Conquering Chaos With a Sestina

 Yesterday, I was trying to read - Sunday afternoon reading Words of Delight by Leland Ryken. It's a great book, but my tumultuous thoughts couldn't settle down to calm receptivity after returning from the one social event of my week - going to church. Perhaps if I were less confined to home as a mother of littles, or less sensitive and shabby in health, church wouldn't seem like such a grand shaking up, but it is. 

 

Trying to read Ryken on artistry and organization in biblical poetry, all I could think was "I don't want to read about this right now - I need to actually do this - compose my own thoughts into poetry And I need to follow a close artistic structure, to contrast with and control the chaos of my own feelings. I'm going to write a sestina." 

 

 

So I looked up the rules for a sestina, grabbed a notebook and pencil and began. A child came into see me and brought me a requested eraser. Children did artwork at the dining table until I emerged a surprised hour and a half later (gazing proudly at my scribbled, crossed up, numbered lines) and made the hungry ones some popcorn, with a few tears dried on my cheeks. The poetry had done its work and I had spoken to my own heart what it needed to hear. Perhaps the Sunday morning lesson on the Pharisee and the tax collector and true religion came through a little in the circling lines.

 

 

Here is the typed-up version.

 

 

Sestina: Going to Church on the First Day of Spring

I go forth smiling, with my well-wrapped heart

Sweet sunshine flashes gold upon the breeze to meet me.

Today I shall be good, and I shall be a blessing -

Oh! blessed be those daffodils! that budding bush – be blessed!

Too long has been the winter and my loneliness!

We leave our drive, content to see the roadside trees go past.

How swift these roads, how soon the budding trees go past.

I muse upon arrival, friends, with well-wrapped heart.

The rolled-up miles accentuate and break my loneliness.

We tumble from the parking lot expecting faces glad to meet us

Oh blessed be old friends and new – I hope I may be blessed

As well, to be with them. And shall I be a blessing?

A conversation made, another greeted – I doubt I’ve been a blessing

Words fly so quickly, faces smile, turn onward and go past

Oh people who have listened to my tumbling words, be blessed!

I gather in the tatters of my once-wrapped heart

As other friends pass by and kindly meet me

Warm smiles, rare hugs – to melt the remnants of my loneliness.

A pause before the service makes me wistful for my loneliness

How can these hasty conversations be a blessing?
The service comes with sweet and weighty truths to meet me -

Hold every line, attend, lest needful words go past.

Present to God the ruins of your well-wrapped heart.

Oh that I might, despite absurdities and vice be blessed!

How shallow is my love today – shall I be blessed?
The God I praise felt closer to me in my loneliness

Than now, when others bear the crumbles of my unwrapped heart

Not gold, but clay – I wished to be a blessing.

Oh to have held the words that did go past

My tongue - and listened, loving, when they came to meet me.

My Lord, this is the place where you have pledged to meet me.

I come with tumbled mind and heart – oh to be blessed!

Despise me not for weakness or with grace go past

Me – needy, feeling now among my friends my loneliness.

If I have blessed or not – grant me at least this blessing -

Receive and mend the tatters of my unwrapped heart.

My friends - who smile, go past, or speak or come to meet me -

Receive my unwrapped heart, I wished you to be blessed

Despite taint of my loneliness, for you have been a blessing.

 

 

Faith That Can Move Molehills

Imagine faith as small as a mustard seed. What does it look like when it moves mountains? Can it move molehills too? Yes, for while nothing is too great for God's power, nothing is too small for His care. He is abundantly gracious. When we make mountains out of molehills, and then almost despair, he is still there to strengthen puny faith.

It's late winter. I've been inside a lot with three children, and being fond of neatness and order, the grand propensity of small ones to destroy all things visible can drive me a little bit batty. That's not a real trial, right? I mean, on my dresser, I have the Smyrna ministries prayer guide, where I'm reminded to pray for families who are without home and job because of their faith, or who are left to mourn their brutally beheaded loved ones. There is heart-wrenching agony going on in God's worldwide family. So I feel that a bit petty becoming downcast over the fact that the kid's bathroom is being systematically broken to pieces, splattered with mud, and water-damaged, and my top-load washing machine seems unendingly filled with wet mess clean up towels. With the crowning event of the six year old crashing down on the toilet tank while standing on the seat to wipe up the toothpaste he just flung on the wall, and acquiring a knot on his head and splitting the tank from top to bottom - meaning that the kids will now have to share our relatively pristine master bathroom (Nooo!) until theirs can be repaired - I became just a little despondent. It wasn't just the mess, it was the money. Every family with kids usually has a back list of extras they'd like to have when they can save up. Shelling out the stash for a new toilet that you didn't really want is deflating. Still, I was making a mountain out of a molehill. It becomes easy to do when you're in a small house with small people most of the time. But God is not limited by that.

I sat down at the desk in a random quiet moment while the children were playing, and flipped open the Bible, like a hungry person hunting in the pantry between meals. The Parable of the Ten Virgins. "...Watch, therefore, for you know nether the day nor the hour" (Matt. 25:13) Here is reality in its final state. Here was truth beyond the broken toilet. I thought about the horror of being told to depart from Jesus, and the joy of entering with him into the marriage feast. Imagine Him coming at any moment, any second. The sky outside the window was the blank white-grey of cheerless winter. But at any moment the Son of God whom we have long loved unseen, could be breaking through those clouds like lightning and changing reality forever. The devastated bathroom, stained carpet and leaky budget wouldn't matter anymore. All that would matter is that we had loved the Christ of God and been faithful to Him. My heart was flooded with joy - a joy that I felt I could not have had if the fretful state of things had not made me previously disillusioned with life. Was the Holy Spirit really filling me with joy in the midst of trials - when my trials were so silly? I knew he would do this for persecuted Christians, for people really suffering great pain, but somehow that he would use the mere disruption of my daily comforts as a step in the journey to fellowship with him was a marvelous surprise. I did not deserve this. I am too petty. But His grace is not like that. We never deserve it.

I return to this. My faith can move mountains because it is a tiny link to the massive, powerful joy that I belong to the returning King. If we don't get the toilet fixed before He comes back, it's okay. Am I silly enough to need reminded of this? Yes. Is He gracious enough to come to me in the remembrance? He is.

Chesterton on Contentment

When I think of contentment, I think of the oft-quoted and at-one-time-stuck-on-my-mirror definition of contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs:

"Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” 

This is excellent. But the perspective of others can be helpful in rounding out what the experience of contentment looks like. Enter one of my favorite authors, G. K. Chesterton. 

I listened to Chesterton's Miscellany of Men essays during some waking night hours over the last few weeks, and dozed off through a number of them that were a bit less than captivating (granted, the slightly dull character of a work of literature is a merit in my selection for night time listening), but while listening to The Contented Man, my mind gave a little thrill of connection. I loved Chesterton's thoughts on this. Here's some of it:

 “Content” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased; placidly, perhaps, but still positively pleased. Being contented with bread and cheese ought not to mean not caring what you eat. It ought to mean caring for bread and cheese; handling and enjoying the cubic content of the bread and cheese and adding it to your own. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it. It ought to mean appreciating what there is to appreciate in such a position; such as the quaint and elvish slope of the ceiling or the sublime aerial view of the opposite chimney-pots. And in this sense contentment is a real and even an active virtue; it is not only affirmative, but creative. The poet in the attic does not forget the attic in poetic musings; he remembers whatever the attic has of poetry; he realises how high, how starry, how cool, how unadorned and simple—in short, how Attic is the attic.
True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

The Good Life

I keep thinking about this piece of a paragraph from a current read - "Love Your God With All Your Mind" by J. P. Moreland:

"According to the modern view, the good life is the satisfaction of any pleasure or desire that someone freely and autonomously chooses for himself or herself. The successful person is the individual who has a life of pleasure and can obtain enough consumer goods to satisfy his or her desires. Freedom is the right to do what I want, not the power to do what I by nature ought to. Community gives way to individualism with the result that narcissism - an inordinate sense of self-love and self-centered involvement - is an accurate description of many people's lives."

This could seem at a glance to be another sadly accurate commentary upon the pitiful contemporary culture in the West - I've heard stuff like this so many times. But in this clear, objective description, I was unsettled to realize how much I saw of myself. I tend to think that I, as a Christian, am a separated observer of the follies of my surrounding culture - that I may have plenty of my own follies, but they are not those of the prevailing mucky-muck. I don't watch their shows, read their books, or worship their celebrities. I like old shows, read old books, and maintain a sincere fondness for G. K. Chesterton and Charles Spurgeon. But these are surface things, really. As much as I detest to admit it, I am a product of my culture. I am redeemed and sanctified in Christ, but I am not immune to the modern world's influence, anymore than a fish in a tank of water dyed pink. Don't I think of the good life kind of in the way he describes - sometimes? Sometimes I do think of life at its best when I have money to spend on something I want and time to do what I want. Time for me, stuff for me. Even if it isn't watching the latest chick flick on a brand new big screen TV, or some other culturally common ideal that I sort of despise, the underlying mindset can be the same.

Five of the Ninety-Five Theses

The circumstances that fueled Luther's writing of ninety-five theses were the prevalent selling of indulgences - forgiveness of sins to be bought for money - and that less in the interest of God's people than in the interest of church finances. Medieval church fund-raisers at their finest and worst. What better way to fill up the church building fund than by playing off the very real desire of people to be rid of guilt? That made Luther, this pious Catholic monk mad. So he wrote about it. Here are five of the ninety-five theses. You can read all of them here.

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

36. Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.

37. Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters. 

43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

Read all of Luther's 95 theses here.

A Methodist Hymnal

On this dreary fall afternoon, I took my new old Methodist Hymnal down from the shelf to have a first perusal at the keyboard. I hadn't really played from it since I bought it - and I bought it on the day we moved two months ago. What a crazy day that was. Pouring rain, drop-dead exhausted pregnant, toddler into everything. At one point there was a break in the weather, and I took Walter for a walk in the stroller to keep him out from underfoot, and maybe even catch a last cherished sighting of the train crossing Main Street.
The break in the weather didn't last long, and by the time we were around the block, we were caught in another sudden downpour. I ran with the stroller into the nearby Methodist church which was having a rummage sale. After finding a shirt for Walter three sizes too big but at least dry, and putting it on him to buy later, I browsed the tables.
I found so many funny and memorable things that day...like the watermelon magnets just like my grandmother used to have on her refrigerator, and the nifty peanut butter stirring lid that I'd always wanted, and the old lacey tablecloth that ended up being curtains for our bedroom in the new house. Then I discovered the treasure trove of ten cent books. Stuffing my hands and stroller with works of Lewis, Tolkien, Alcott and Wodehouse, I paused to peer further under the table in the dim corner and spied an old church hymnal. The Methodist Hymnal. I am not exactly a fan of modern United Methodism, but I had to have this hymnal, stamped with the Duncan Memorial church label. This was the church that played bell hymns over our block every noon and evening, speaking truth and cheer into my heart many times. On our last day in Berryville, I could not take the church chimes with me, but I could take the memory of them in this book - a reminder of the importance of encouraging the heart with song.
This evening I opened it and played "O Thou in Whose Presence My Soul Takes Delight", headphones plugged into the keyboard since Walter was napping and singing only in my heart since I have bronchitis. Why do I wait so long to do this? Music and truth together do so much good. Even if you don't have church bells to remind you, don't go too long without song - for the Lord is good and His mercy endures.

"Dear Shepherd, I hear and will follow Thy call;

I know the sweet sound of Thy voice.

Restore and defend me, for Thou art my All,

And in Thee I will ever rejoice."

 - Joseph Swain, 1791

Secret of a Good Marriage

There actually is a secret to the good married life. I just came across a reminder of it in this sentence:

"At the cross that relieves my conscience
let me learn lessons of self-denial, forgiveness, and submission." 

- from Arthur Bennet's The Valley of Vision, "A Neophyte's Devotion"

To the cross, to the cross!

(Practical note: Reading a Gospel writer's crucifixion account or some excellent cross theology from the Apostle Paul does rather more good than a few seconds' hazy imaginings of 'a hill far away')

Sweet Subduing

At some time, every wife will find herself facing the divine command to submit to her husband in battle with her desire for mastery. A certain bitterness presents itself to us in surrendering the sweetness of having our own way. But submission is sweeter still. For we have in wifely submission not only the consciousness of harmony with our Maker's design, but a better satisfaction of our desire for mastery.

In submission, we relinquish mastery of a man for the mastery of our own rebellious will, and the sense of control over self that may be ours when we yield control is a more rightful sweetness for our heart. Only our obedience must be by the power of Him who said "Not my will, but Thine be done." He has bowed lower than we ever shall, has overcome all, and is now exalted to bestow on us His Spirit. All that the crucified and exalted Christ calls us to do shall be possible, even now, even today.

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord."

- Colossians 3:17-18 ESV

Out of The Mouths of Babes

Husband gone all week and then all weekend;
driving husbandless and distracted to church with baby and receiving my first traffic ticket;
roughly four hours of sleep last night;
persistent health difficulties;
surprisingly large doctor bill's in the mail;
and...a fussy baby...who came onto the kitchen rug to spit up at my feet a piece of paper that had gotten into his tummy.

I found in the next room remains of the paper he had ingested. It was a quotation from Jeremiah Burroughs: "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, gracious frame of spirit that freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition."

Out of the mouths of babes.

That They May Come

"Ah ! it is such a thrice blessed thing to have a praying mother; a mother who does not merely say in set form 'and speech. " Go to Christ, my child," but in her daily life, full of sweet experience of all that is involved in it, says, " Come to Him !"" 

-  The Percys by Elizabeth Prentiss, 

Let it be so with me.

(Read the little-known gem, The Percys by Elizabeth Prentiss here . Both parents and children will gain riches from this delightful and edifying family story by the author of Stepping Heavenward.)

Leaving Me Behind

John Calvin understood what makes relationships work. He experienced both wonderful relationships (in his marriage and friendships) and unpleasant relationships (with church and city leaders) and he knew the Word of God deeply. What then, did he proclaim as the God-glorifying pattern of relating to one another in covenant relationships - in the church and marriage? He applied again what Jesus and the Apostle Paul proclaimed: self-denial. Here's a look at Jesus, Paul and then Calvin speaking to our need:

What Jesus said:
"“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." - (Luke 9:23-24 ESV)

What Paul said:

"Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord....as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

(Ephesians 5:21-25 ESV)

And here's what I read from Calvin this morning:
"Let us submit to each other in all humility.  If this is difficult for us, let us more earnestly work at it until God has mastery of us and until we have denied ourselves.  For we must leave behind everything that pertains to our nature and preserve the sacred union that God has placed among us by making us one body." - John Calvin

Now here are some thoughts that have been simmering in my mind for a while now:
If I am to follow Jesus and become a blessing to all His people, especially those with whom I am in a direct relationship, I must give up my right to be the way that I am. It's not giving up who I am; it's giving up that stubborn will that says "This is how I am and how I like things to be and if you do not accommodate me, I won't serve you." Service on those conditions is not the service to which Jesus calls us - it's not serving at all. It's the stuff that destroys relationships and their potential for magnifying the grace of Jesus, and it has to go. When it does go - when self is denied, when my life is given up for Jesus, when the will is submitted (wife to husband) or the life laid down (husband for wife), when we "leave behind everything that pertains to our nature", we do not become less of ourselves, but more of who God created us to be.

For example, I have an inclination towards extreme aestheticism - I adore beauty and abhor ugliness.
If I will only serve God and others in ways that allow me to keep my life pretty;
if I make my husband and perhaps, children, bow to my ruling desire to maintain beauty and order, or I won't be happy, watch out!;
if I will not stoop to serve in an ugly or messy situation, I have not yet learned to follow Jesus.

Indeed, the beauty-loving person that God made me begins to be lost in the very midst of my attempts to save it. The ugliness that I abhor enters into my heart, and the peace and order that I crave disappears from the relationships that are most important to me. "Whoever would save his life will lose it".
But if I leave behind what pertains to my nature, if I shower my husband with hugs and kisses even when he has not organized his papers on the kitchen counter for two weeks, and I don't stop speaking kindly to the old person at church who has hairy moles and bad breath, if I love Jesus my Savior too much to let my natural preferences get in the way of following Him, I will find my desire for beauty being satisfied in seeing my own heart conformed to Him, and my relationships glorifying His grace.

What "pertains to your nature"? Leaving it behind for Jesus might be the happiest thing you ever did.

"Not To Mention Any Names..."

Here are some very good thoughts from Hugh Binning's Christian Love (Banner of Truth, Puritan Paperbacks) on how we talk about others. I  read them while walking in the park yesterday, and being very struck by them, marked the page with some grass stems as a reminder to put them in my blog. The grass stems becoming rather troublesome I thought it best to post without further delay. Consider Mr. Binning's words:

"Great censurers are often the greatest hypocrites, and sincerity has always much charity.  Truly, there is much idle time spent this way in discourse of one another, and venting our judgments of others. As if it were enough of commendation for us to condemn others, and much piety to charge another with impiety...I would think one great help to amend this would be to abate from superfluity and multitude of discourses upon others. In the multitude of words there wants not sin, and in the multitude of discourse upon other men there cannot miss the sin of rash judging. I find the saints and fearers of God commended for speaking often one to another, but not at all for speak of one another. (Mal. 3:16)"

I have been guilty of this idle discourse about others, justifying it because, "I won't mention any names." It is good to avoid giving our neighbor a bad name when we must use their actions as an example. But how often is it that these anonymous recitation of other people's failures are used as a prideful showcase for our personal discernment? We feel good about ourselves because we can say , "A friend that I won't name did ______" and "I can't imagine how they can do that!" and pat ourselves on the back for being so good at life - much better than most people. But did we really need to bring it up at all?

Continuing with Mr. Binning:

If we would indeed grow in grace by the Word, and taste more how gracious the Lord is, we must lay these aside, and become as little children... Love covers all sins, conceals them from all to whom the knowledge of them does not belong (Prov. 10:12). Love, in a manner, suffers not itself to know what it knows, or at least to remember it much...it will pass by an infirmity, and refuse to recognize it, while many stand still and commune with it.

Isn't "commune with it" a very apt term? We sinfully spend time discussing other's failures until we feel the full effects of our superiority, leaving the anonymous sinner to their foolish ways and our silent condemnation. Love doesn't do that. Love will either be quiet and bear a bothersome fault, or speak up to correct a dangerous fault. As Mr. Binning points out -

This is nothing to the prejudice of that Christian duty of reproving and admonishing one another (Eph. 5:11): "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.'...But to look too narrowly to every step, and to write up a register of men's mere frailties, especially so as to publish them to the world: that is inconsistent with the rule of love. ...He that has most defects himself will find most in others...but a wise man can pass by frailties, yea, offences done to him, and be silent (Prov. 11:12).  

Where the Heart Is - Exhortation to the Christian Sisterhood

Picture this scenario. I invented it to illustrate some thoughts about love and where the heart is. Though a bit silly, I hope it gives the intended color to my thought:

You are at a day event and sit down to lunch with two other ladies (assuming my readers are also ladies).

The woman to your right is a believer - a sister in Christ who is generous and kind, and the woman to your left is an unbeliever who is nice enough but does not share fellowship in Christ.
So much for the characters. It's time to eat.  Hummus-olive lettuce wraps, fermented vegetable sticks and a mason jar of kombucha are your highly sensible lunch. Eating healthy is important to you and you have been expanding your crunchy creativity in the kitchen. The dear sister to your right is eating a PB and J on white bread and gives you a friendly smile as she opens her small bag of chips. The lady to your left opens her organic salad and looking over at your lunch says, "Are those fermented carrots? How do you make them?"

Now for the question: To which of these ladies does your heart feel drawn out in a sense of unity? (Not to ask whom you end up talking to - varying good motives could lead you to spend most of your lunch conversation with either one of them, and talking to the unbeliever might be exactly what God would have you do.) With whom do you feel like a true 'bosom buddy' because you have similar identities? With whom can you most easily fellowship? The person with whom you will share eternity?  Or the person who shares your style of living? Eating habits are just one of many lifestyle choices that could define a scenario like this. Child-rearing practices among moms, clothing styles, sports teams and many other things invisibly snip and paste groups of ladies into snug, but sometimes un-Christ-like cliques. Life-style commonalities can be a great means of reaching out to others, but exalting these preferences over love for Christ as a basis for our dearest form of fellowship is dishonoring to Him. I'm sure I've done it before, and will have to repent of it again before I breathe my last. But whatever form it may take, it's not okay to love our style of life more than our Savior from death. It's falling short of the glory of God, losing the flavor of HIM in our lives.

"So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.  Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." - 1 Peter 2:1-3, ESV

Have you tasted that the Lord is good? 

"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." - 1 Peter 2:11, ESV

We are strangers here. The world with its hobbies, styles, information, toys and habits is passing away and my friendships must rise above these things to a sharing in "pure spiritual milk" with those who have "tasted that the Lord is good" - even if their life style is different from mine. (You there, in the Giant's sweatshirt, feeding cheese curls to your child, I see Christ in your loving attitude and I love you!)

I Am Who...

Recently I was walking in the park and came upon a pleasant, white-haired lady sitting in her walker seat in the sunshine. I had my hair tied up in a scarf and was carrying a bunch of wildflowers and a worn-out memory work paper, so perhaps looked a strange peasant, but I couldn't miss the chance to stop and chat with her about the sunshine, the goldenrod and life in the neighborhood. As I walked on, wishing I could have addressed her soul, and wondering if I should have troubled her at all with my sudden friendliness, wondering if she thought my manners bad, I thought of the 'old days' when everyone knew what polite manners were and what there place in society was. I had nothing of the sort..always wanting to be polite and always terribly fond of people or slightly afraid of them, and not really knowing when to laugh aside reticence, or reign in affection.

Inwardly, I sighed and began to philosophize,"Well, I am who I am, and that's just it."

Do you just realize what you said? That's God's name: "I Am Who I Am"

What of it? Am I not also who I am - not self-existent like God, but nonetheless myself?
No, I am not. I am continually becoming what I am being made. God is who He is, was, and always will be. I am always becoming, being formed by Him who is into what He wants me to become. This is what I realized as I reflected on my botchy conversational skills and irregular personal charms. The creative work of God in my life is ongoing and real. Here is the very cheer that a self-weary heart needs to hear - I will not always be who I am. I am not who I was, and tomorrow, much more in eternity, I will not be who I am today. Here is joy! "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17) And the new that has come in Christ will keep on coming till He comes.

Here also is hope for the earthly union of two sinners in marriage. My spouse is not "I am who I am". Neither am I, and God is using our very union in the process of becoming who He is making us to be. I can be patient with my spouse's imperfections, and he can be patient with mine, because we are redeemed for further redemption. Also, we can 'submit ourselves to one another out of reverence to Christ' (Ephesians 5:21) and accept our need to change personally. We are meant to change, dying to ourselves and living no longer for ourselves but for Him who for our sake died and was raised. Failure is not cause to despair but through the Spirit to eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness and press on.

Thanks be to God that He is who He is - so perfectly good! - and that I am not. Life is a glorious adventure - even when it's messy and embarrassing - learning to become what He is making us for that final great day, when we shall stand "blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy" (Jude 1:24). Oh to look at myself and others with such eyes of faith always!

Rejoicing Always is Always Hard

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

 ~ Philippians 4:4, ESV

There is no time when the command to rejoice in the Lord is easy to obey. It is hard on bad days. It is harder on good days. But I have heard words like these many times:

"It is easy to rejoice in the Lord when things are going well, but when times are hard, we are tempted to lose our joy."

I have never found that statement to be true. I am constantly tempted to rejoice in everything but the Lord, and were it not for grace, would have hardly a moment in which to claim that I had been resting wholly and sweetly upon the "solid joys and lasting treasure none but Zion's children know."

Recently, I had a good day - one of those days when everything actually does go right. I was pretty happy with the day and my life in general as I walked out in the park that afternoon. But as I reviewed a piece of Scripture memory, I was convicted by the Holy Spirit of my failure to rejoice in the true goodness of the Lord.
Good days, if our hearts are right, are to help us rejoice in the Lord - thankful that He has given us a spot of brightness on our heavenly journey. But most of the time, we let them do just the opposite. We forget that we are journeying to heaven at all. We say, "God is sooo good!" simply because He has given me the stuff I wanted. If our good days are the base of our declaration of God's goodness, that declaration has a dark meaning underneath: that when God doesn't give me the stuff I wanted - when He just holds before me the promised inheritance of the resurrected Christ, while ripping from my hands everything else my life holds dear - He is actually not very good at all. This is not rejoicing in the Lord. To rejoice in the Lord is to put the conditions for our joy upon Him, and then, knowing that He does not change, to never cease to be glad.

Foolish children that we are - rejoicing in the Lord is hard on the best of days. Sometimes the rejoicing is easiest on the worst of days, when the sadness and failure of everything that frustrates makes the hope of the resurrection stand forth like a warm, bright lamp in a window on a cold, wet night. But we must not let a fortuitous flash light turn us from the light in the window. There is one solid foundation for unshakable joys: the crucified and risen Christ held in the arms of our faith, taking us to Heaven.

"So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." ~ John 16:22 ESV

There Never Was Such Another - Repost

Last year, Kevin DeYoung posted on his blog a brief excerpt from the life of Charles Hodge. I read it before marrying my dear husband, bookmarked it, and keep thinking back to it as standing among the sweetest words I ever read on marriage. After reading it again today, I wanted to record it here.

Here is DeYoung's post:

I was moved by this touching description of Charles Hodge with his fifty-one year-old dying wife Sarah.

The next death that visited Hodge was infinitely dearer to him. On Christmas Day 1849, just four months after her return to Princeton with her daughter and grandchild, Sarah “softly & sweetly fell asleep in Jesus.” She most probably fell victim to uterine cancer.

Sarah’s health had begun to deteriorate soon after her return, and by December her condition was such that Hodge had lost all hope of recovery. In her final weeks, he personally nursed Sarah, spending countless hours simply lying next to her. During these times, he held her hand, and conversed with her when she had the strength. The depth of their love remained so intense that Hodge later commented that “to the last she was like a girl in love.” During her final weeks, Sarah asked Hodge to tell her in detail “how much you love me,” and they spent time recounting the high points of their life together.

Hodge’s last hours with his wife were particularly poignant. As her life ebbed away, Sarah looked at her children gathered around her bed and quietly murmured “I give them to God.” Hodge then asked her if she had thought him a devoted husband to which she replied as “she sweetly passed her hand over” his face: “There never was such another.” (Charles Hodge, 258)

Married couples, if you imagine that your final moments together will be like this, rejoice and again I say rejoice. Let the thought of such bittersweet sorrow put your present troubles and conflicts in perspective. But if this scene feels like an impossible dream, what must you change now so you and your spouse can die like this later?

It is my fervent prayer, which I trust God in His kindness will give me, that my husband and I may be together when the first of us passes from earth to glory, and that the send-off may be such a one as gives unspeakable comfort to the one left behind. How wonderful is the capacity of the human heart - made in God's image and renewed by God's Spirit -  to love. It is a gift worth cultivating above all other things.  Nothing is closer to heaven.

God is Treating You as Sons

A compilation of John Calvin's writings, gathered by Joel Beeke into a wonderful devotional, contains in today's reading Calvin's comments on Matthew 27:43, which speaks of the onlookers who mocked the crucified Lord with the cruel words, "He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God."

Calvin writes of the falseness of these accusations and our temptation to believe such words in our own adversities:  

"It is contrary to the nature of faith that the word now should be insisted on by those whom God is training by the cross and by adversity to obedience, and whom he entreats to pray and to call on his name, for these are rather the testimonies of his fatherly love, as the apostle tells us (Heb. 12:6). But consider this peculiarity, that though Christ was the 'well-beloved Son' (Matt. 3:17; 17:5), yet he was not delivered from death until he had endured the punishment which we deserved, for that was the price by which our salvation was purchased."

May I never demand, as proof of God's love, the removal of the very thing His love has laid upon me.

"'For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.'

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons."

~ Hebrews 12:6-7a, ESV

All That is Good for Man

In the early 1800's, after a serious illness, the Rev. Richard Cecil (1748-1810) spoke of a clarified vision for his reading pursuits. His advice, while especially useful to those in ministry, is a noble reminder to me of how I ought to value my soul and my Savior more entirely in the books and media I choose.

"If God should restore me to health again, I am resolved to study nothing but my Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality if it be not kept under with a firm hand. A man ought to call in from every quarter what may assist him to understand, explain and illustrate the Bible, but there - in its light and life - is all that is good for man.  All important truth is there; and I feel that no comfort enters sick curtains from any other quarter.  My state is an admonition to young men. I have been too much occupied in preparing to live and too little in living.  I have read too much from curiosity and for mental gratification.  I was literary when I should have been active.  We trifle too much. Let us do something for God. The man of god is a man of feeling and activity. I feel, and would urge with all possible strength on others that Jesus is our all in all. " 

From The Later Evangelical Fathers by Mary Seeley on books.google.com

Letters to a 17th century woman....

BE sure that humility, frequent silence and recollection, will do you more good than any amount of anxiety and self-chosen austerities. Silence is, above all, important for you. Even when you cannot withdraw from society, you might often practise silence, and let others take the lead in conversation. There is no way by which you can so effectually subdue your haughty, disdainful, contemptuous spirit, as by bridling it with silence. Keep a strict watch upon your tongue. The presence of God, which restrains your words, will likewise keep all your thoughts and wishes in check. But this work must be accomplished gradually. Be patient with yourself, as well as with others.

I THINK, Madame, that you should try hard now to practise silence, so far as general courtesy will permit. Silence promotes the presence of God, prevents many harsh and proud words, and suppresses many dangers in the way of ridiculing or harshly judging our neighbor. Silence humbles the mind, and gradually weans it from the world; it makes a kind of solitude in the heart like that which you desire: it will supply all that you need under your present difficulties. If you retrenched all useless talk, you would have many available moments even in the midst of society, where you are obliged to stay against your will....Often lift up your heart to Him, without making any outward sign; talk only when it is necessary; and bear patiently with what crosses you. You have more need of self-denial than of light. If you are faithful in keeping silence when it is not necessary to speak, God will preserve you from evil when it is right for you to talk.
Your portion is to love, to be silent, to suffer, to sacrifice your inclinations, in order to fulfil the will of God, by moulding yourself to that of others. Happy indeed you are thus to bear a cross laid on you by God's own hands, in the order of His Providence. The discipline which we choose for ourselves does not destroy our self-love like that which God assigns us Himself each day. All we have to do is to give ourselves up to God day by day, without looking further. He carries us in His arms as a loving mother carries her child. Let us believe, hope, love, with all the simplicity of children. In every need let us look with love and trust to our Heavenly Father.

- Fenelon, Selections

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. "
- James 4:10, ESV

I can confess and bemoan my sinfulness without being humble. Self-examination that ends with the mournful declaration, 'I'm a terrible person' may not be true humility, because it can leave me more self-righteous than I was before. The goal of seeing my sin is, after realizing all that I am in my self, that I childlike, needy, trusting, run to Jesus and rejoice in Him as Savior.
After I have seen all of my failures, I must refuse to exult in the discerning depth of my self-awareness. Humility's final look is toward the Lord. To know my own weakness and wretchedness, and yet freely exult in a mighty and gracious Savior, is the most humble act of all.