The Man’s Own Faith

God, Guidance, Obedience, Trust 0

Observe the grandeur of redeeming liberality in the apostle.  In his heart of hearts he knows that salvation consists in nothing other than being one with Christ….

And yet he says, and says plainly, that a man thinking differently from all this, or at least quite unprepared to make this wholehearted profession of faith, is yet his brother in Christ.  Even in such a one he believes that the knowledge of Christ, such as it is, will work, the new leaven casting out the old leaven until he too, in the revelation of the Father, shall come to the perfect stature of the fullness of Christ….

But how can he help him if he is not to press upon him his own larger and deeper and wiser insights?

The answer is clear.  Paul will press, but not his opinion, not even the man’s own opinion.  But he will press the man’s own faith upon him….

Obedience is the one condition of progress, and Paul entreats them to obey.  If a man will but work that which is in him, will but make the power of God his own, then it will go well with him forevermore.  Like his Master, Paul urges to action…. 

Whereto you have attained, walk by that.

George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 203-205

Hope Is on the Horizon.

God, Trials, Trust 0

What we needed was a new perspective.  Our gratitude had grown tired, and we needed grace.

We found it when we stumbled across today’s verse, Romans 5:3.  There is something wonderfully man-sized about the apostle’s response to his hardships.  Stand the test, friends, for the end is in sight.  Hope is on the horizon.  A right approach to problems — whether great or small — is a wonderful thing to have hammered into your character.

Sometimes we think of the suffering in Romans 5 as the huge life catastrophes.  We forget that God’s grace-giving power is mostly for everyday sorts of tests and trials. . . .

What are your tests today?  Where do you need perseverance, staying power, and hope?  Ask God to help you step back and see a bigger picture than the trial right in front of your nose.  He uses everything in our lives to mold our character and make us more like his Son.

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, April 28 entry

God Catches Our Balloons

God, Letting Go, Life, Trust 0

When my children were young, they loved brightly colored helium balloons.  But sometimes either accidentally or purposely, they’d let go of the string.  There they’d stand, with tears in their eyes, watching their precious balloon fly high into the heavens until it disappeared from sight.

When that happened, I’d tell them a story.

“Don’t cry,” I’d say.  “God’s up there.  And you know what?  He catches every balloon you let go of.  He’s keeping all of them just for you.  Someday, when you get to heaven, you’ll get every one back.”

My children are older now; so am I.  But we still believe God’s saving our balloons for us.

And I believe God catches all our balloons too — each one we let go of.  Only we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to get them back.  The best and most perfect of our balloons, the ones just right for us, He gives back as soon as we’re ready to accept them.  Sometimes, He gives back better ones than we let go of.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 243

God Must Reveal

God, Truth 0

Opinion is, at best, even the opinion of a true man, but the cloak of his belief, which he may indeed cast to his neighbor, but not with the truth inside it.  That remains in his own bosom, the oneness between him and his God.  St. Paul knows well — who better? — that by no argument, the best that logic itself can afford, can a man be set right with the truth.  He knows that the spiritual perception which comes of hungering contact with the living truth — a perception which is in itself a being born again — can alone be the mediator between a man and the truth.  He knows that, even if he could pass his opinion over bodily into the understanding of his neighbor, there would be little or nothing gained from it.  For the man’s spiritual condition would be just what it was before.

God must reveal, or nothing is known.  And this, through thousands of difficulties occasioned by the man himself, God is ever and always doing his mighty best to accomplish.

— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 202-203

Willingness and Trust

God, Letting Go, Trust 0

Surrendering and letting go are about willingness and trust.  They’re about having enough faith to want something so much that we can taste it; then deliberately letting go of our desires and trusting our Higher Power to do for us what He wants, when He wants.  They’re about believing in God and His love for us even when it hurts….

We don’t have to surrender or let go perfectly.  We only need do it as well as we can, today.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 241

Questions

God, Life, Love 0

My faith in God, who is eternally loving and constant even as my understanding grows and changes, makes life not only worth living, but gives me the courage to dare to disturb the universe when that is what el calls me to do.  Sometimes simply being open, refusing to settle for finite answers, disturbs the universe.  Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security.  But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessing stronger than cursing.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Stone for a Pillow, p. 140, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, compiled by Carole F. Chase

God’s Choice

God, Gratitude, Joy, Life, Marriage, Trust 0

For the Christian who has embraced God’s sovereignty, the choice is God’s; and the result, whatever that choice may be, is rejoicing.  In Him is our joy and peace.  If He gives marriage, then in marriage we rejoice.  If He gives singleness, we rejoice in singleness.  In whatever state we are, we know contentment.

— Margaret Clarkson, So You’re Single, p. 117

Too Easily Pleased

God, Joy, Life 0

The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.  I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.  The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.  We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.  If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory