That Good Part

I just started to re-read the devotional classic, "Come Away My Beloved". Written from the perspective of God speaking to us, it takes the focus off our petitions and causes us to remember that we are already the recipients of more than we deserve or could ever think to ask. "Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, and the strength of salvation. Isaiah 33:6" O My beloved, abide under the shelter of the lattice for I have betrothed you to Myself, and though you are sometimes indifferent toward Me, My love for you is at all times as flame of fire. My ardor never cools. My longing for your love and affection is deep and constant. Tarry not for an opportunity to have more time to be alone with Me. Take it, though you leave the tasks at hand. Nothing will suffer. Things are of less importance than you think. Our time together is like a garden full of flowers, whereas the time you give to things is as a field full of stubble. I love you, and if...

I'm looking out at the standing water on my back porch, left by the heavy and welcome showers overnight. The sun has broken through, and my yard is busy percolating, getting nourished in a way the sprinkler could never match. My mom has told me stories of catching rainwater in buckets to wash her hair when she was young, nothing makes your hair shine like rain water, she says. But nothing beats these showers from heaven...... "I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing" (Ezek. 34:26). What is thy season this morning? Is it a season of drought? Then that is the season for showers. Is it a season of great heaviness and black clouds? Then that is the season for showers. "As thy day so shall thy strength be." "I will give thee showers of blessing." The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. All God's blessings go together, like links in a golden chain. If He gives converting grace, ...

From "My Utmost for His Highest" Peter said to Him, ’Lord, why can I not follow You now?’ John 13:37 There are times when you can’t understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don’t fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification— to be set apart from sin and made holy— or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt— wait. At first you may see clearly what God’s will is— the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is distinctly God’s will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God’s timing and He wi...

"The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety." --George Mueller

"He went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8 Have you been "out" in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question - "What do you expect to do?" You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a "going out," building in confidence on God. "Take no thought for your life, . . . nor yet for your body" - take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you "went out." Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reve...

We begin the new year with a word from Charles Spurgeon..... "We will be glad and rejoice in Thee."—Song of Solomon 1:4. We will be glad and rejoice in Thee. We will not open the gates of the year to the dolorous notes of the sackbut, but to the sweet strains of the harp of joy, and the high sounding cymbals of gladness. "O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise unto the rock of our salvation." We, the called and faithful and chosen, we will drive away our griefs, and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles, we who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah's bitter pool, with joy will magnify the Lord. Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which Thou dwellest, will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus. We WILL, we are resolved about it, Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonour our Bridegroom by mourning in H...

Last night I watched about five minutes of a "news" program on Fox. In that brief viewing, I listened to three people talk over each other to spew what they thought happened at the zoo where a tiger attack took place. None of the shows participants were present at the zoo, none worked for the zoo, but all three experts has plenty to say about what they thought. I can't watch that blather. Is blather a word? Anyway, when I read Elisabeth Elliot's thoughts on the subject, I couldn't sum it up any better. It's a long post, but worth the reading. "Question-and-answer is a vanishing art. We are so drowned and smothered and deafened by panels, dialogues, rap sessions, discussions, talk shows, and other such exercises in the pooling of ignorance that, far from developing the art of asking questions and giving answers, we have very nearly lost it altogether. The time allotted for a program must, it seems, be filled--it doesn't much matter with what. Whe...