w e n t y t h r e e”, an album I had heard for the first time last year but have just recently been getting into. Check it out if you haven’t before, it is very chill.

Prayer Requests:

1) That God would allow me to share the Gospel with at least one person on my program or that I meet in Granada.

2) That God would continue to teach me many, many things as he has been all semester. What a blessing it has been to be away from many comforts.

3) An obvious but pertinent request that I would finish strong, not being blinded by the desire to get home so fast.


Con La Altura de La Primavera,

alé