MAKE us masters of ourselves,” wrote the prison reformer Sir Alexander Paterson, “that we may be the servants of others.
As a bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear up the bird – up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom – so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling – wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.
I’m convinced that there are a good many things in this life that we really can’t do anything about, but that God wants us to do something with.
It is a merciful Father who strips us when we need to be stripped, as the tree needs to be stripped of its blossoms. He is not finished with us yet, whatever the loss we suffer, for as we loose our hold on visible things, the invisible become more precious – where our treasure is, there will our hearts be.
As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha. May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost and our responsibility.
Suffering creates the possibility of growth in, holiness, but only to those who, by letting all else go, are open to the training – not by arguing with the Lord about what they did or did not do to deserve punishment, but by praying, “Lord, show me what You have for me in this.
I don’t pray when I’m in the mood anymore then I wash dishes when I’m in the mood. Pray ’til you feel like praying.
Although I have not found intellectual satisfaction, I have found peace. The answer I say to you is not an explanation but a person, Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.
The love of God is not a sentiment. It is a willed and inexorable love that will command nothing less than the very best for us. The love of God wills our joy. I think of the love of God as being synonymous with the will of God.
Well, that’s what faith is about, isn’t it? If you really believe that somebody loves you then you trust them. The will of God is love. And love suffers. That’s how we know what.
The word suffering is much too grand to apply to most of our troubles, but if we don’t learn to refer the little things to God how shall we learn to refer the big ones? A definition which covers all sorts of trouble, great or small, is this: having what you don’t want, or wanting what you don’t have. The vicissitudes of travel furnish plenty of what Janet Erskine Stuart calls “blessed inconveniences,” occasions which fit both categories in our definition.
Does our faith rest on having prayers answered as we think they should be answered, or does it rest on that mighty love that went down into death for us?
You either believe God knows what He’s doing or you believe He doesn’t. You either believe He’s worth trusting or you say He’s not. And then, where are you? You’re at the mercy of chaos not cosmos. Chaos is the Greek word for disorder. Cosmos is the word for order. We either live in an ordered universe or we are trying to create our own reality.
Some day, even you will see that there’s sense in this. Your suffering is never for nothing.
So if you get all hung up, thinking now is this thing from God or is it from Satan? Is this the voice of God or the voice of Satan? Stop worrying about it. You don’t really need to sort that out because here’s a case where the thorn was in a sense given by God as a messenger of Satan.
But when the answer is no, then we know that God has something better at stake. Far greater things are at stake. There is another level, another kingdom, an invisible kingdom which you and I cannot see now but toward which we move and to which we belong.
The same God who urges us to obey also furnishes the desire as well as the strength to do so. Our part is to exercise our wills.
The Bible’s answers are never to be separated from the God of the Bible.
Jesus comes into our lives in these places of need. And if we recognize Him because of our need, then we can receive whatever it is that He is prepared to offer us whether it’s the grace of forgiveness or the patience to wait for the answer to that prayer or healing or serenity in the midst of the worst times of your life. Whatever it is, you can receive it and say, “Thank You, Lord.
We had a little brass plate over the front doorbell that said “Christ is the head of this home, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation.
In times of deepest suffering it is the faithful carrying out of ordinary duties that brings the greatest consolation.