On Where to Hide

“…how someone moves from thousands of restless thoughts and reasonings to an oasis of rest and refreshment where he is totally restored so that he can carry on.  The restoration lies not so much in solutions (which is just as well as it is likely that many of our questions will remain unanswered) as it is brought forth by being with God.  It is as the Psalmist says:  ‘…your love, O Lord, supported me’ Ps 94:18.

“It is actually amazing that when we go to the Lord with the thoughts and questions that occupy us, he is not out so much to satisfy our minds as he is to comfort our hearts.  In doing that the Lord touches the core of our problem, for our anxiety goes much deeper than mind level…it is that deep that God wants to reach into man,  pouring out His peace which transcends understanding.  He does that in the hiding place, in a private an intimate encounter on a one to one basis.  There, in the inner room, we will find that our questions can be overshadowed by the comfort and solace that the Lord gives in our heart or soul.”   Eleonore Van Haften, A Refuge For My Heart

“Let God cover thy wounds,” said Augustine, “do not thou.  For if thou wish to cover them being ashamed, the Physician will not come.  Let Him cover; for by the covering of the Physician the wound is healed; by the covering of the wounded man the wound is concealed.  And from Whom?  From Him who knoweth all things.”


Remember Luther on his sick bed.  Between his groans he managed to preach on this wise: “these pains and troubles here are like the type which the printer set; as they look now, we have to read them backwards, and they seem to have no sense or meaning in them; but up yonder, when the Lord God prints us off in the life to come, we shall find that they make brave reading."

“Stoical apathy and Christian patience are very different; by the one, men become in some measure, insensible of their afflictions; but by the other they become triumphant in and over them.  Let us take care in times of trial that patience and not passion, be set at work in us; whatever is said or done, let patience have the saying and doing of it: let us not allow the indulging of our passions to hinder the operation and noble effects of patience; let us give it leave to work, and it will work wonders in a time of trouble.  We must let it have its perfect work.  Do nothing to limit it nor to weaken it: but let it have its full scope: if one affliction come upon the heels of another, and a train of them are drawn upon us, yet let patience go on till its work is perfected.  When we bear all that God appoints, and as long as He appoints, and with a humble obedient eye to him, and when we not only bear troubles, but rejoice in them, then patience hath its perfect work.”  --Matthew Henry, Commentary on James 

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  Isaiah 41:10

If I say, ‘My foot slips,’ Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.  In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.  Psalm 94:18-19

Being sick on a school day still means you can study; it just means you are in a different position while learning about the Emperors and the Fall of Rome.

And then there are those who find it more productive to creatively expand their classroom choices--like, say, in front of a roaring campfire in February:

Never let it bother you if night falls--

--and burn the tinder Christmas tree while you're at it--it makes a nice conflagration.


All in a home school day.

Bright Mirrors and Mysteries

She, my daughter,  mentioned during her devotions this morning that  she was struck by the reality of mirrors – when something is reflected as in a mirror, it is not the mirror that gains the attention, nor that is of any importance at all except insofar as it reflects.  It is that which it reflects which gives the mirror its value, significance.  The analogy was, of course, that as we truly reflect Christ, it is not us that is seen, as the mirror, but Christ.  “He must increase, I must decrease.” 

This week in our lectures Geo. Grant said, “The greatest leaders are those who are obscured from our vision by that which they build.” 

Best of all:

You may be very discontented with yourself. You are no genius, have no brilliant gifts, and are inconspicuous for any special faculty. Mediocrity is the law of your existence. Your days are remarkable for nothing but sameness and insipidity. Yet you may live a great life.

John did no miracle, but Jesus said that among those born of women there had not appeared a greater than he.

John's main business was to bear witness to the Light, and this may be yours and mine. John was content to be only a voice, if men would think of Christ.

Be willing to be only a voice, heard but not seen; a mirror whose surface is lost to view, because it reflects the dazzling glory of the sun; a breeze that springs up just before daylight, and says, "The dawn! the dawn!" and then dies away.

Do the commonest and smallest things as beneath His eye. If you must live with uncongenial people, set to their conquest by love. If you have made a great mistake in your life, do not let it becloud all of it; but, locking the secret in your breast, compel it to yield strength and sweetness.

We are doing more good than we know, sowing seeds, starting streamlets, giving men true thoughts of Christ, to which they will refer one day as the first things that started them thinking of Him; and, of my part, I shall be satisfied if no great mausoleum is raised over my grave, but that simple souls shall gather there when I am gone, and say,

"He was a good man; he wrought no miracles, but he spake words about Christ, which led me to know Him for myself." --George Matheson

And then the mystery - Who is this Christ that we desire to mirror?  He was the one who, in ancient times, the Israelites had created an image of in their minds – a King who would come to conquer Rome and establish a mighty kingdom here.  But He did not.  And we cannot be more than our reflected Christ.
 

“He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows…as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised…” Isaiah 53;  this was the humiliation and the suffering that was required of the Lord when God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. They didn’t applaud His sacrifice for them, they didn’t weep for the love He was showing them; his enemies mocked Him and His friends stood by in benumbed confusion.  No one understood, no one appreciated what He was doing and why.  He was crushed for our iniquities and , because He was, he made untold multitudes of people…to be accounted righteous before God…Did He bear your sins?  Did He suffer for your iniquities?  Are you sure that your sins, your own sins, put some of His stripes there?  When you know that to be true, your sins will be forgiven and you will be clean!” (R. Rayburn,  sermon 4-17-11).

Clean, overwhelmed with gratitude for our sacrificial Christ, --and-- a bright mirror.

I’ve spent a long time pondering this idea of memorizing the Sermon on the Mount.  Already wanting to memorize some other passages, it didn’t, at first, seem anything like a priority.  Then it occurred to me that if my deepest desire is to become more like Christ, then spending a lot of my time with His Words and grafting them into my thinking might be a way to think more like Him.  We do become like those we spend a lot of time with.  Yes, in a way, all of Scripture is God’s Word.  But Jesus’ words in particular are those thoughts He found important enough to speak to His friends while He walked, incarnate, on this earth.

One of my daughters mentioned that she finds it easier to memorize Scripture if she reads over it several times before she goes to sleep.  My other daughter mentioned how much speaking it aloud helps her.  I’m taking all hints, since for years I’ve struggled with getting back into a habit of memorizing.  We’re working each on our own verses and then we say them to each other on Saturday mornings, often while taking a few minutes to discuss what especially has touched us in our Bible reading during the week.  Profoundly meaningful family time!

So, I’m in.  I’m taking the challenge to learn the Sermon on the Mount, and I am excited to see what the Lord will do as I graft His Words, while on this earth, into my heart and mind during this very earthy pilgrimage I’m traveling.

To step out of self-life into Christ –life; to lie still, and let Him lift you out of it; to fold your hands close, and guide your face on the hem of His garment; to let Him lay His cooling, soothing healing hands upon your soul, and draw all the hurry and fever from its veins; to realize that you are not a mighty messenger, an important worker of His, full of care and responsibility, but only a little child, with a father’s gentle bidding to heed and fulfill; to lay your busy plans and ambitions confidently in His hands, as a child brings its broken toys at its mother’s call; to serve Him by waiting; to praise Him by saying, Holy, Holy, Holy”; to cease to hurry, so you may not lose sight of His face; to learn to follow Him, and not to run ahead of orders! To cease to live in self and for self, and to live in Him and for Him; to love His honor more than your own; to be a clear medium for his life-tide to shine and glow through.  This is consecration, this is rest.  –Lettie Cowman, from Springs in the Valley

Painting Obedience

“Obedience is what demonstrates our knowledge and love of God”, said the good man in the pulpit.   We’re studying in I John.  “He who says He knows Him but doesn’t obey Him is lying”.  “Ignoring, dismissing a need for obedience in our life makes thinking we are a Christian an illusion—Jesus says, “Not everyone who says Lord, Lord, but only those who do the will of my father, will enter the kingdom of heaven.””  Also 1John 5:2-3, although he’s not there yet in the preaching: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.”

I’m thinking back on what’s learned in the earliest years.  Habits of the heart, channels of learned childish confidence in what is acceptable and permissible.  We, as parents, form those habits, those channels, in our children’s consciousness, conscience, every day.  They’ll believe us; whatever we approve either implicitly or explicitly will be what they accept as living a life of obedience.  We are writing the definition, we are painting the picture, we are showing the snapshot of reality.  Is our definition of obedience true? 

Does our painting of obedience include first time, cheerfully given, immediate, and complete?  Or is their reality being imprinted on their minds forged by their determining – even if ever so slightly – the boundaries of obedience for themselves?  A slight delay—a lapse of memory—a roll of the eyes or stiffening of the neck almost imperceptibly, but artfully rendered?  A completing of the task according to their specifications rather than yours but you think it’s, well, good enough for now and besides the brain damage required to gain that extra 5% obedience is really too much for right this minute.  And they learn that full obedience is dependent on their alterations, additions, omissions. They’ve learned they can write their own definition. The most adroit ones turn it into a laughing moment for everyone and you only realize later you’ve been snookered into accepting less than obedience, even if it was rendered in a British accent.

What if we realized the truth – that we are laying their seedbed for the habits and the channels of simple submission in which they will approach God with a sacrifice of obedience from a true heart, or of an “acceptable variance” --something radically different from obedience which is the only definition they’ve ever learned.  They are organically learning the deepest heart responses to be transferred from us as parents directly to responses to God as they come of age.

“Our error is to think that by our own strength we can obey Him; for even our righteous acts are filthy rags”, the man in the pulpit continued.  Or the other ditch “is that we don’t have to worry at all, it’s all about Christ”; and we can sit back, relax, no worries, mate.

What if we painted an accurate picture of their position before Christ as sinful and in need of the power of His cross and resurrection: dependent on Him for daily bread, as it were?  Getting their definitions right, seeing the painting, imbibing the reality of biblical obedience, won’t save them.  A dog can learn great tricks.  But perhaps, maybe, it will make their reflexive daily moments a little easier to recognize truth instead of error, real obedience instead of the counterfeit, and act on it in a heartbeat.  Easier for us to walk in obedience when life gets adult-hard.  For the rest of 1John 5:3 reads “and His commandments are not burdensome.”

--taken from Streams in the Desert, Feb 17

"God here speaks in the immediate present. It is not something He is going to do, but something He does do, this moment. So faith ever speaks. So God ever gives. So He is meeting you today, in the present moment. This is the test of faith. So long as you are waiting for a thing, hoping for it, looking for it, you are not believing. It may be hope, it may be earnest desire, but it is not faith; for "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The command in regard to believing prayer is the present tense. "When ye pray, believe that ye receive the things that ye desire, and ye shall have them." Have we come to that moment? Have we met God in His everlasting NOW

 --Joshua, by Simpson

True faith counts on God, and believes before it sees. Naturally, we want some evidence that our petition is granted before we believe; but when we walk by faith we need no other evidence than God's Word. He has spoken, and according to our faith it shall be done unto us. We shall see because we have believed, and this faith sustains us in the most trying places, when everything around us seems to contradict God's Word.

The Psalmist says, "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living" (Ps. 27:13). He did not see as yet the Lord's answer to his prayers, but he believed to see; and this kept him from fainting.

If we have the faith that believes to see, it will keep us from growing discouraged. We shall "laugh at impossibilities," we shall watch with delight to see how God is going to open up a path through the Red Sea when there is no human way out of our difficulty. It is just in such places of severe testing that our faith grows and strengthens.

Have you been waiting upon God, dear troubled one, during long nights and weary days, and have feared that you were forgotten? Nay, lift up your head, and begin to praise Him even now for the deliverance which is on its way to you. 
--Life of Praise"

That which my children teach me

I never knew that to wholly enjoy a snow storm, you must run across the hill in bare feet and launch out on the rope swing into the swirling snowflakes.  Coats are undesirable.

I never knew that it is necessary to stay up till midnight crafting a three room igloo to sleep out in the snow, on fir bough beds.  It may, however, be necessary, if you’re a girl, to come in at 4 or 5 am if the temperature is not low enough and your body heat melted the surrounding snow so that you woke up in a soaked sleeping bag.  If you’re a boy, you are oblivious to this discomfort.

I never knew that a tractor was a necessary component of building snow caves.  You see, if you live in Seattle where 6 inches of snow is a gold mine of white building material, and you are blessed with an inventive mind (and are most likely a man-son), you just clamp a 2x12 into the backhoe, sweep the driveway into a pile, and engage the front loader, burying alive your little sister so she can dig out a dome from the inside, creating a fantastic snow cave.  You might need to alert your sensitive and protective dog, however, so that she doesn’t decipher danger in the proceedings and begin digging out the buried girl, as ours did, almost collapsing the whole enterprise.

I never knew that frozen winter ponds were not just for ducks but for rope pulls and skiing –and spring ponds without any wind for the sails on the boat were for leaf blower-power.

I never knew that new frontiers must be perpetually found and conquered, even if they are just scaling  the ancient maple that loses a limb big as a tree in every storm.  And I never knew it was necessary that a teenage daughter must climb 100+ feet up into the grandpa cedar to view the surrounding kingdoms – or that she would come back down to terra firma in one piece after all.

I never knew that children would be such a magnificent joy, “full of the wine of life… and my most gorgeous adventure” (unknown author, story reprinted by Joe Wheeler) 

Loving through Prayer

I can’t name the number of times the love of God has come to me through the heart of a person in my life—through their actions, prayers, notes, emails.  Recently the power of someone praying for me (two, in fact) transformed a situation in my life that had been lingering.  It was beautiful to feel lifted up before the Throne, and to see how quickly God answered!  Oh, we must love those we love by praying for them; by not losing heart, or thinking our prayers do not ascend the ceiling, but remembering those dear to us in our prayers, and praying specifically for them so that we can be joyful when we see how God has answered! So often it is a matter of neglecting for a brief moment the crushing cry of the critical needs of the morning and counting prayer as more urgent!  Let us love one another in this way.  In 1 John, the love we actively show for one another is intertwined with abiding in God, and significantly, Him abiding in us, and with loving God.  If His Spirit is in us, we are giving from that storehouse when we minister to one another.

“If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.  By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” I John 4:12-13

The mysterious thing is that the first half of verse 12 is “No one has seen God at any time.”  Is the implication that we “see God”, know God’s love, in the love of one another?

“Above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.”  I Peter 4:8

“The common quest or vision which unites Friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another.  On the contrary it is the very medium in which their mutual love and knowledge exist. One knows nobody so well as one’s “fellow”.  Every step of the common journey tests his metal; and the tests are tests we fully understand because we are undergoing them ourselves.  Hence, as he rings true time after time, our reliance, our respect, and our admiration blossom into an Appreciative Love of a singularly robust and well-informed kind. If, at the outset, we had attended more to him [her] and less to the thing our Friendship is “about”, we should not have come to know or love him so well.  You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress; better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.”  --CS Lewis

“The nomad spirit of modernity has dashed the integrity of community  - but not the deep need for it.”  --Harold Beekser