Wednesday’s Word-Edition 111
February 26, 2014 | My Jottings
The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.
And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
~~ C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity
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Hello Sis:
Life is a continual trial, and I have learned that it does not come from the Lord, as he does not tempt, but he does test us, and it is the Cross that we bear in our lives.
I also find that many of my own problems have come from what has been in my life in the past, as for the many trials, they are having to do with where I am in my life.
If I am fat and having problems with my body, it is not because of God, but because I did not take care of the body he gave me, if I have trouble with my lungs and I smoked for years, it was because of what I did earlier in my life and not what God has done to me.
God is a loving God but he is also a God of choice. Thus as we are, as being His creation – we are also a person of choice.
What few seem to realize is that we have to live with our choices. He is not interested in my body as I am, but He does expect me to take care of the things that He has blessed me with.
I have also come to realize that God is also a God of reactionary action to my action.
I have seen that from the beginning of the Word in Genesis where he judged Satan, Adam and Eve each differently according to their own sins.
Also in Job, we see that if we continue in Him, He gives us no more than we can handle. Some may argue with that, but what I have learned is that if I am going thru something or things, it is more for my own growth that I am going thru them.
We can continue to seek Him in good times when we least feel we really need Him or we can turn from Him just as we can continue to realize we are in hard times or we can continue to seek Him in these times also.
When we continue in His ways, not only is He always there, but there are Brothers and Sisters we have in Him that also continue to push in to Him for our own well being. It is that fellowship that we share thru Him that some times seems to pull us thru what we thought we could not get thru in the first place.
Though we might not have all of our family being right with Him, we do know that not being of the world but rather just being in the world, allows us to be pulled thru by the prayers of our loving brothers and sisters in Christ as well as our own prayers.
The light of nature on the outside is the light of human reason, philosophy and human speculation. It is such light that shuts out God from our lives and blinds us as a worshiper to the things which are spiritual and of Him.
The light of nature (the world) is the light of human reason. When we want to follow human reason instead of faith, our actions rejects the Word entirely, and it is then that we tend to invent all sorts of human philosophies and theories of our own natural wisdom.
I have come a long way in my life and have so much more yet to go. It was hard for me to realize that the remedy for all that I have done in the past was always trying to substitute for my morality, ethics, ordinances, or phychology.
I have been studying the Tabernacle recently and love how blunt and in my face God’s design really is. How much there is in the symbolic structure of God’s house that is shown in 55 separate chapters of the Word.
I say all of this to say that you are – perhaps going thru some things right now, but like the Menorah, there is always light for us to see by, there is always Him who is our light, which the Menorah represents.
There is always a just true light ahead of us when we are walking in the light, there is always the infallible light that safely guides us in His rules of life.
I am reminded of the light that the man you now take care of was the light for you and a reflection of His light for me even on the few times I have had the chance to walk with your man and talk with your man personally.
Once when I went fishing with your man, Michael reminded me not in word but in action that he was a safe guide and walked in the rule of life and his conduct and practice was an example for me as a believer.
I am blessed by you and your husband, and will always have special memories of the times and especially him even though they have been ever so brief, in the sanctuary of God’s north forest on a small but peaceful lake just out of Duluth.
It is those moments that we become awake to many things of value He has provided for us.
I take a look at the trees outside right now as their bare unusual proof can be witnessed as each of the designs of each trunk are like fingerprints or limb structure seems as if they are never the same even though the genetics may be the same, their structures are not, with no two alike in all the world.
It times like this that I realize there is that special voice that you spoke of, just waiting there for me too.
Blessings
Larry
Thank you for what you said about Michael Lar. xoxo
“Coming in out of the wind”. What a perfect way to express it. xx
I thought that was just perfect too, Ember. So right. xoxo
I think I must pull my copy of Mere Christianity off the shelf. I don’t remember reading this quote. It is a treasure. I wonder how many other unnoticed or unremembered treasures are in this book.
I have found just what you said each time I’ve read it, Sue. Always something new that I hadn’t focused on before, and needed just at the new time. Love to you today. xxoo