Jerry & Sarah.com

I wanted to blog about photography gigs and other design projects I am working on, but didn’t want to clutter up this site. So, I just launched a new blog here: http://howardstudios.jerryandsarah.com.

I like to exaggerate more than anyone I know. I probably exaggerate more than any person who has ever lived. In fact, every sentence I speak or write is an exaggeration. See, there I go again.

Anyway, since I’ve started roasting my own beans, I get out of bed anxiously anticipating my first cup of coffee. Though some may say this is due to a caffeine addiction, I think there’s more to it than that. Every time I push down that plunger on the French press, tip the pot, and pour myself a cup of joe, I have an anticipation of what’s about to come. Then, after adding a spoonful of brown sugar, I put the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had to my lips. Most mornings, I make some kind of exclamation, varying from “Man, that’s good,” to an indecipherable “Mph.” And every morning, I am GENUINELY convinced that the cup I hold in my still sleeping paw is genuinely best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

Sarah makes fun of me for things like this. She said that if what I’m saying is true, that if each cup is noticeably better than the day before, then in five years we’ll have the best cup of coffee the world has ever known. I wish she were right.

In reality, though, every cup is probably not better than the cup from the day before. I just expect it to be. The source of the enjoyment, the exclamations is the fact that the anticipation shapes my reaction to that java hitting my lips and tongue.

I wonder if that’s not the approach we should take to the Bible. Over the last few years, God has been bringing me on a journey to see the beauty of the Gospel and the glory of Jesus on each page of Scripture. Whether I’m reading in Judges, Jonah or 1 John my eyes are peeled looking for the Good News of the One who has saved us from our sins. Each narrative, poem, proverb and letter shouts out this plan of God to save a people for Himself. Like a beautiful jewel, its facets are displayed and marveled at from different angles, angles inspired by one God but written by different authors. It’s a lot of perspectives on the same plan, a lot of views of the same story. In his book, What Did You Expect?, Paul David Tripp says, “The central focus of the Bible is not a set of practical-life principles. The central theme of the Bible is a person, Christ.” I am seeing the beauty of that Savior and the glory of that plan of salvation more clearly each day, and my hope is that each time I read the book that proclaims it I’ll exclaim, “That’s the best thing I’ve ever read.”