Prayer for the DeVidal's

Friday, March 19, 2010

Prayer for the DeVidal's

THEOparadox advisor Chris DeVidal has been in the hospital with his 6 month old daughter this week. Please join us in praying for Chris and his family. Here is an encouraging note he sent this morning . . .

My daughter Shiloh had open heart surgery Thursday to repair an ASD and VSD. Interestingly, that was her six month birthday.

The delight was having immense peace almost the whole time (Phil 4:6-7). Not that I was promised a smiling outcome, in fact I told my Dad I got the impression it wasn't going to turn out well. Glad that impression was wrong, and glad for the presence of the Maker of the Universe and King of Kings during it all. My weakest moment was seeing her taken away, not sure if I'd see her alive again, but even that was helped knowing that "My flesh and my heart [and my little girl's heart] may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion

forever." (Psalm 73:26 ESV)

Staff has had a tough time keeping her still. She wants to fight! Nurse said, "goodness girl, you laugh at sedation!" and another nurse nicknamed her "wild child." Well, when you're six months old you just

don't understand :-)

This morning they will remove her breathing tube and possibly some other support. The critical issue for her now is infection, so please continue to pray that she will not contract any kind of virus or infection.

There must have been (not exaggerating) three hundred (more people) praying for Shiloh. Blessed be God! The prayers of the saints are like sweet smelling incense to our Lord (Revelation 5:8). Thanks be to God for a great outcome, and for His presence during the difficulty.

2 comments:

AnonymousMarch 22, 2010 at 8:51 AM
Thanks for sharing that, Derek. I've been trying to keep an eye on his Facebook updates. I'll be praying.
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Solid Rock or Sinking SandMarch 27, 2010 at 9:03 AM
I will be lifting you up in prayer. God bless, Lloyd
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THEOparadox MISSION Statement:

~To honor God by upholding the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of His Word, the Bible.
~To help students of the Word to interpret Biblical paradoxes in a way that faithfully reflects God's heart.
~To ignite a devotional flame that will help believers to warm up their theology and burn up their pride.
~To encourage Christian faith by resolving or explaining apparent contradictions in the Scriptures.
~To explore the nature and extent of paradoxes in historically orthodox, Reformed, Biblical theology.

~To provide Biblical resources for those who desire to know God and His Word better.

~To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners and the Savior of the lost.

What is a PARADOX?

A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 Edition

"... it is synonymous with apparent contradiction. A 'paradox' thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency per se, but merely the appearance of logical inconsistency."

James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology

Wise Words . . .

"By advocating paradox I don't want to give the impression that I'm giving a carte blanche to not think philosophically, to not think deeply, about these doctrines. Quite the opposite. . . . My position is that with each of these doctrines we reflect on them as hard as we can, we penetrate them as best we can based on the Scriptural data that we do have, but we also recognize that there are going to be limits, and that those limits are actually a positive thing and not a reflection of some inherent problem in the doctrines or in the process of theological reflection. . . . I think we can make progress, we can make

considerable progress, in understanding these doctrines and resolving some of the . . . initial difficulties that we have with them, but at the same time recognizing that we're always only going to get so far and when we bump up against the limits of our capacity to formulate them in certain ways or to resolve certain difficulties in them, we

shouldn't be too concerned about that. We certainly shouldn't say, 'Okay, we need to admit that Christians are ultimately irrationalists.' No. We don't need to say that at all. . . . It's a Biblically constrained rationality. It's a middle way between rationalism, of which I think [Gordon H.] Clark was a representative, and irrationalism, of which, to take an example I think the Neo-Orthodox - Karl Barth - would be an example, where you're saying that there are actual contradictions in there. So I think it's navigating a Biblical middle way between these two extremes: having too high a view of the human intellect, and perhaps too low a view of the intellect, of our ability to know the things

of God."

~Dr. James Anderson

Theological Paradoxes

Below I have listed some of the classic theological paradoxes (and a few interesting ironies, too) . . .

~The Trinity - God is One being revealed in three distinct persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
~God is transcendent (separate from His creation) yet immanent (in His creation)
~Omnipresence - God is always present everywhere, yet He sometimes speaks of Himself as "present" in a special way
~The Incarnation - God became a man
~The Virgin Birth - A Jewish virgin gave birth to the Son of God
~The Two Natures of Christ - Jesus is fully (100%) God and fully (100%) man

~The Atonement is sufficient to save every person, but efficient only for those who believe
~God is completely sovereign (in control of everything, everywhere, all the time) yet He is not the author of sin and he uses human choice to accomplish His purposes
~Inspiration of Scripture - The Bible was written by sinful human beings yet it is the inerrant and flawless Word of God
~Divine Revelation - Sinful man cannot comprehend God, yet God reveals Himself to sinful man
~Sanctification - Christians are sinners by nature, but saints by grace
~Suffering - God brings His joy and comfort into our lives through our experiences of pain, disappointment and suffering

There are many others. Paradox is everywhere when we attempt to understand God's ways in a genuinely Biblical way.

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Prayer for the DeVidal's

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