And the Lord Shut Him In

Guest post written by our priceless daughter:

“And the Lord shut him in.” Why? Wasn’t that cruel? Isn’t it unfeeling in the life of a Christian when the Lord shuts him or her in? Shuts them by circumstances, into an ark, where there is less light than the outdoors; close quarters; stifled air—all of which cramps their style. Isn’t it unloving when He constructs a wall around them, and the only way to survive and not go mad is to trust Him who orchestrated every event to shut them in thus? Christian, trust the hand that worked this. Trust the wise Creator who knows your frame. He made you—He knows you as no one else—He knows your frame—He knows what you can take—He knows the troubles that storm and breach the gates of your heart—He is not unfeeling. Trust Him who loves you and rest—He knows. Joy in that, glory in that. The God of the universe is all wise and all powerful. He plans for His glory, and part of His glory is the good of His children, of which you are one. Not one thing can come in between you and Him except your sin. If that is confessed, you stand white before him. Think of THAT! White, and sinless—holy, before a holy God. The child of the King of ages, brother to the Ruler of the skies. And He is planning your life. Can you not trust Him with it? Is He some toddler who might drop and break you or it? Is He not the most careful, tender, loving One imaginable? Why can you not rest in this? Outside your ark is a storm. The winds are raging, the rain is beating, the world is flooding. Here are you, safe, inside this ark of His protection. And you want to go out and swim? Love the interior of this ark like a beautiful mansion. Adorn it with the treasures you will find if you delight in Him. Open your eyes to the potential of the planks and shelves. During your stay, determine that this will not be a dark hovel, but a light and airy castle, strong through His strength, glorious through His glory, warm in His warmth, glowing with His radiance. Remember that heaven awaits, where you will meet Him, and be able to praise him as you ought, for you will see Him as He is. Long for that day, when you will see Him face to face—that King of all time who now commands your heart and mind and soul and intellect. When the loneliness begets tears, run to Him, hide in Him, not weepingly, but showing Him the raw spot, holding it out to be touched and soothed. Cry to Him. He will not laugh—He knows.

she's walking a 500 year old wall in a tiny fishing village on the North Sea, Scotland

If indeed I think I've tried...

If indeed I strive to be Christlike?-- if I link my lot with Paul in Philippians 2 and say “if there is any consolation in Christ and any comfort of love”, if I desire any companionship or “fellowship of the Spirit”, if I live in and practice and receive “any affection and mercy”-- then I have to pay attention to, live by, practice using in an energetic daily way, the ingredients of which this is made(better to try leaving the flour out of a cake):

--being likeminded

--having the same love

--being of one accord, of one mind

--doing nothing through selfish ambition or conceit

--in lowliness of mind esteeming others better than me

--in looking out for others’ interest in addition to and above my own

Puritan Richard Sibbes puts it most soberingly: “We are weak but we are His; we are deformed but yet bear His image…Christ finds matter of love from that which is His own in us…considering this gracious nature in Christ, let us think with ourselves thus: When he is so kind to us, shall we be cruel against Him in his name, in his truth, in His children?...unless you will disclaim all consolation in Christ labor to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  What a joyful spectacle this is to Satan and His faction, to see those that are separated from the world fall into pieces among themselves.  Our discord is the enemy’s melody.”

““For thirty years I have tried to see the face of Christ in those with whom I differed,” [said Bishop Whipple, “Apostle of the Indians” in Minnesota].  When this spirit actuates us we shall be preserved at once from a narrow bigotry and an easy-going tolerance, from passionate vindictiveness and everything that would mar or injure our testimony for Him who came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”  --Griffith Thomas

I don’t need to look far before I discover in myself words that have been spoken, thoughts that have been uttered in silence, which war against this principle.  Alas, it is not just a principle but persons.  Curious that I find it easy enough to set aside this reality and walk on, not realizing the violence I have done to “consolation.… comfort… fellowship…affection…mercy”. 

Isle of Iona, Scotland

Another Kingdom and Another Master

On consistent, expectant child-training—quietness, no-whining zones, working with joy and diligence from a young age, manners…

“Does this training seem hard on the child, impossible for the mother?  I don’t think it is.  The earlier the parents begin to make the laws of order and beauty and quietness comprehensible to their children, the sooner they will acquire good, strong notions of what is so basic to real godliness: self-denial.  A Christian home should be a place of peace, and there can be no peace where there is no self-denial.

“Christian parents are seeking to fit their children for their inheritance in Christ.  A sense of the presence of God in the home is instilled by the simple way He is spoken of…

“The task of parents is to show by love and by the way they live that they belong to another Kingdom and another Master, and thus to turn their children’s thoughts toward that Kingdom and that Master.  The “raw” material with which they begin is thoroughly selfish.  They must gently lay the yoke of respect and consideration for others on those little children, for it is their earnest desire to make of them good and faithful servants…”

While we must not forget that all of this, from beginning to end, is of grace and of the Holy Spirit, I’d forgotten how much I appreciated the “older-woman” advice that Elisabeth Elliot offers in her writings, and how significant it has been in our home.  Her book Keep A Quiet Heart is a treasure, and the “daily thought” transcripts of her old radio programs are found on Back to the Bible’s website under Bible Studies and Devotions.  Priceless!

Grace and Glory Meet

"The Lord will give grace and glory"  Psalm 84:11

“Grace is what we need just now, and it is to be had freely.  What can be freer than a gift?  Today we shall receive sustaining, strengthening, sanctifying, satisfying grace.  He has given daily grace until now, and as for the future, that grace is still sufficient.  If we have but little grace, the fault must lie in ourselves; for the Lord is not straitened, neither is he slow to bestow it in abundance.  We may ask for as much as we will and never fear a refusal.  He giveth liberally and upbraideth not.

The Lord may not give gold, but he will give grace; he may not give gain, but he will give grace.  He will certainly send us trial, but He will give grace in proportion thereto.  We may be called to labor and to suffer, but with the call there will come all the grace required.

What an AND is that in the text—‘and glory’!  We do not need glory yet, and we are not yet fit for it; but we shall have it in due order.  After we have eaten the bread of grace, we shall drink the wine of glory.  We must go through the holy – which is grace, to the holiest of all—which is glory.  These words ‘and glory’ are enough to make a man dance for joy.  A little while—a little while, and then glory forever!"

--Spurgeon

Yes, it is always more grace that we need, even when we would name our need(s) by a thousand other names to satisfy the longings of our hearts.  For God has seen it fitting that we have the very “needs” that lie closest to us.  Do we realize that grace is the name for the very filling up of Christ in us that would satisfy and cause us to be “full”—of joy, love, and hope?

The glory part intrigues me.  CS Lewis, in Perelandra, describes Ransom’s panic at seeing an eldil:  I felt sure that the creature was what we call “good”, but I wasn’t sure whether I liked “goodness” so much as I supposed…how if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat, and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable?  Then indeed there is no rescue possible; the last card has been played…here at last was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which I had always supposed that I loved and desired, breaking through and appearing to my senses: and I didn’t like it, I wanted it to go away.  I wanted every possible distance, curtain, blanket, and barrier to be placed between it and me.” 

Thomas Howard’s comment on this:  “It’s glory that we want eventually, and glory is the very thing we can’t tolerate.  The eldil, so utterly pure, is, alas, a herald from the realm of intolerable purity…”  I would add a thought:  It’s grace we want (need), now, and grace is the very thing we can’t tolerate. 

The Greeks sought glory in immortalizing their name through great feats of valor, art  or accomplishment.  We shun the idea of seeking glory because Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount seem to forbid it.  Yet in a strange way we are hardwired for glory – which is why the sacrifice of a humble heart, forgoing glory in this world to share in His sufferings, is precious to Him.  “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…” II Cor 4:17  “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”  I Peter 4:14  Seeking His glory becomes our glory. “Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” I Peter 4:13.  We don’t need to make a name for ourselves, accomplish noteworthy things.  We exalt His Name instead, perhaps in the humble and quiet places of surrender. 

The warm way he’d talked cutsie with the girl in pink and pigtails, I figured he loved children.  “Do you have any of your own?” I asked the grocery clerk with the plugs in his ears.  Well, that was a shocking question and he couldn’t exclaim vehemently enough that no way was he having any, he was a musician and he was making his way and he wasn’t going to let anything interfere and this was his time to emerge and maybe someday but he had plenty of time for that seeing he was only 24.  He did, however, think it was ultracool that I lived next door to the guy who started Death Cab for Cutie way back when his mother wasn’t sure he’d ever make anything of himself because his music practice was so outside the box that his piano teacher about went mad over his free form improvisation.

Let’s face it, our culture does not embrace the beauty and wonder of its children.  Maybe collectively, corporately, disdains, moreso than the individual adorable girl in pink and pigtails, but nonetheless, we ought to recognize it for what it is.  Why should a mother of five, or eight, or fourteen, feel like she has too many children?  Too many arrows in the hands of  a warrior?   Too many olive branches around the table?  Too many to whom belong the kingdom of heaven?  Too many beautiful fruit?  What about the biblical language of the blessings of children do we not understand, within our churches today?  To know the individual personalities of each soul, to delight in their God-given quirks and humor and high calling, is to begin to be thinking God’s thoughts after Him.  For He “rejoices over us with gladness…and singing” (Zeph. 3).  Should we do any less with the precious ones entrusted to our care for a few fleeting years?  And what pleasure do we deny ourselves to fail to delight in what He delights in?  “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,”  says the Lord…”For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace.”  Isaiah 55:8, 12

Elisabeth Elliott speaks to the drudgery of the early child-rearing years (yes, it is a lot of work):

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:29).  He is willing to bear our burdens with us, if only we will come to Him and share the yoke, His yoke...

“Everything [in a busy family-she was describing a chaotic Sunday morning rush] is the King’s Business, which He looks on in loving sympathy and understanding, for, as Baron VonHugel said, “The chain of cause and effect which makes up human life, is bisected at every point by a vertical line relating us and all we do to God.”  This is what He has given us to do, this task here on this earth, not the task we aspired to do but this one.  The absurdities involved cut us down to size.  The great discrepancy between what we envisioned and what we’ve got force us to be real.  And God is our great Reality, more real than the realest of earthly conditions, an unchanging Reality.  It is His providence that has put us where we are.  It’s where we belong.  It is for us to receive it – all of it—humbly, quietly, thankfully.

Sunday morning, the Lord’s Day [or Monday to Friday in the routine], can be the very time when everything seems so utterly unrelated to the world of the Spirit that it is simply ridiculous.  Yet to the Lord’s lovers it is only a seeming.  Everything is an affair of the spirit.  Everything, to one who loves God and longs with a sometimes desperate longing for a draught of Living Water, a single touch of His hand, a quiet word—everything, I say, can be seen in His perspective.

Does He watch? Yes, “Thou God seest me” (Gen 16:3).  Is His love surrounding us? “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).  “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb 13:5).  May I offer to Him my feeling of the dislocation between reality and my ideals, that great chasm which separates the person I long to be, the work I long to do for Him, the family I struggle to perfect for His glory—from the actuality?  I may indeed, for it is God Himself who stirs my heart to desire, and he can easily see across the chasm.  He enfolds all of it, He is at work in me and in those I pray for, “to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).  I may take heart, send up an instant look of gratitude, and—well, get that beloved flock into the van and head down the freeway singing!”  

--from Keep A Quiet Heart

Every trouble is an opportunity to win the grace of strength.  Whatever else trouble is in the world for, it is here for this good purpose: to develop strength.  For a trouble is a moral and spiritual task.  It is something which is hard to do.  And it is in the spiritual world as in the physical, strength is increased by encounter with the difficult.  A world without any trouble in it would be, to people of our kind, a place of spiritual enervation and moral laziness.  Fortunately, every day is crowded with care.  Every day to every one of us brings its questions, its worries, and its tasks, brings its sufficiency of trouble.  Thus we get our daily spiritual exercise.  Every day we are blessed with new opportunities for the development of strength of soul.  –George Hodges

And from where comes our ability to grow in strength and in the power of the Spirit?  For how often I feel the lack of strength, of endurance, of fortitude.

An hour at the foot of the Cross steadies the soul as nothing else can.  --L Cowman

For Calvary interprets human life;

No path of pain but there we meet our Lord; 

and all the strain, the terror and the strife

Die down like waves before His peaceful word,

And nowhere but beside the awful Cross,

And where the olives grow along the hill,

Can we accept the unexplained, the loss,

The crushing agony, and hold us still.”

--Amy Carmichael

(written Tues 6^th March)

So intently was I watching the almost-full moon rise from snowy mountains through lavender sky that I almost rear-ended the car in front of me.  That same moon just came from Iraq, rising and waning for the first time above the grave of modern-day martyr Jeremiah Small.  He died living faithfully for Christ amongst his Muslim students, loving them and pointing them to Love even as he gave them the gift of an amazing education.

I started reading Martyr of the Catacombs before his death and finished it today, just hours after Jeremiah’s parents met with the family of the young man who shot him to offer public forgiveness-- and after they buried their son.  His students loved him; what a profound impact this is having in their lives.  May the gospel go forth with power and love as a result of this moment.  We worshipped Sunday in two churches where he was well-known and beloved, and amidst the grief the hope, joy, and exquisite offering of praise to God was moving beyond description.

The following quote from Martyr, while long, is worth reading and pondering:

“Theirs was that heavenly hope, the anchor of the soul, so strong and so secure that the storm of an empire’s wrath failed to drive them from the Rock of Ages where they were sheltered.

Theirs was that lofty faith which upheld them through the sorest trials.  The glorified Man at God’s right hand was the object of their faith and hope.  Faith in him was everything.  It was the very breath of life; so true that it upheld them in the hour of cruel sacrifices; so lasting that even when it seemed that all the followers of Christ had vanished from the earth, they could still look up trustfully and wait for Him.

Theirs was that love which Christ when on earth defined as compromising all the law and the prophets.  Sectarian strife, denominational bitterness were unknown.  They had a great general foe to fight; how could they quarrel with one another? Here arose love to man which knew no distinction of race or class, but embraced all in its immense circumference, so that one could lay down his life for his brother; here the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, stopped not at the sacrifice of life itself.  The persecutions which raged around them strengthened in them all that zeal, faith and love which glowed so brightly amid the darkness of the age.  It confined their numbers to the true and the sincere.  It was the antidote to hypocrisy.  It gave to the brave the most daring heroism, and inspired the fainthearted with the courage of devotion.  They lived in a time when to be a Christian was to risk one’s life.  They did not shrink, but boldly proclaimed their faith and accepted the consequences.  They drew a broad line between themselves and the world, and stood manfully on their own side.  To utter a few words, to perform a simple act, could often save from death; but the tongue refused to speak the idolatrous formula, and the stubborn hand refused to pour out the libation. 

The vital doctrines of Christianity met from them far more than a mere intellectual response.  Christ Himself was not to them an idea, a thought, but a real personal existence.  The life of Jesus upon earth was to them a living truth.  They accepted it as a proper example for every man.  His gentleness, humility, patience and meekness they believed were offered for imitation; nor did they ever separate the ideal Christian from the real.  They thought that a man’s faith consisted as much in the life as in the sentiment, and had not learned to separate experimental from practical Christianity. 

To them the death of Christ was a great event to which all others were but secondary.  That He died in very deed, and for the sons of men, none could understand better than they.  That He is risen and glorified at God’s right hand, all power given to Him in heaven and on earth, was to them divine reality.  Among their own brethren they could think of many a one who had hung upon the cross for his brethren or died at the stake for his God.  They took up the cross and followed Christ, bearing His reproach.  That cross and that reproach were not figurative.  Witness these gloomy labyrinths, fit home for the dead only, which nevertheless for years opened to shelter the living.  Witness these names of martyrs, these words of triumph…”