Once, to my shame, I laughed at Don Carson. You need to know that I have the greatest respect for Don. I think he is one of the great theologians of our time. To me, he is ‘the Don’. And many times I have laughed with him during his preaching, and have chuckled at asides in his writing, but this was definitely at him. So what had he said? ‘I relax by memorising Psalms.’
That was it! I laughed at Don Carson because he said, ‘I relax by memorising Psalms’. And I laughed aloud because nothing sounds like harder work to me. At the end of a day at work, having put the kids to bed and cleared the kitchen, the last thing I would think of to relax is memorising Scripture.
Who’s teaching me to relax?
But more recently I’ve started to think, ‘If it isn’t wise men like Don Carson teaching me how to relax, then who is it?’ and I’ve reached a worrying conclusion: it is the godless culture around me. How does that say I should relax? ‘You are good for nothing after a long day at work. You need to crash and put the TV on. You don’t have the mental or physical strength to do anything more than laze on the sofa, graze on comfort food, and glaze over as you channel hop.’
