Please feel free to check out my newly updated website for my RUF supporters. Throw any suggestions my way... thanks!

web.mac.com/ugaruf

That's the best word I'd use to describe the state my blog is in. This has been the busiest season of my life...even busier than grad school. Unfortunately, even though I want to share with others what is going on and what I'm thinking, I either a) don't have the time to regularly update this, or b) don't have the energy. Reason "b" is usually the main reason, though. For the two people per month that still check this...I applaud your persistance, and appreciate your patience as I ponder whether to throw in the old blogging towel...or give it another try one day soon. Hope everyone's doin well.

-Ben

Mr. Cade Andrew Coppedge (my oldest brother's new little boy)
Born yesterday, January 30th at 4:15pm
Weighs 7lbs, 15 oz and is 22in long


13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

-Psalm 139

Not gonna deny the obvious...it's kind of hard getting into the so-called "Christmas spirit" when, on the way home from an evening of shopping, I look over at the car next to me and the lady is lowering her convertible top. I guess we're all getting to experience a southern hemisphere Christmas.

Do you trust the scalpel....when it's in your Father's hand?


"Blessed is the man whom God corrects;
so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
For he wounds, but he also binds up;
he injures, but his hands also heal."

Job 5:17,18

"My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline,
and don’t be upset when he corrects you.
For the Lord corrects those he loves,
just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights."

Proverbs 3:11,12

"Safety is a mirage. Security is not a home for the Christian." - John Piper


I've been thinking a lot about safety lately. Maybe it's because I see my own sins of apathy played out before me in the lives of the guys I have been ministering to this past semester. We all (the guys and I) suffer the same, debilitating consequences of a sin most of us (Christians) are more than willing to ignore, tolerate, or even feed. This sin is our doing everything we can to remain safely secure in the lives of ease we've constructed. We want discipleship without the cost. We want glory, but we balk at the idea of a cross...of denying ourselves daily, of pouring ourselves out, and following Jesus even when it hurts really bad. We want the god who will remove the thorns in our flesh after we petition him, not the God who often leaves the thorns in place and supplies the grace to endure and believe and honor Him amidst the confusion.

It should be no surprise to you to know that often I am more interested in building my own kingdom than building Christ's. It is shamefully seldom that I look down and see the tools in my hands...tools that are all too familiar, that are worn down by years of skilled and frequent use. They are the tools I use to build my kingdom; the tools that lay the brick and mortar of walls that keep me safely removed from the poured-out life Christ calls me to live.

I want to minister to people from within the safe confines my comfort zone. This, of course, excludes 99% of the people the Lord calls me to love, to care for, to lead. As I learn more and more in the course of this internship...as the Lord increasingly opens my eyes to His Word, I am struck by the danger that accompanies every Christian's calling. Don't get me wrong...I'm not drinking the 'Wild at Heart' Koolaid (I promise!). I'm not so much talking about the danger of being martyred or persecuted or laughed at or vulnerable. I'm talking about the danger of submitting your life to a Lord who promises He will lead you through the furnace of a chaotic life, rejection by men, and being misunderstood by friends and family.

I confess with my mouth that I serve the Lion of Judah...but I confess with my living that I secretly want that Lion to be domesticated...His claws clipped and His wild ways tamed. I seem to want a predictable Jesus who lets me in on His plans for my short terrestrial life. I often want a pet Jesus, not the Jesus who raises dead men from the grave and orders the gale winds to stop with a single word.

But as I sign off tonight, by God's grace seeing more clearly my need to repent of my love-affair with a safe, certain, and manageable life, I cling by faith to Jesus all the more tightly; knowing that I desperately need my sanctification to be as miraculous and radical as my justification and conversion were. I need to be broken of my self-deification and life of ease. Because our God is Mercy and Love, He pours out streams of grace before every command He gives. Only the Triune God can provide the grace necessary for obedience...Only He can gird our trembling knees with the sweetest of promises for us to bank on...promises of His presence, of His faithful love and fatherly care, of His making all things (even the scary things that launch us into an ocean of discomfort and uncertainty) subordinate to our salvation, sanctification, and glorification.

Looking through the eyes of faith, I want to follow this Jesus, who is sovereign and untamed...and whose Spirit works in me all the faith I need to heed the hard calls of the One who loved me...when I was utterly unlovable. I want to change not simply so I will feel better about myself for being a "more spiritual" guy, rather I want to change because I know that my God is infinitely worthy of my wholehearted trust. Time and again, He's won my wandering affections by letting me see Him as He is. And as I continue to fall (seemingly hourly) and revert back to my selfish desires for an easy sanctification, I've seen Him prove over and over that He is faithful again to woo me...or discipline me...or break me...in order that I might be reminded of Reality and look again to Christ by faith.