Pure Gold, God's Plans For Us

“…anything partly made of wonder…and partly of brightness…became for me a synonym for the plans of God; so that when I lately read of how gold, that closely compacted metal, becomes transparent (“pure gold like unto clear glass”), it was like seeing a light fall on something that had long lain in a dim corner of one’s room.

"For the plans of God for our lives, laid one on the other like the cubic crystals of gold that make up the texture of gold leaf, do often become clear as we go on.  We look, and are astonished as we see how all the way by which He has led us, every lesson He has caused us to learn, all the spiritual discipline of the years, converge upon a single point, now at last perceived.  We understand, in art at least, why He has led us so.  His golden thoughts of love toward us, slowly unfolding in His providence, are transparent now, pure gold, as it were transparent glass…questions unanswered today are answered tomorrow, so it is in the things of the heavenlies.  Then shall we know even as we are known…

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him.”.

“We do not attempt to account for [providential circumstances in our lives and others’].  We only know the outskirts of His ways; and how small a whisper do we hear from Him.  As well try to capture the motif of a symphony from a few bars imperfectly heard, or imagine the finished picture after seeing the colors on a palette, of master the argument of the book of Job after reading only a few paragraphs, as presume to imagine that we who see only a fragment of the thought of God can understand the whole or interpret it to another.  But we shall not be disappointed when we are told the secret of the mysteries of this present…

“The enemy will contest our confidence at every point; he will remind us of the human cause of our trouble.  But faith looks above the human…desperate things can happen---things that are in every way wrong---but faith overlooks the earthly.  Faith sees God….faith worketh by love.

“We have no doubt about tomorrow; there is always something in the thought of our Father that is more profound and more beautiful than anything we can imagine.”

--these treasures, which stand so rich with no commentary, come from Gold by Moonlight, Amy Carmichael

--the view toward the desert

--standing in the same place, looking toward the refreshing oasis.  Amazingly cool under the palms.