Help for panic attacks

 
About 8% of the UK population will suffer from panic attacks in their lifetime. (source)
 
 
 
A friend of mine recently told me her best advice for handling a panic attack: 
 
 
 
 
When I feel one coming on I reach into my handbag for two things:  a sweet and a bible verse.
 

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Why you don’t read your bible

Dan Hames tells us why here. 
He covers:
‘You don’t have time’,
‘You think the bible’s all about you,’ and
‘You think your bible reading is for God’s benefit.’
 
In this context the Bible is given to us as a gift to feast on, rather than a project to complete before judgment day.  We will find we go to it [...]

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God without a Mediator?

Tim Challies has quoted a pithy saying of Ligon Duncan’s:
Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator.
Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.
What do we reckon?
Here’s what’s great about it.  It affirms that our experience of eternity hinges on our relationship to the Mediator.  It also affirms [...]

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Some housekeeping

First, I had my laptop stolen last month.  And on it were a few emails from blog readers kind enough to write to me.  If you’re out there, please feel free to email again, but unfortunately I don’t have your addresses.
Second, since my laptop was stolen I’ve not had google reader feeding me a thousand [...]

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Ode to an evangelical sage

O thou brain — exalted, senior,
Holding forth from pulpit’s throne.
Feed us with thy academia,
Meted out in monotone.
     ‘We could never,
     ‘We could never,
     ‘Plumb such myst’ries on our own.’
Hear the classics now recited,
Tumbling from thy tutored lips.
Nooks ignored are now ignited,
By thy greek and latin quips.
     ‘O how richly
     ‘O how richly,
     ‘Wisdom from each sentence [...]

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Trinity rant # 287

From a random internet sermon I listened to this evening:
God does not react.  He cannot react. God is pure initiation.  He only leads.
Where has this assumption come from?  Not trinitarian reflection.
Where does it lead?  Philosophical determinism.
What would it look like to begin with the living God Who initiates and responds, Who leads and follows?
.

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Three thoughts on headship

While I’m talking about masculinity etc (here and here)…
1. Who am I head of?  Not my church.  That post is filled.  And not women in general – I trust married men react with protective outrage at the suggestion I possess some measure of headship over their wives.  I am head of my wife.  Full stop.
2. [...]

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Models of masculinity

It’s an age-old question, but it’s taken the Flight of the Conchords to pose it again with aching poignancy:
What man?  Which man?  Who’s the man?
When’s a man a man?
What makes a man a man?
Am I a man?
Yes… technically I am.
.

.
On reflection there were two models of masculinity on show at the London [...]

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Vicarious hope

Having thought about the vicarious worship of Jesus, I’ve been reflecting on examples of vicarious hope in our marriage.
There have been a few times in our marriage where one of us has turned to the other and said something like this:
– I really can’t imagine a way forward here.
– Oh but there is.
– I don’t [...]

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Knowledge Puffs Up

 
Apparently the Sandemanians followed Robert Sandeman in asserting that saving faith involved mere assent to doctrinal facts.  Apparently they were soundly refuted by Andrew Fuller.  Apparently we needed to know this at a gathering of thousands of Christians today in London.  Three sentences on the subject were dropped into a short talk on how we [...]

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When I don’t desire the LORD… the King does

Following on from my last post – Psalms are about Christ.   They tell of the interaction between the LORD, the King through Whom He rules, the righteous who hide in Him and the wicked who rebel. 
These interactions are pictured from many angles.  But one key perspective is for the King Himself to speak.  This most [...]

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Psalms: The players

From an old sermon on Psalms 1 and 2.  These Psalms, as a gateway to the Psalter, introduce us to the four main players:
(1)   the LORD;
(2)   the Christ, the Blessed Man;
(3)   The Righteous who take refuge in Him; and
(4)   The Wicked who oppose Him. 
The subsequent Psalms reveal the interaction of these four groups. 
In some, like [...]

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Life Together founded on our alien righteousness

Lest you think I’ve taken a disastrous turn towards the self, here’s Bonhoeffer on the only basis for Christian community – the alien righteousness of Christ.  There is here a whole theology of salvation, of church, of pastoral care and of preaching:
The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own [...]

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Mike Reeves interviews Ron Frost

Ron Frost fans (this blog has quite a few), meet Mike Reeves. 
Mike Reeves fans (this blog has many), meet Ron Frost.
Here two of my favourite living theologians discuss one of my favourite dead ones – Richard Sibbes. 

Joy!!
.

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Redeemed Features

Having been at a week long Larry Crabb conference (see previous notes here, here, here and here), these are some of my reflections.  This isn’t what Larry said.  These are all things his teaching has prompted me to think.  Many of them are quite new to me (even though they should have been obvious!):
I have [...]

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Thank God for Easter

Christ is Risen!
And if He isn’t, there really is no hope…

.

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Larry Crabb conference notes – 4

…
Getting started in a conversation:
Attend. Be present. With-ness. With transcendent curiosity. What’s God up to here?
Resist pull. There will never be a moment of relating that’s neutral – it’s a flesh-Spirit battle at all times. Our visceral, affective, emotional, deep seated pull will very often be inappropriate.  A person will tell their story with [...]

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The Dream of the Rood

An incredible 7th century old English poem.  (Rood means cross)
Listen! The choicest of visions I wish to tell,
which came as a dream in middle-night,
after voice-bearers lay at rest.
It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree
born aloft, wound round by light,
brightest of beams. All was that beacon
sprinkled with gold. Gems stood
fair at earth’s corners; there likewise [...]

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Larry Crabb conference notes – 3

…
Jesus never did in 33 years what I do every day
“Sanctification is the art of getting used to your justification.” (Gerhard Forde)
The flesh is most evident not in what we do but in how we relate.
Satan’s masterpiece is not the skid row drunk but the self-righteous elder.
We need to reframe people’s problems – take them [...]

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Larry Crabb conference notes – 2

Some more thoughts from Crabb’s School of Spiritual Direction…
Image of God:
Crabb very strong on ‘male and female’ being integral to image.  The united plurality of humanity imaging the trinity.  But he first unpacks image according to four aspects:
Personal being – longing
Rational being – believing
Volitional being – choosing
Emotional being – feeling
But all four are deeply perverted.
Femininity
[Must [...]

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Larry Crabb conference notes – 1

I’m at a School of Spiritual Direction run by Larry Crabb (hence blog inactivity). Lapping it up.  Go here for some lengthy and scattered thoughts about his approach to pastoral counselling.
Anyway here are some random notes taken during the teaching sessions.  They may resonate with you – they certainly do with me…
Notes – part one
We [...]

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Steve Chalke on the torture of the cross

Maybe this is well known but I was intrigued by finding this in a second hand bookshop:

 
Chalke wrote it in 1995.  On the cross he writes this:

“…to complete the rejection, [Jesus] was abandoned by God the Father.  To a large extent, it was this emotional torture which killed Jesus… It shows the completeness with which [...]

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Application – the evangelical cure-all

 
Like coathangers, we own a hundred bibles but have no idea how they came to be ours.  One of them is called a “Life Application Bible.” 
As far as I can tell, it exists in order to footnote every biblical indicative so that a moral imperative may be added.  This is, we are assured, the cure [...]

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