It was a good thing I decided to unpack last night, because I found out my suitcases were somewhat wet inside (the outside had already dried), due to their sitting outside a while in the New York airport. I had to hang some clothes out and throw away some soaked papers. Fortunately some photos I had were wrapped in plastic and were undamaged.
It is wonderfully quiet here. I expect that that will get old after a while, but for now I really like it. I can coast for a while, and think, and regroup (I hate that word! Please help me think of a better one!) You can think in a very fast, alert way when you're maneuvering in big city traffic; but there is another kind of thinking that is just as important, like when you're canoeing down a slow river, and you ignore deadlines, and you see everything beautiful around you, and all the other stuff goes to the back of your mind, and it's still there, but you're not fighting with it or trying to figure it out. It is vain to rise up early (or stay up late) to eat the bread of sorrows. How many sorrows we make for ourselves! Man is born for trouble, as the sparks fly upward. A spark doesn't have much say-so about anything.
But, "Fear not, I have overcome the world."
I like these words, though spoken by ungodly men: "Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." Jonah 1:14
We wouldn't think it very good if one were to say of a man, "He does as he pleases." But it is altogether good for God to do as he pleases.
Job 37:23 "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict."
August 12, 2011
Rain gets things wet
Lamentations 3:33 "For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men."
2 Corinthians 4:17 "For our light affliction, which endureth but a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"
Hebrews 12:11 "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness..."
Hebrew 12:10 "For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness."
Isaiah 12:1 "And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou was angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me."
I suppose it is normal, when in the midst of affliction, to say "Light? Only for a moment? To me it seems terribly heavy, and lasts a long time." It should be a simple matter to just quit struggling and let God be God, and we would find out that "at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore" and "he filleth the hungry with good things." But since he does promise many things, sometimes we put up a struggle using the promises. Isn't that what Jacob did wrestling with the angel?
I ask what I will, and he says "no," so I know that I asked amiss, because the promise is "Ask what ye will and it shall be done." I try to put "Thy will be done" in there, and I know that my will should not differ from his will. My head and also something deep down in my heart knows what is right, but in actual practice it gets really complicated.
Or I pray a long time and there is no answer and I start wondering, what did I do wrong? What does he want from me? Of course I can't expect anything on my own merits, and it's only his right to make me wait, or test my faith, but I wonder why it says "before they call I will answer."
I can look back on certain events and say, "I can see that God was doing good for me when I thought he was being hard on me." But that doesn't help me at the present. I feel that he is being hard and I know that he knows how I feel, and I would rather not feel that way, but I still do.
So let me go back out on the river and see the ripples in the water that God made, and hear the dripping and sploshing of water that God made, and imagine all the air that God made holding up the jet airplanes that he taught man how to make, and dream about acres and acres of plants that God made to grow, and they grow without conscious intelligence showing them how to grow.
I don't understand all of nature or of the laws of physics, but I can appreciate and enjoy the creation. The question is sometimes asked, "Who can understand God?" I might also ask, "Who can understand man, but God who made him?" How can a little child understand himself, and how can he understand his father? The answer is, he doesn't need to.
When I ask for an egg or a piece of bread, it is sometimes a great stretch of my faith (Lord, help my unbelief) to believe that God will not give me a serpent or a stone. I have a feeling that all I ask for sometimes is eggs or bread, and forget that I can ask higher than that and ask for the Holy Spirit.
If we always think that we need to understand, we are forgetting one thing that it very important -- the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Isaiah 12:1 "And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou was angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me."
I suppose it is normal, when in the midst of affliction, to say "Light? Only for a moment? To me it seems terribly heavy, and lasts a long time." It should be a simple matter to just quit struggling and let God be God, and we would find out that "at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore" and "he filleth the hungry with good things." But since he does promise many things, sometimes we put up a struggle using the promises. Isn't that what Jacob did wrestling with the angel?
I ask what I will, and he says "no," so I know that I asked amiss, because the promise is "Ask what ye will and it shall be done." I try to put "Thy will be done" in there, and I know that my will should not differ from his will. My head and also something deep down in my heart knows what is right, but in actual practice it gets really complicated.
Or I pray a long time and there is no answer and I start wondering, what did I do wrong? What does he want from me? Of course I can't expect anything on my own merits, and it's only his right to make me wait, or test my faith, but I wonder why it says "before they call I will answer."
I can look back on certain events and say, "I can see that God was doing good for me when I thought he was being hard on me." But that doesn't help me at the present. I feel that he is being hard and I know that he knows how I feel, and I would rather not feel that way, but I still do.
So let me go back out on the river and see the ripples in the water that God made, and hear the dripping and sploshing of water that God made, and imagine all the air that God made holding up the jet airplanes that he taught man how to make, and dream about acres and acres of plants that God made to grow, and they grow without conscious intelligence showing them how to grow.
I don't understand all of nature or of the laws of physics, but I can appreciate and enjoy the creation. The question is sometimes asked, "Who can understand God?" I might also ask, "Who can understand man, but God who made him?" How can a little child understand himself, and how can he understand his father? The answer is, he doesn't need to.
When I ask for an egg or a piece of bread, it is sometimes a great stretch of my faith (Lord, help my unbelief) to believe that God will not give me a serpent or a stone. I have a feeling that all I ask for sometimes is eggs or bread, and forget that I can ask higher than that and ask for the Holy Spirit.
If we always think that we need to understand, we are forgetting one thing that it very important -- the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
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