Category Archives: Wisdom

My King of Love

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Had a sweet time learning this song with some friends tonight. It’s a reminder of who Christ is and who I am in Him. A reminder I need every single pride-poxed, worry-saturated day.

Soak in the gospel truth. Breathe deeply the love that overflows for you in your most lonely times, the love that seeks you out when you think you are beyond finding out, the love that calls you home and that is your home.

Make these words your own

The King of love is mine. And because of this, my life is good all the time.

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

A Different House

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“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of– throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

All this time like a vagabond, a homeless stranger
I’ve been wandering
All my life you’ve been calling me
To a home you know I’ve been needing

I’m a broken stone
So lay me in the house you’re building

You are a shelter for every misfit soul
We are the four walls and you’re the cornerstone
You are and You’re the solid rock that we are built upon
~ Audrey Assad, The House You’re Building

 

In my Father’s house are many rooms.
If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
~ John 14:2-3

Be Busy but Don’t Hurry; Live Fully but Don’t Be Afraid to Die

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Rounding the corner, a long line of brake lights came into view. My already rapidly beating heart flew into my throat.

My first reaction was to look at the gas gauge. Dead on Empty. Dropping every minute. Next I looked at the clock. 4 minutes to get to work on time. Hope was fading fast.

I had no idea which would run out first, gas or time. Either way, I wasn’t gaining either by sitting here dead still in traffic. I wish I could say I prayed, but I was too concerned with my pounding heart-rate and racing thoughts.

With a sputtering engine and a handful of seconds, I fell out of the car and dashed into the coffee shop. Only to find out I was never scheduled to work in the first place.

If I was a few decades older, I’m sure I would have had a heart attack on the spot. I immediately felt relieved, stunned and foolish all at the same time. All that hurry and stress and now what did it matter? I filled up the tank with gas and took the long route home, all the way reevaluating my priorities (or lack thereof) with how I spend my time.

Always in a hurry, running between appointments and schedules and meetings. Balancing work with school with church activities. Packing lunch to eat on the road. Digging through piles of clothes for your sweatshirt because whohastimetohangandfoldthingsanyway?

It’s highly doubtful I need to explain to you what busy feels like. In a nutshell: sore feet, wet hair, and wrinkled clothes. That’s what busy feels like.

And what is the point of it all? Going nonstop lately, doing many things and yet none of them very well. I’m not proud = that I submit online assignments minutes before they are due (although that 11:58 submission was pretty impressive). When I got lost trying to follow chicken-scratch directions hastily copied onto a paper towel, my mom told me I had to stop living on the edge and learn how to read a map. If I could find one…

It’s times like these I need an Christ-intervention like Martha had: “”Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42)

Like Martha, I am easily distracted by things that in the light of eternity do not truly matter. I like to be busy. And to be busy is good. But is there a purpose in my busyness? For whose kingdom am I expending my energy? Like Martha, above plans and deadlines and obligations, there is one greatest possession that should be the driving force of what I daily do: the greatest possession is close fellowship with the Lord as my portion in life.

To love this life, but not be too attached to it is one of the greatest struggles. We can’t see, plan, or fathom eternity so we build our “secure” earthly homes, accumulating and tying ourselves to material tangibles as if they will create identity and purpose.

We long for heaven and the peace promised there from all our earthy cares and labors.  But do we want to get there and feel that there was more work for Christ we could have done? Or that we wasted the time we did chasing after the wind? The challenge we have before us is to live fully, with the goal of heaven and fellowship with Christ always in our view. Seeing the finish line before us, running as hard and focused as we can, determined to hold nothing back.

I think of all great heroes of the faith who lived to the utmost because they were mindful of short time on earth:

Jim Elliot’s passion was the unreached people of the world and his purpose throughout college was to study the Bible so he could bring it where it had never been. In 1956, he and four other missionaries were killed bearing the gospel to the Auca tribe in Ecuador:

“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, LORD Jesus.”

David Brainerd spent his youth as a missionary to the American Indians in the 18th century until he died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine.

“ I love to live on the brink of eternity…Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God’s glory!”

As a college student, Betty Scott Stam met her husband John at a meeting for the China Inland Mission. Only a few years later, twenty-eight years old and the mother of a three-month old, Betty was captured by the Chinese Communist and sentenced to death.

“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.”

Were these wasted lives? No, they were lives determined to give all for what truly matters – knowing Christ and making Him known. They looked carefully how they walked, redeeming their time because their time was short. Busy, not but foolishly hurried. Living fully, but not afraid to die.

Lord, teach me Your way.

In the Midst of Enemies

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“Our hearts always like to stay among friends, among those who are upright and honorable. But Jesus Christ was in the midst of enemies, and that’s precisely where he wanted to be. And that’s where we should be too.

This distinguishes us from all other sects and religions, where the pious want to stay among themselves. Christ, however wants us to be in the midst of our enemies, as he was. In the midst of his enemies, he died the death of God’s love and prayed: ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’ (Luke 23:34).

Christ wants to win his victory among enemies. Therefore, do not withdraw; do not separate yourselves, but think good things about everyone. Live peaceably with all, ‘so far as it depends on you’ (Romans 12:18)”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer ~

It’s a New Year to Know a Faithful God

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(picture source)

Favour us this year with such a sense of Thy preciousness,
that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in Thee.

Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

- Charles H. Spurgeon

His mercies are new.

New every year. New every day. New every hour.

Great is His faithfulness.

(picture source)

Most Precious Desire

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Lord, You are
     more precious than silver;

Lord, You are
     more costly than gold;

Lord, You are
      more beautiful than diamonds;

And nothing I desire compares with You.

“If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it
to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul.
What God gives us is not necessarily “ours”
but only ours to offer back to him,
ours to relinguish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves.

“The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have,
nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else,
would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life,
the greater peace.”

~ Elisabeth Elliot

Glorify Your Name through me

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A reminder to fix my eyes heavenward as I walk this earthly life.

Thou are worthy to be praised
with my every breath, loved with my every faculty of soul,
served with my every act of life.
Thou hast loved me, espoused me, received me, purchased, washed, favored, clothed,
adorned me,
when I was a worthless, vile soiled, polluted
~ “Regeneration” prayer from Valley of Vision

The Goal of Friendship

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Holy Father, protect them; so that they may be one as we are one.

– John 17:11

“Jesus wants his followers to be one in the same intimate, sweet way that he and the Father experience oneness. Think of the immense satisfaction and gladness the Father and Son experience in each other. Think of their agreement and delight, how each rejoices in pleasing the other. Jesus always deferred to the Father, always pointed to him, and lifted him up. They have the same mind and share the same heart about absolutely everything. Now ponder this: we are destined to enjoy this same intimacy with one another.

The best of friendships are only embryonic on earth, snatching only a few short years to mature. There’s never enough time. Words can never convey the overflow of our hearts. I experienced this bittersweet sadness with intimate friends. I love them so much that I want to pass through them, to know them fully, and be one with them. Not to possess, but to meld with them. I can’t on earth. I am on the outside of their heart’s door, always wanting to get closer, even while relishing in their company. My longings are eased knowing that in heaven I will “get in.” In heaven we shall experience the oneness which God intended all along.”

~ Joni Eareckson Tada’s Daily Devotional