By My Side the King is Walking

I LOVED this and I’m eager to share it with you, from In the Secret Place:

The Lord working with them.  Mark 16:20

He had gone away.  The heavens had received Him. He was on the right hand of God.  Yet He was as near His servants and friends as he had ever been.  The Lord worked with them; and they healed the sick, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens, and founded the empire of truth and righteousness and peace.

It is a word for me, when I complain that I cannot encounter wisely and successfully the opposition of the enemy, or rouse the careless from their apathetic sleep, or take the young and faltering by the hand and lead them on.  It ought to banish my accidie (a state of listlessness or torpor; depression, distraction or despair leading to spiritual paralysis.)

The Lord works with  me, to associate His interests with mine.  They are His tasks on which I am engaged.  It is His cause which, with many frailties and many mistakes, I am seeking to advance.  He knows it, and my prayers and efforts are dear to Him.  He identifies Himself with them.  He attains His mighty and eternal purpose through them.  He and I are on one pilgrimage towards one end.  My Master cannot dispense with me.

The Lord works with me, to teach me His temper and mind as I prosecute His enterprises.  It is hard to be long-suffering with the adversaries, Hard to be loving and patient with the backward and heedless, hard to be brave when my own heart faints and fails.  But I turn to Him who is never so far off as even to be near.   I have a fresh glimpse of His illimitable compassion,  His persevering tenderness, the fire of His zeal.  And I embrace my task again, and lift my cross, in something of His spirit.

The Lord works for me, and success is sure.  My failure would be His failure, and He cannot desert the soldier who is engaged in His crusade; He must see that ultimately I prevail.  My arm may be feeble but He will nerve it to strike the strenuous and decisive blow.  My feet may tire quickly, but He will make my shoes iron and brass for the roughness of the road and the delays of the campaign.  My speech may be slow and stammering; but He will be my mouth and wisdom.  They always win with whom God sides. 

When William Burns died the Chinese converts round his bed looked for his property, that they might gather it together.  They found a Chinese and English Bible, a worn and much-used writing case, a lantern, a single Christian dress, and a blue flag of his gospel boat.  That was everything which the burning-hearted missionary owned.  “He must have been very poor”, a child whispered in the stillness of the room.  He was very poor; but he made many very rich: for his Lord kept company with him, and he led multitudes into the way of peace, and the pleasure of Jesus Christ prospered in his hands.  Can I ask a life sublime, happier, more opulent, more enduring?

--from Alexander Smellie (pronounced "smiley")

 

Nil desperandum

"I should like to remove the feeling of hopelessness with which some regard the nations….as if their doom was sealed and their populations given over to God to fill up the measure of their wickedness; as if the Gospel and the Bible had come too late…

"The Word of God is not bound; nor has it become feeble like the words of man.  Men may become disheartened and lose their confidence in the Divine record.  But there it stands in its old strength; ready to do battle with all the phases of modern skepticism, as with those of ancient superstition; equally able to cope with the sophistries of infidelity, as with the subtleties of pantheism.  Still, as it has always been, the fire that melts the flint, the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces, the sword that pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.

"Let us do justice to the Book of God, and to the gospel of Christ, in dealing with the chaos, far or near.  With such weapons we may face the evil hopefully.  Nil desperandum. (Despair not at all.)  The word of the Lord is quick and powerful.  We may trust it thoroughly.

--taken from Horatius Bonar, Christ is All

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.  Isaiah 33:6 

*photos taken in Indonesia, July

13 Lessons...#13 Hold Lightly

Well, seeing how it is Friday the 13^th and that I never finished my 13 Lessons Learned in 13 years of Homeschooling last year, perhaps it is a good opportunity to say that this first week of school has been somewhat of a disaster, at least from a coordinated, scheduled, organized and new-textbook shiny point of view.  And yes, I did see that blog post featuring that beautiful little schoolroom with the library nook and everything so tidy and conducive to proper education!

Monday was our first day of school on the calendar. We had gone out of town on the previous weekend, expecting to return by 9  Monday and hit the opening note on a wonderful school year.

The previous Friday’s wee first hours of the morning sealed our fate for the week.  A huge storm swept through following weeks of sunny, gorgeous weather, with thunder and lightning like we’ve not seen out west.  Come Friday dawn we had a few surprises.  Like chasing down two driver's licenses that had been inadvertently left at a meeting the previous night across town.With quite enough already we were just climbing in the car to head out two hours late when we got a call: the mountain pass we were crossing had been closed due to landslides, requiring a longer journey around.  Really, the last straw. Well, without going into details, we had an awesome day anyway arriving 8 hours after planned, and a wonderful weekend.  But Monday morning we found that the second Pass we’d come over on was also closed now.  With more complications than are interesting to you, we found ourselves home at 6 that night.  All day long I kept reminding the kids it was the first day of school after all, but they wouldn’t buy it.  Especially when I looked longingly after the water-skier out on the placid lake and envied; this sealed my fate against being a suitable or effective schoolmarm.  We did, however, listen to Voddie Baucham’s Why All Children are Resistant to Education, which may become an opening staple.

Back to our Friday surprise.  In some bizarre exploit of the storm (another explanation please, someone?), all the windows on my husband’s car opened during the night.  And the sunroof.  Three inches of rain in the cupholders, so one can imagine the state of leather seats and floor. What exactly does one do with this?  We packed the one car while mopping and shop-vac’ing the other; and left it with a heater going inside. 

Which of course blew the breaker and so it and garage appliances were off all weekend.

And the storm also blew the phone and internet box.  So bright and early Tuesday, our second (first?) day of school, the internet and phones are down for two days.  No matter that they have a number of online classes starting in those two days.  Really, we don’t believe in hanging out at coffee shops and friend’s houses to attend class, but ya gotta do…

Did I mention that one of them came down sick all week?  And that my aging mother who lives downstairs had a severe flare-up of health issues, almost landing in the hospital? 

 

Because after that we have to talk about how my husband read that coffee grounds helps get odors out of cars, so he the-man-who-thinks-coffee-solves-all-things had some fresh ground at Costco and spread them all over in his car.  Except that his carpet is a very light tan.  So this morning at 5:45 the girls are wondering why they are hearing the shop-vac going? And ten blackened rags later I’ve got most of the stains removed from the carpet.  Except that the person we’re meeting for PE is calling and wondering why we’re not there yet, and of course I forgot entirely about that part of the morning.

Really, I could go on.  There’s much more.  But the fact is, the two remaining students of the three are excited to be starting, are not daunted by a very heavy school load this year, and have cheerful and interested attitudes about their studies.  So we’re blessed in beginning this journey for the 14^th time.  And all the things that went wrong were still mere accidentals, things that people in other countries deal with daily as a matter of course.  Then we can never forget those suffering greatly across the world in the conflagration of epic national demises, even now on these days that we count petty mishaps.

And about the disastrous week.  And that 13^th Lesson…from Indonesia, where plans changes minute by minute and nothing can be counted upon except that the sun comes up, our son brought home this lesson: that regardless, God is faithful, and that shifting and changing schedules (they missed their planes both going to Singapore and coming from Tokyo), messed-up plans and seeming disasters are all in God’s loving and sovereign care, and that the way He eventually works all things to His glory and our good is far in excess of any story we could ourselves imagine.  We don’t see the intertwined providences that unwind over years and generations.

He wrote out a little presentation he gave at church, and ended with this:  “Throughout the entire trip, the recurring theme was “hold lightly”.  Hold lightly to our plans, to our schedules, to our possessions, to our aspirations, but hold fast to the promise of God that His mercies are new every day.  And when all plans are stripped away and we have nothing left, that He will give us enough strength to make it through that day.  And the next.” 

Well-Skilled in the Mystery

Ah, bliss.  A few moments to myself in a recent evening, watching the sun set on the sunflowers and zinnias, send pink cotton and then recede into dusk.  Half a dozen dragonflies bright blue and neon yellow tagged around the pond and zipped up together into the sky, then one would come and hover six feet in front of me wondering what alien invaded their space.  A frog yelped some unintelligible complaint and scattered into the pond.  Contentment!

Interesting conversation this morning about our upcoming ladies retreat on contentment:  If every lady has different definitions of happiness and yes, of what would make them content, how do we even discuss it meaningfully, as if one-size-fits- all? 

It matters  not who and what.  The soul-filling satisfaction is found in Christ the Person, our Redeemer, Friend, Intercessor...” I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to satisfy me in every condition…”

“To be well-skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory and excellence of a Christian.”

We don’t choose a course of virtue to pursue contentment and then craft the details of our heart.  It is beyond us.  It is a mystery.

Once when she was maybe 2, our youngest waxed artistic on the couch with a ballpoint pen.  When I walked into the room, I did not exhibit a gentle and quiet spirit.  She took one look at me and launched herself practically mid-air into her brother’s lap to escape certain doom.  Not that unlike our response to the looming condemnation of the law apart from resurrection grace.  We launch ourselves into the arms of a Christ who has turned the doom of our inability to beg, borrow or steal true contentment apart from Him into the gift of His transformation of our ugly places, our sin, into His glory.  How can we not exult in such a reality, royal sons and daughters that we now are!

*italicized quotes from Jeremiah Burroughs' Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment