That Good Part

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...

I have been running around these last two weeks like a maniac. Really, like an actual maniac, someone in constant, yet disorganized motion. About every ten minutes an alarm goes off in my head that says “Don’t forget to….. (Fill in the blank). My response every eleven minutes is “I have to make time for that.” So yesterday morning right after that alarm went off for the gazillionth time, I finally conceded that I can’t make time for one more thing. As I sat there feeling defeated, I had one of those thoughts that aren’t mine. The thought the Lord gave me was this: “Of course you can’t make time for this. You can’t make time for anything. You can’t make time, I already did.” Okay, I was stunned at the truth in that statement. Duh, God made time. Every day has twenty four hours, and the Bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, so the steps I should take in those twenty four hours already exist as a plan. My part isn’t to make time. I don’t make time. I use time. Prayed...

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. ISAIAH 30:21 The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them. HOSEA 14:9 "Let us remember that it is not God who makes many of the crosses that we find in our way, such as we commonly call "crosses." Our Heavenly Father makes "straight paths for our feet," and, if we would go in His way, if we would straighten our wills to His will, and lay them side by side, there would be no crosses. But when the path that God points out goes north and south, and our stubborn wills lead us east and west, the consequence is "a cross"--a cross of our own making, not that which our Master bids us "take up and carry after Him," and of which it has been well said, "He always carries the heaviest end Himself."