Life is exciting, and challenging, and full of adventure. But it seems like my heart always longs for more. I always just think I can go deeper, there's something else great and more wonderful that I've met to find. Then I remember it's not that I haven't found it, it's what I won't find it this side of heaven. We get to experience a taste of what is to come, God gives us a small whiff of fellowship but it won't be complete here. This feeling reminds me of what C.S. Lewis talks about in "Weight of Glory" where we find beauty:
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things- the beauty, the memory of our own past- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself; they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not yet found, the echo of the tune we have not yet heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
Another Lewis quote from Mere Christianity: "Creatures are not born with desire unless satisfaction for those desires exist. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing."
We were made for that home, we will be complete and unified forever. It's hard for me to comprehend how big the world is and traveling overseas always sends a burst of liberation up my spine and through my spirit. This sense of freedom is in full force when I give up and realize I'm not in control, that this planet will continue to spin without me...that there's something more important than the life I live. Though I don't always understand this truth, each day provides experiences that continue to give meaning and beauty to our lives.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (Mark Twain)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness." 2 Cor. 12:9
This is from the daily email I get from Charles Spurgeon:
My grace is sufficient for thee.--2 Corinthians 12:9
If none of God's saints were poor and tried, we should not know half so well the consolations of divine grace. When we find the wanderer who has not where to lay his head, who yet can say, "Still will I trust in the or, when we see the pauper starving on bread and water, who still glories in Jesus; when we see the bereaved widow overwhelmed in affliction, and yet having faith in Christ, oh! what honor it reflects on the gospel. God's grace is illustrated and magnified in the poverty and trials of believers. Saints bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of apparent evils a real blessing shall ultimately spring--that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as He is pleased to keep them in it. This patience of the saints proves the power of divine grace. There is a lighthouse out at sea: it is a calm night--I cannot tell whether the edifice is firm; the tempest must rage about it, and then I shall know whether it will stand. So with the Spirit's work: if it were not on many occasions surrounded with tempestuous waters, we should not know that it was true and strong; if the winds did not blow upon it, we should not know how firm and secure it was. The master-works of God are those men who stand in the midst of difficulties, steadfast,unmoveable,--
"Calm mid the bewildering cry, Confident of victory."
He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials. No man can be illustrious before the Lord unless his conflicts be many. If then, yours be a much-tried path, rejoice in it, because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of God. As for His failing you, never dream of it--hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.
Amen. My heart couldn't have expressed it any better. Something I've seen in women is we have this weakness of feeling like we're either "too much" or "not enough." Our tendency is to run on either extreme of feeling too complicated or not accomplished. Jesus talks a lot about sufficiency. "Daughter, My grace is sufficient for You. You will be made rich in every way so you can be generous on every occasion." By His grace I am sufficient. Paul found the key to God's power being manifested in his life. He didn't rely on his own strength, wisdom, or understanding. One of the things I struggle with the most is self-sufficiency. John Piper writes, "Pride, or self-exaltation, or self-reliance is the one virus that causes all the moral diseases of the world. This has been the case ever since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to be God instead of trust God. And it will be true until the final outburst of human pride is crushed at the battle of Armageddon. There is only one basic moral issue: how to overcome the relentless urge of the human heart to assert itself against the authority and grace of God."
"If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents. Then you will lay your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. Yes, the Almighty will be your gold And your precious silver; For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, And lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, And you will pay your vows. You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you; So light will shine on your ways. When they cast you down, and you say, 'Exaltation will come!'" Job 22:23-29
My grace is sufficient for thee.--2 Corinthians 12:9
If none of God's saints were poor and tried, we should not know half so well the consolations of divine grace. When we find the wanderer who has not where to lay his head, who yet can say, "Still will I trust in the or, when we see the pauper starving on bread and water, who still glories in Jesus; when we see the bereaved widow overwhelmed in affliction, and yet having faith in Christ, oh! what honor it reflects on the gospel. God's grace is illustrated and magnified in the poverty and trials of believers. Saints bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of apparent evils a real blessing shall ultimately spring--that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as He is pleased to keep them in it. This patience of the saints proves the power of divine grace. There is a lighthouse out at sea: it is a calm night--I cannot tell whether the edifice is firm; the tempest must rage about it, and then I shall know whether it will stand. So with the Spirit's work: if it were not on many occasions surrounded with tempestuous waters, we should not know that it was true and strong; if the winds did not blow upon it, we should not know how firm and secure it was. The master-works of God are those men who stand in the midst of difficulties, steadfast,unmoveable,--
"Calm mid the bewildering cry, Confident of victory."
He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials. No man can be illustrious before the Lord unless his conflicts be many. If then, yours be a much-tried path, rejoice in it, because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of God. As for His failing you, never dream of it--hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.
Amen. My heart couldn't have expressed it any better. Something I've seen in women is we have this weakness of feeling like we're either "too much" or "not enough." Our tendency is to run on either extreme of feeling too complicated or not accomplished. Jesus talks a lot about sufficiency. "Daughter, My grace is sufficient for You. You will be made rich in every way so you can be generous on every occasion." By His grace I am sufficient. Paul found the key to God's power being manifested in his life. He didn't rely on his own strength, wisdom, or understanding. One of the things I struggle with the most is self-sufficiency. John Piper writes, "Pride, or self-exaltation, or self-reliance is the one virus that causes all the moral diseases of the world. This has been the case ever since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to be God instead of trust God. And it will be true until the final outburst of human pride is crushed at the battle of Armageddon. There is only one basic moral issue: how to overcome the relentless urge of the human heart to assert itself against the authority and grace of God."
"If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; You will remove iniquity far from your tents. Then you will lay your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. Yes, the Almighty will be your gold And your precious silver; For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, And lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, And you will pay your vows. You will also declare a thing, And it will be established for you; So light will shine on your ways. When they cast you down, and you say, 'Exaltation will come!'" Job 22:23-29
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