Dear Grandkids,
J.I. Packer died a few days ago. I’m sure that you have no idea who he is but you should.
For my generation, he was one of the guys that would be included in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith if they were accepting new honorees.
It’s fascinating to watch how God can take tragedy and turn it into triumph. This was certainly the case for Packer. When he was 7 years old he suffered a severe head injury in a collision with a bread van, which caused him to not be able to play sports, so he became interested in reading and writing. This proved to be very fortuitous for the Church. In 1973 he wrote a book called Knowing God which is considered one of the most influential books for evangelicals of the 20th century.
It was definitely an influential book in my life. I became a Christian in 1974 and it was one of the first books I read as a growing new believer. I still have that book on my shelf and wanted to share a few quotes that I underlined (this was before highlighters were widely used).
“How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.”
“Men who know their God are before anything else men who pray, and their first point where their zeal and energy for God’s glory come to expression is in their prayers.”
“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.”
“What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?”
“Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.”
“The incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains.”
Read the book when you get a chance. I have written you a note on the inside cover of my original copy. Find it on my shelf sometime and read it. My hope is that it will be a blessing to you.
Never forget that you are very loved!
Pop Pop
By nature, I do not tend to be an anxious person. But then honestly, I’ve never really had that much to be anxious about. I’ve always had plenty of food on the table and a roof over my head and clothes on my back. My health has been on the side of very good for 62 years. I’ve had a steady job for 35 years. I have an awesome wife and kids and grandkids. In the grand scheme of things, there has been precious little to get anxious about.
A little context. Every other year the Isthmian Games were held outside of Corinth – the year before and the year after the ancient Olympian Games. They took place in the year 51 A.D. which coincided with Paul’s visit to Corinth on his 2nd missionary journey. Athletes from throughout Greece would converge and compete in footraces, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus and javelin, the long jump, chariot racing, poetry reading and singing. (You did not know singing was considered an athletic event, did you?).
4 “Hear, O Israel: The 
My uncle and his family lived up in Detroit. He was a syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free Press and loved baseball – especially the Detroit Tigers. When we would visit, he would take me to baseball games at the old Tiger Stadium. In 1971, Detroit hosted the MLB All-Star Game and he invited me to come up from South Carolina and go to the game with him. It was one of the greatest All Star Games ever…. for at least 3 reasons. 1) It was the ONLY time the American League won the All Star Game between 1963 and 1982. 2) All of the scoring came via the home run and all six home runs hit in the game and all the runs scored were by future Hall of Fame players. These HOFers hit home runs: Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson, and Reggie Jackson. 3) 