Earth and Heaven

A prayer I enjoyed today from The Valley of Vision:

O LORD,

I live here as a fish in a vessel of water,
only enough to keep me alive,
but in heaven I shall swim in the ocean.
Here I have a little air in me to keep me breathing,
but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales;
Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness,
a warm ray to keep me from freezing;
yonder I shall live in light and warmth for ever.
My natural desires are corrupt and misguided,
and it is Thy mercy to destroy them;
My spiritual longings are of Thy planting,
and Thou wilt water and increase them;
Quicken my hunger and thirst after the realm above.
Here I can have the world,
there I shall have Thee in Christ;
Here is a life of longing and prayer,
there is assurance without suspicion,
asking without refusal;
Here are gross comforts, more burden than benefit,
there is joy without sorrow,
comfort without suffering,
love without inconstancy,
rest without weariness.
Give me to know that heaven is all love,
where the eye affects the heart,
and the continual viewing of Thy beauty
keeps the soul in continual transports of delight.
Give me to know that heaven is all peace,
where error, pride, rebellion, passion raise no head.
Give me to know that heaven is all joy,
the end of believing, fasting, praying,
mourning, humbling, watching, fearing, repining;
And lead me to it soon.

The Very Visible Promise of Spring

It weighs on my heart that I haven't been more diligent in posting on this blog. There are many flashes of inspiration that come and I think, "Yesss! That will make a splendorous blog entry!" Then time creeps up and past and that inspiration from a week ago waves a regretful goodbye.

Then there are also the stirrings and happenings that I just want to hold dear in my own heart and not share with the few that would be inclined to read what I've written. They are my treasures. Why risk the trampling of my exceeding lovely, iridescent pearls? (Sorry to intimate that some of you may be of the swine variety...Matthew 7:6.) But really, if I am worried about that, why indeed have I started a blog?

So here is one joy that has caused me to laugh and leap about lately: the very visible promise of Spring. Near to the official start of Fall, a charming old man put hand to ear and asked with a gleam in his eye, "Hear that? It's the sound of the crocuses coming up. Spring's right around the corner!" Now, that comment was a bit overly optimistic even for me, being still a whole season away from the dark barrenness of Winter. Now the calendar states that finally the first day of that dreary, disconsolate season is upon us, but guess O guess what I just saw at Save On Foods? Bulb planters! Yes, the primulas are shining their bright funny faces at us and I believe that Spring's right around the corner!

There is evidence everywhere. I've always known that rhododendrons put out their flower buds right after they finish blooming. Those buds stand dormant for nigh to a whole year before they open and dazzle us with feminine colour and delight. But there are more dormant buds and hopeful shoots every which way! Check out some of the supposedly dead, bare branches on various trees next time you're out on a walk. They are primed and ready for the increase of light leading to the eventual full flourishing of fruit!

So, I can call Winter dreary and disconsolate, but know that I don't entirely mean it. It's really been one of the driest, least grey Fall seasons we've ever had, or so it seems, and I have my own hypothesis as to an explanation for that. And even if Winter turns sour and bitter and rains down on us that true Vancouver rain (i.e. rain that drizzles miserably for 2+ weeks straight), we can take heart in the very visible promise of Spring. The evidence is everywhere - for those who have eyes to see, that is.

On Grace

I suppose it would be ideal for me to save the sharing of this poem until Mother's Day, but I like the bulk of it too much to keep it for the right occasion. John Piper wrote this poem for his mother Ruth on Mother's Day one year:

On Grace
Some people tell me I was free,
When I believed in Christ;
And by my power got victory,
When all the world enticed.
I think they did not know my heart,
Nor theirs. Let it be said
That I for one had sought no part
In rising from the dead.
They wonder at the sovereign rights
That I allow my King,
And puzzle at the worship heights
To which His rule gives wing.
But I will rest God's grace today
On this (I need no other):
He did not give me any say,
But chose for me my mother.

Published in "Taste and See: Savouring the Supremacy of God in all of Life" (2005).

Good Advice on Helping the Depressed

Ministering to the Depressed from HeadHeartHand Media on Vimeo.

David Murray offers some sound wisdom

Beholding Glory and Becoming Whole

After listening to a fellow Christian exhort the church one way or another from the Bible, I sometimes think to myself, "Yes, that is all well and good. Of course I want to live that way/be obedient to that command, but I've tried countless times before and just can't! How am I supposed to actually do that?"

While I believe the answer is none other than the typical Sunday School answer, "Jesus", more specifically it is found in the following verses:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, italics mine)

As John the Baptist understood and said about Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30), so we must actively, daily seek His face, His glory, His ways, everything to do with Him. For more on this subject, check out John Piper's sermon Beholding God and Becoming Whole: Seeing and Savouring God as the Heart of Mental Health, which he spoke to the American Association of Christian Counselors a few years back.

GOD with Us

Don't miss this short, spoken, powerful reminder of what the approaching season is all about.

Perfect Timing

The following excerpt I found this morning while reading through an old journal:

August 1, 2009... Something Hutchman and I can use and must remember: God is a God "who acts for those who wait for Him" - Isaiah 64:4.  It may take some waiting, too, because I would imagine God would want to see our faith, the extent of it.  He must delight when all our trust is in Him and we're counting on nothing else!

I had not remembered writing this.  Isaiah 64:4 has been much in my heart and on my lips in prayer over the past year in relation to several different areas of life.  Then I find this old musing on it in my own journal and, in effect, have myself exhorting myself to hold fast to these same truths. 

Our God is a God who acts for those who wait for Him.  Be encouraged therefore.  His ways are perfect.  His timing is perfect.  We must continue to pray and not lose heart, persistent-widow style (Luke 18:1-8).

The Revealer of Mysteries

Several days ago, I began reading the book of Daniel.  Each morning as I flip to the next chapter, I pray for opened eyes to behold wonders out of God's law and that He might teach me something about Him.  It has therefore been a thrill.  This is what I've praised and thanked God for thus far:

• Chapter 1:9 God's ability to give Daniel favour in the sight of the Gentiles in whose charge he was.
• Chapter 2:5, 11 How an impossible, inevitably fatal situation comes upon all the wise men of Babylon -  perfect conditions for God to show His glory!
• Chapter 2:20-22 Wisdom and might belong to this God.  He is in charge of all things in the universe - times and seasons, kings and rulers, wisdom and knowledge.  He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.
• Chapter 2:28 ... there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries!  
• Chapter 2:47 This wicked Gentile king says to Daniel the Israelite, "Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries..."
• Chapter 3:17 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego asserting hearty faith in the God who is able to deliver them from the fiery furnace, confidently leaving the matter in His hands either way.
• Chapter 3:27 The detail of there not even being the smell of the fire on them when they come out of the furnace.  Complete and perfect deliverance down to the very details.
• Chapter 4:17, 25, 26  The desire for all the living to know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men.  Heaven rules.  God is in charge, over all. 
• Chapter 4:35 "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'"
• Chapter 4:37 The King of heaven... whose works are right and ways are just.

Now, might I join Nebuchadnezzar in saying, "It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me" (4:2).  That will be the purpose of this blog.  Now, while I account myself as nothing, a bit of dust, like anybody else in being merely pinched off from a piece of clay, I am also one in at least 8 million that could have been here instead of me, and aren't.  That was the only race I ever won.  N.D. Wilson points it out in his book Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl: "We are a world of lottery winners. For every one of us here right now, in every begetting, there were at least 7,999,999 losers.  They didn't even know how almost they were" (40).  With all this talk of God being in charge, over all, it's safe to say that He wanted me here.  Thus I must have something to do or say worth doing or saying. 

What could be more worth saying than that my Father of lights is worthy to be praised!  Consider: this awesome God who is in charge of the universe has so much regard for this bit of dust, that instead of wrath and gaping fire, which I rightly deserved, He gave me His perfect love and repose of soul.  Instead of raging hell and eternal anguish, which I rightly deserved, He gave me an eternity of glory as my boundless horizon (these dichotomies taken from The Valley of Vision).  All this how?  All this by the suffering work of Jesus Christ on the cross, proved by his powerful, glorious resurrection.  Is it any wonder that I love Him?

So when I deserved nothing but outer darkness forever for my sin and because I hated this Fairest of the Fair, everything I now know and enjoy and don't enjoy as much in life is grace.  Therefore, "Gratitude is all-important.  Everything is a gift.  Every smell, every second, every ice cream dollar.  Gratitude for the whole story, from beginning to end, gratitude for the valleys and the shadows that lead us to the novel's final page" (Wilson again, 181). 

And so it shall continue, by His grace, this counting of gifts, marveling at God's grace, and striving to press in to know Him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.  ~Hosea 6:3