Being strengthened with all power…

[continued from my earlier post]

Colossians 1:9-12 says that as we are filled with the knowledge of God's will, among other things, we'll be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that we may have great endurance and patience.

One thing I've noticed about this is the purpose for all this strength. Paul doesn't pray that we can be strengthened with all power (etc.) so that we can perform miracles, or win thousands of souls to Christ, or some other spectacular thing. No, his prayer is that we can be strengthened with all power so that we can have great endurance and patience. It reminds me that He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who captures a city (Proverbs 16:32).

Paul prays that for the Colossians (and hence I think it's a good prayer for you and me); how does it happen? How does being filled with the knowledge of God's will give us strength to have great endurance and patience?

Paul also wrote about this in 2 Corinthians 4. After describing some issues (hard pressed on every side… persecuted… struck down, 4:8-9) he writes:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:15-18, NIV

Two passages come to mind right away: one from Paul, in Romans chapter 5:

¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 5:1-4

If I could consistently rejoice in suffering, then I'd have more endurance and patience than I do today. But how can I rejoice in suffering?

In my admittedly limited experience, it works like this: As the verse says, God desires to use suffering to produce perseverance, character and hope in my life. When I remember this fact, trials become more bearable. The sooner I remember it, the gladder I am that God is working through whatever suffering comes.

What if I were filled with the knowledge of God's will? What if I woke to and ate and lived and breathed the knowledge that God is using everything in my life—the pleasant and the painful, the joyous and the tragic—to make me a better person, one filled with character and hope and love and joy and peace…? Might I be able to rejoice even in the midst of suffering?

I don't really desire suffering. But when it comes, I want to see the good things God will work in my life through it. And perhaps to rejoice.

The second passage that came to mind is from James 1. After encouraging us to consider it all joy when we meet various trials (1:2) and encouraging us in much the same direction Paul does, he writes: Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him (1:12).

I find this fascinating. The one who perseveres under trial receives a crown promised to those who… who persevere under trial, right? No, the text says "…to those who love him." In other words, those who love God are the ones who persevere under trial. How does that work?

I can't prove it, but Jesus himself may have given us the answer in John 14. Here Jesus says those who obey him are those who love him. And, he says, "He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and disclose myself to him" (from John 14:21, NASB). A little later, he goes on to say, "If anyone loves me… [m]y father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (14:23, NIV). The whole paragraph is worth reading, actually.

But what I think he's saying is this: he fills us with the knowledge of his will. We don't resist him (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and indeed we ask for spiritual wisdom (James 1:5). We love and obey him (John 14:21-23) and he reveals more of himself to us and even makes his home in us.

And that's power to strengthen us according to his glorious might, so that we can have great endurance and patience.

A life worthy of the Lord—part 2

[continued from my earlier post]

Thinking about Colossians 1:9-12 and what it means to live a life worthy of the Lord and to please him in every way, I mused on the question of how we grow in the knowledge of God. Various teachers say that knowing God is different from knowing about God. Could we say that knowing about God is kind of superficial? Maybe we'd say that knowing about God would imply the ability to list a bunch of adjectives: eternal, all-knowing, etc., whereas knowing God himself implies knowing what kinds of things he does and doesn't do, what he likes and dislikes, what he cares about and so on.

If that's a helpful distinction, I suppose the latter is more relevant. Would it please God if I had a clear understanding of what he would and wouldn't do, what he cares about, what he likes and such? The short answer would be "yes," and it's not hard to find passages in the Bible that support this. Jeremiah 9:23–24 for example—let not the wise man boast of his wisdom (etc.) but let him who boasts boast … that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these things I delight.

And Jeremiah 31:34—I was going to just give you a link, but I just saw something that's got me so excited that I want to give you the text here. Look at the last verse (34):

³¹“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. ³³“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NIV)

Do you see it? What is it that makes it possible for them (or us) to know the Lord? He doesn't say "They will all know me… for they will reach that place in their cultural and intellectual evolution…" Nor does he say, "for they will finally decide to provide universal education." They (or we) will all know him, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

How does that work? He forgives his people and somehow they automatically know him? I think something else is probably involved. Prophets often speak elliptically and this is no exception. This reminded me of the time Jesus visited the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50), where he explains that people love much when they're forgiven much, but “he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

As even a casual reading of Matthew 5 will show, every one of us stands in much need of forgiveness, because we sin in various (numerous) ways: we're angry unreasonably (5:22), we nurse inappropriate desires (5:28), we divorce each other (5:32), we ignore the poor (5:42), we don't love our enemies (5:44). If all our sins are forgiven, then much has been forgiven. So what does Jesus mean in Luke 7:47?

I think it's this: the more I understand just how much I've been forgiven, the more I'll love and know God. I find it fascinating that when God talks about knowing him, the first thing he talks about is knowing his great mercy: did you notice the order of attributes the Lord uses when he talks about himself in Jeremiah 9:24 above? … that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. Note the first word: kindness. This is the way God identifies himself throughout the Bible in the overwhelming majority of cases.

The so-called “sinful woman” in Luke 7:37 knew that her sin was great, and when she experienced forgiveness she knew that the forgiveness was great: she knew something about God's kindness and mercy that Simon the Pharisee did not.

Two more things on this topic, both from this weekend as it turns out: first, the sermon recounted a conversation Moses had with the Lord in Exodus 33:18-19. Moses says, “Now show me your glory,” and the Lord replies, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you”—I find this remarkable. His glory, he says, is shown in his goodness. The very next thing he says is, “I will proclaim my name… in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy…” Again: goodness and mercy are the first things he talks about.

The second thing from this weekend is that we had someone come to our church and say he wanted to follow Jesus. Why did he decide to follow Jesus? Because he understood that Jesus was kind.

So: one way—not the only way, but an important way—we grow in our knowledge of God is by remembering and thinking about his kindness and goodness and mercy. Of course the Lord has other attributes; as we read in Jeremiah 9, he “exercises kindness, justice and righteousness,” and he has many other attributes. But kindness first.

Citrix Receiver 13.0: "The server name cannot be resolved" -- when 13 really is unlucky

I upgraded my desktop at the office last November, but until yesterday, Citrix Receiver was giving me the network equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death (image at right).

I didn't understand it. I adjusted the configuration file. I copied the parameters from a colleague's configuration file. I replaced the hostname by a dotted-quad address (as in 10.34.27.81). But I kept seeing "The server name cannot be resolved" like a broken record.

Then I remembered someone's comment about the most important skill of a system administrator, viz., “the ability to use google.” So, yes, I did a web search with that phrase "The server name cannot be resolved" (with quotes) and "Citrix receiver" (without). Within a few clicks I found this post, which contained:

Workaround:
I have installed Citrix Receiver for Linux ver.12.1 on Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit:
https://www.citrix.c...ux-121.html#top
followed by steps:
https://help.ubuntu....xICAClientHowTo
(Citrix Receiver 12.1 on Ubuntu 13.10 64-bit)
and it is working for me.

Which solved my problem! Downloaded from this page, said

$ sudo rpm -Uvh --nodeps ICAClient-12.1.0-0.x86_64.rpm

and that was it.

Why the --nodeps? Well, though it claims to be a 64-bit rpm, the executable is a 32-bit binary. It wants 32-bit libraries, which I didn't have installed on my 64-bit box. But the dependencies may have been a little aggressive. In any case, it installed and ran just fine.

A life worthy of the Lord?

What does it mean to live a life worthy of the Lord and to please him in every way (Col. 1:10)? Fortunately, Paul gives us some clues in the text immediately following.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way:

• bearing fruit in every good work,
• growing in the knowledge of God,
• ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have
  • great endurance
  • and patience,
  and
• joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

Colossians 1:10-12

Bearing fruit in every good work: what does that mean? One thing is that spiritual wisdom, the wisdom from above, is "full of mercy and good fruits" (James 3:17, mentioned earlier). That is, as we are steeped in spiritual wisdom, our lives will bear good fruit.

This reminds me of something Jesus said in John 15: "No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." Like the disciples, we must remain in Christ to bear fruit. Jesus also said that no good tree bears bad fruit (Luke 6:43), and the reverse; if my life bears good fruit, or the fruit of good works, it can only be because I've been transformed into a good tree. Indeed, Paul tells us to be transformed, so that we can show what (surprise!) the will of God is (Romans 12:2).

That we need help to be transformed is not a reason for despair; consider rather the promise: Paul prays for these Colossians that they would be full of the knowledge of God's will, in order that they can do all this stuff. I think this means that if we're filled with the knowledge of God's will, he'll transform us.

Which reminds me that there are a number of these commands: "be transformed" as above, "be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5), "be holy," i.e., be set apart by God (1 Peter 1), not to mention "Be perfect" (Matthew 5)—for which we seriously need help.

Something about this new way to be human, then, is this: though our natural tendency is to be independent (to go our own way), the truth is that [1] we need help to live a good life, a fulfilled life; and [2] God wants to give us that help.

And that as he helps us, our lives will bear fruit in every good work. A God-pleasing life—may he grant that to you and me.

Know God's will? More than that—to be filled with that knowledge

I've been thinking about one of my favorite prayers, from Colossians 1:

[W]e have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way…

Sometimes I think I'd like to know what God wants me to do. But to tell the truth it's not mainly so that I may live a life worthy of him. No, it's so that I can stay out of trouble and have nice experiences. Is it God's will that I attend this or that college, study this or that subject, live in this or that city, marry this or that person (or not), etc.?

When I've asked questions like that in the past (and the present too, to be honest), most of the time it's not mainly about pleasing him; it's about pleasing me. "What kind of life will I have if I choose X vs. Y?" is my real thought. Perhaps that's why the Apostle Paul gives us a few important points beyond just knowing God's will:

• …asking God to fill you…
  This isn't something I can necessarily figure out on my own; I need outside help
• …asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will…
  Not just that we might know what God wants, but to be filled with the knowledge of that will. What does it mean to be filled with knowledge of something? When the lovely Carol agreed to marry me, I was filled with the knowledge that she loved me and that we would be embarking on a new adventure together; there was room for little else in my head.
• …through all spiritual wisdom and understanding
  What is spiritual wisdom? I'm not sure, but it reminded me of James 3, which talks about earthly "wisdom":

  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocricy. (James 3:14-17)

• And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way…
  Which is the point: it's not primarily that I can have the "wrinkle-free life" (to borrow a phrase from Patrick Morley), though God loves to give us good gifts; it's primarily so that I can live worthy of him and please him in every way.

  Now if things always went my way, if I never had any problems, if I never had to go to work… what kind of person would I become? Would I live worthy of the Lord and please him in every way? Maybe some people would, but I almost certainly wouldn't; I would likely not develop patience and compassion and generosity, but would probably be even more self-absorbed and impatient than I already am.

The prayer is for us (for me) to have a new way of living, or a new way of being human. Because what I need most is not more money, or fewer problems; what I need most is to be delivered from selfishness and greed and folly. And that's why I need to be filled with the knowledge of his will, rather than being filled with my own preoccupations and jealousies and petty ambitions.

A new way of being human, in other words.

"while VPNed to the office": part deux

I wrote earlier about communicating with my ISP's mail server while VPNed to the office, and some of my colleagues pointed out that I could instead just use split routing.

Split routing? That's where you tell the VPN software to only route these addresses but leave the other ones alone. The short version is, you put a script into /etc/vpnc/—let's call it /etc/vpnc/foo-vpnc-script—that includes these lines:

#!/bin/sh

# this effectively disables changes to /etc/resolv.conf
# DON'T DO THAT export INTERNAL_IP4_DNS=

CISCO_SPLIT_INC=2
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_ADDR=10.0.0.0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_MASK=255.0.0.0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_MASKLEN=8
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_PROTOCOL=0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_SPORT=0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_0_DPORT=0

CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_ADDR=172.16.0.0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_MASK=255.240.0.0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_MASKLEN=12
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_PROTOCOL=0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_SPORT=0
CISCO_SPLIT_INC_1_DPORT=0

. /etc/vpnc/vpnc-script

That's right, /etc/vpnc/vpnc-script looks at those variables, and runs route(8) with the appropriate parameters. Alert readers will note that of the rfc1918 addresses, I left out the 192.168.0.0/16 range. That's my home network, which I don't want routed.

The other thing is, you need a configuration file in /etc/vpnc/; let's call it "foo.conf", which you'd fill in something like this:

IPSec gateway <gateway name/addr>
IPSec ID <secret info>
IPSec secret <more secret info>
Xauth username <your userID>
Script /etc/vpnc/foo-vpnc-script

Then you can say something like $ sudo vpnc foo.conf; when you're done, your routing table ought to look something like this

collin@p3:~> netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
0.0.0.0         <unchanged>     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 tun0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U         0 0          0 eth0
172.16.0.0      0.0.0.0         255.240.0.0     U         0 0          0 tun0
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
<your-vpn-gw>   <unchanged>     255.255.255.255 UGH       0 0          0 eth0
collin@p3:~> 

Much nicer than all the complexity of my earlier post.

Atmos Energy? Really? Oh, it's proflowers

The really interesting-looking email appeared in my inbox today. It urges me to click on (some ".nl" link) to find out why natural gas is the best choice for clean and responsible energy use, and urges me to click on (another ".nl" link) to see my latest bill.

At first, I wondered if this might be the natural gas equivalent of telephone slamming, but why would my gas supplier be in Europe? Then I looked at the "To:" address on the email and my doubts were erased.

That's right, I used a uniquified email address when ordering flowers from ProFlowers. The scammers claiming to represent "Atmos Energy" (which may as far as I know could be legit) got my email address from proflowers, who are now on my hate list.

A word to the wise...