Links to Your World, Thursday April 17

 

Pixar has been hiding "Easter Eggs" in its movies since "Toy Story," and a new, seasonally-themed video asks fans to seek them out.

 

In China, Jar Of French Mountain Air Fetches $860

 

I've enjoyed these daily videos explaining what happened each day leading up to Christ's death and resurrection. The videos were produced in conjunction with the release of Justin Taylor's book, The Final Days of Jesus. The video below is for Thursday. You can find the rest of the videos here.

The Final Days of Jesus: Thursday from Crossway on Vimeo.

 

Save this story for your Good Friday reading: "The most Christological piece of music I have ever heard is Gavin Bryars’s Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. In 1971, Bryars was working on a film about homeless people and recorded, almost by accident, an old man singing: 'Jesus’s blood never failed me yet, Jesus’s blood never failed me yet, Jesus’s blood never failed me yet. There’s one thing I know for he loves me so.' The song was not used in the movie, but Bryars was haunted by it. One day, as he went out for coffee, he left it playing on loop at his studio. When he returned, he found a group of people gathered around the tape listening in a somber mood, with some of them openly weeping. Bryars never knew the tramp (as he calls him on the liner notes), but he decided to compose an orchestral accompaniment for his simple refrain."

 

Bubba Watson: A Passion for the Gospel and Golf

 

I loved Salvation Mountain appearing in Into the Wild, Sean Penn's directorial debut. Here's the story of the man behind the mountain.

 

Links to Your World, Thursday April 10

Fast Company: We Hate Ourselves For Spending So Much Time On Facebook. So Why Do We Do It?

 

The world’s oldest message in a bottle was presented to the granddaughter of the sender this week, 101 years after it was tossed into the sea. OZY

 

Showing of Noah canceled after movie theater floods

 

All these people moving to Austin really are from California--and from Seattle, New York City, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, and Florida.

 

Fashion Industry Declares Hottest Spring Look Is Upbeat Attitude

 

"People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering." David Brooks, on what suffering can do.

 

Dermatographia: Taking an allergy to touch and making art out of it--

 

PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly recently looked at "New Calvinism" in the Southern Baptist Convention.

 

"Some of our liberal friends have been dismissing our warnings about the politics of personal vilification emerging on the left, but here is a case study." The WSJ comments on the purging of Mozilla's CEO over his personal political views. Also, in Time magazine our denomination's Russel Moore wrote an excellent piece about Mozilla caving to activists.

 

Links to Your World, Thursday April 3

Coming Soon: The AromaFork, which will change the taste of your food by introducing interesting odors through your fork.

 

"What's your story?"

 

Actually, I think being a "professional namer" would be pretty fun.

 

Time for some spring cleaning: Decluttr will buy all your unwanted CDs, DVDs, and video games.

 

I liked "The Lost Art of the Unsent Angry Letter." I've written a few angry letters that ended up three-punched in a journal instead of mailed, and I've written a few angry emails where I ended up hitting the "print" button instead of the "send" button. This article says there's wisdom in doing so.

 

10 Ways to Be Outraged on the Internet

 

"God is not helpless among the ruins," Kay Warren said, quoting British Olympian and missionary Eric Liddell. Then she instructed attendees to turn to one another and take those words to heart by declaring: "God is not helpless among my ruins!" Kay Warren, speaking at the recent Saddleback conference designed to help churches address mental illness. Half of registrants were family members of someone suffering a mental illness. Beautiful report on a beautiful effort to adress unbeautiful circumstances.

 

"Having looked at both the despoliation of the earth and the evil in his own heart, Noah recognizes that mankind deserves God's justice. Noah's struggle throughout the film is to obey all that God asks of him. Portraying this inner struggle makes Aronofsky an ideal director for this project. Unfortunately, his directing style is otherwise unsuited for a two-and-a-half-hour epic like Noah." Summarizing Joe Carter's movie review of Noah. And Denny Burk calls it "the midrashiest midrash that ever was midrashed." I haven't seen it yet: Do you plan to?

 

How to Bounce Back

We will react to setbacks with resentment or resilience. It all depends on our confidence in God.

In 2013, Buffalo Bills' receiver Steve Johnson dropped a pass in the end zone, causing an overtime loss to the Steelers. After the game he tweeted out a complaint to God: "I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND IS THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!!"

Most of us have had moments like this, though not so public. But contrast his/our reaction to Bethany Hamilton's response to setback. Eleven years ago she had been ranked as the best amateur teen surfer in Hawaii, and she wanted to use her growing fame to make much of Jesus. Then she lost her left arm in a shark attack in 2003. It's no surprise that at first she wondered why God would let that happen. But she quickly adjusted emotionally, and it's likely the "Soul Surfer" has become a brighter light for Jesus without a left arm than she ever would have as just another surfing phenom.

Just six months after the shark attack, her pastor Steve Thompson said, "She's looking forward to the future. She's asking herself, 'How can I show the world I still have a life and that my life is filled with joy?' She has an underlying trust that God is taking care of her."

That's the key to resilience: Faith. Not the sort of "faith" that says, "If I keep up my end of the deal, God will come through for me and give me what I want." No, but the sort of faith that says, "My happiness is based on God and not on circumstances."

Isaiah predicted that the Messiah would demonstrate this kind of confidence (42:4)--

But I said, “I have labored in vain;I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”

This comes from the second of four "Servant Songs" in Isaiah. Chapters 42, 49, 50, and 53 are lyrical prophecies of the Messiah. We looked at the first one last Sunday (listen here), and we'll study the second one this Sunday.

Let's find out from the Son of God how to maintain our faith in God when life knocks us down!

 

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