Is it I, Lord?

We are approaching the end of Passover and Matthew’s gospel gives us the chilling account of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Judas had been out and about making preparations to betray Jesus but he sits down with all the other disciples at the Passover supper. Jesus is aware of what is happening, and I can’t imagine how painful this is to Him.

The text says, “As they were eating, He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me” (Matt. 26:21). The disciples are extremely shocked and sad, after all, it's not something you want to hear after living day and night with Jesus for three years. It’s not something you bring up during the middle of a holy meal, yet Jesus did just that. He did it in the middle of His community, because its not just His betrayal, it is the community’s betrayal. He is aware of who the betrayer is, aware of all that will happen later that evening, and yet here He sits in the middle of His family, of which one is the betrayer.

I think Jesus did this prophetic act so that later when the disciples thought of it, they would know that Jesus knew and that His death did not come by chance, but was something that Jesus knew He was headed for and destined for. There is something disconcerting about following a leader who doesn’t see it coming. There is something incredibly inspiring about following a leader who does see it coming and stands up into His destiny despite what it costs.

Jesus does nothing to try and talk Judas out of it, but he does say that it would have been better for HIs betrayer not to have been born. I can only imagine the face of Judas going white then going red with increased blood pressure as he realizes that Jesus knows. I can only imagine. I can’t imagine.

Jesus extends the question to all the disciples and it hangs in the air like a heavy cloud darkening the atmosphere of the celebration of the Lord’s saving act to His people so long ago. But here is my point. As He looks at each of His disciples, they one by one ask, “Lord, is it I?” Each of them had the heart to find out if it was they themselves that would betray Him.

I’m sure their hearts were not completely pure and like a searchlight, this announcement by the Lord would bring up any times when they doubted that Jesus was who He said He was or anytime they had been pushed past their ability to understand and had thought to leave Him. I’m sure they quickly began to wager a guess as to who it was as they pushed aside any sense of their own guilt. Yet in that moment, suspended in some sort of eternal moment of decision, they had the courage to ask “Is it I?”

What a penetrating question that struck deep into their hearts, separating soul and spirit. For whatever reason, even Judas asks this of Him. Perhaps it was to cover his guilt, to appear surprised, even to test Jesus, perhaps all those things. His question springs as a cover for guilt and not as a genuine inquiry.

It is a time to allow the Lord to ask us tough questions. He asks these questions so the deepest things in our hearts can rise to the surface to be helped. He did this from start to finish in His ministry and He was doing it there and then--but He is also doing it here and now. His questions are never because He doesn’t know the answer but because He does know the answer all too well and we do not. Our hearts are expert at hiding the truth, the real reason, the actual cause. Jesus!

Let us let You search our hearts, dear Lord! Look deep, ask us the hard questions, reveal, uncover, expose so that You might make us true and straight as an arrow shot from the quiver of God. Let every pretense, every hiding place, be searched. We needn’t be afraid to admit we need help. So, Lord, Help us! Make us “pure and holy, tried and true.” Please.

The Easter When Everything Changed

I personally think that I will remember this Easter for many years to come. It was the Easter we spent isolated in our houses while the world changed. True story! But it needed to change. So much of life is waiting. The biblical tradition has a long history of waiting in it. Abraham and Sarah waiting for a baby; Noah waiting for the rain to start; Elijah waiting on a mountain; Daniel waiting for the exile to be over; Anna waiting for the Messiah to be born; John waiting on Patmos for Jesus; the list is much longer.

 I’ve been waiting for a long time for what I sense I’m seeing. There are destined times and epochs in the “kairos” time of God. “When the fullness of time had come…” Just when time is about to burst with waiting, it explodes into the purpose of God. The preparation for a servant of God takes a long time, again, I can give you a longlist: Moses, David, Daniel, Jesus, Himself, Paul, Timothy, John the Beloved. God can do what He wants without us, but He has chosen to work with and through us, so He has to polish, temper, and strengthen us so that we don’t snap out of pressure or lose our faith in the process.

Let’s face it, it's been cloudy for a good, long while. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a “cloudy and dark day” when the sheep are scattered and the Shepherd has to go out and gather them. I have seen that look of fierceness on the Face of the Great Shepherd in these last days, I have seen His determination to gather those that are lost. The clouds of false belief; man-made religion; lethargy induced apathy; confusion, dismay, and inability to endure have clouded the Face of the Living God from those that need most desperately to see Him. So He is going to rise up and go looking for the lost sheep. He is going to blow the hindering clouds away. He is going to go into every last highway and byway looking for those stuck in the thorny bushes of hopelessness, despair, and shame. He asks us to go with Him. He asks us to gather with Him for He has told us, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and who does not gather with Me, scatters” (Matthew 12:30.

 I have seen people who know God and walk with God come back to life in the last week. I have seen hope born, courage arise, purpose return. I’ve seen the glaze disappear from the eyes of the believers who have looked for Him so long, more than they who wait in the cold, dark night for morning. A cloud the size of man’s hand appears overhead. The Lord is standing up to move. Don’t miss it. Prepare your heart, shake off your slumber, fill your lamp with oil, trim your wick. Stand up with Him.

Stepping it Up a Notch at 60

 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:12-14) 

While we are eternal beings in an ultimately real sense, we are also mortals while on this earth. The Psalmist tells us to “number our days” that we might gain perspective of how short earthly life is compared to eternity, and how imperative it is that our earthly sojourn count much for the eternal kingdom of God.

 A couple of us at Women of the Word are turning 60 this year! With that comes a soberness of heart that causes us to turn to the Lord, and implore Him to use us as He wills. There can be nothing held back from Him in this hour. As our bodies age, our spirit can burn every more brightly because we identify with our Lord and understand His purposes and ways in an even greater way. The desire and pursuits of earlier decades give way to increasingly wholehearted and unreserved abandon to our God and His passionate work to win all peoples to Himself.

 There are some things that can not be completely done when we are young because we do not yet have the experience. Maturity in God happens over the course of decades-- line upon line of faithful walking with God, day in and day out, through the many storms of life. While youth has energy, the seasoned have come to know that of themselves, they can do nothing and their self-trust has given way to trust in God alone, or at least a deeper understanding of that. There are no shortcuts to some things. Knowing where you end, and where God begins is a great wisdom.

 Paul writes, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. 4 And endurance develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character produces joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for us in our ungodly condition Romans 5:3-6 Amplified).

By the time we turn 60, our character is soberingly starting to show itself for what it is. Now is our wake-up call to be awake, and surrendered, and fit for the Master’s use. For if not now, when? If we have not taken the claims of Jesus upon our life seriously, we had best get down on our knees. And if we have, there are always deeper, more wonderful depths to plumb.

I feel that I am only getting to the starting line and I have endeavored to run the race with sobriety for these many decades! God views our life from the finish point. He stands at our finish line and beckons us to run well, run with abandon, run with character, run with grace. So let us do that, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. There is no time to lose, and no time like the present to press into God.

Thoughts as the Old Passes into the New

It has been an interesting year.  Somewhere along the line  I felt like I have fallen through the back of my wardrobe into a landscape much wilder than Narnia. The prophet Isaiah, had a year like that, only I imagine it was even more intense, "In the year King Uzziah died, he writes, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and  His train filled the temple." (Isaiah 6:1) .  His look at God spun him around and threw him to the floor. There was nothing much left of him but his eyes and his ears.

A seraphim approaches him and puts a burning coal on his lips, and while this purges him, it makes him aware that his speech does not do God justice. And all that he hears spoken around him and by him falls far short of the glory of God. His own lips are not prepared to be in the Presence of God.  And yet, he sees God and God sees him and his response is to want to speak purely of God and for God.

I'm not sure what I've seen this year, but its like having spent a long time climbing to a top of a very tall mountain, a mountain that has to be climbed with trepidation, step by step, and takes all of your attention so that you cannot look around til you reach the summit. And then, the last step, as you stand and look to survey what you have climbed up there for,  is one vast, immense panorama of incredible splendor and beauty and order and wonder as far as the eye can see. Yes, that's where I've been. 

To have a place to stand and see oneself in perspective is an INCREDIBLE gift. One that has blown me away to the degree that I have dared to look. There are things in life that tend to close down our vision of God and ourselves. We end up with a kind of a tunnel vision born of fear. We can only see a small section of the path straight ahead and sometimes that is all we need to see, but there are also times when the blinder's come off and we are allowed to see the whole panorama, all of it at once, for God only knows entirely why, but definitely for a reason connected with one's destiny.

Last year I had the pleasure of visiting the Isle of Man. I don't know who named it that, but on the ground it's beautiful but normal.  It's Man. It's what born of man, and belongs to man, and is of man: just like so much of our experience. There is a mountain peak on the Isle called Snaefell. Its the only place on the island where you can see seven kingdoms just by turning around : England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Mann, the Sea, and Heaven! To see the panorama from the top is to somehow change you, to pull you out of Man and to bring you up to a higher place.

I'm acclimating to the higher place, I'm acclimating to the great expanse of Heaven, to the Kingdom of God unfolding in ways that I could not see a year ago.  I'm acclimating to being mostly only eyes and ears, and having angels touch my lips with coals, and seeing the train of God's glory fill the temple.  If you know what I'm saying, you have been there, and if you don't quite know what I'm saying, I'm not sure I can explain it.

I intend to let whatever is happening have its full work! I intend to stand and breath in the thick smoke of God filling the temple. I intend to let God change me and use me in whatever way He chooses. I intend for 2018 to be an amazing year. Lord, make Your dwelling place in me as I make myself a fit dwelling place for You!  

Leadership Lessons from Return of the Jedi

I'm going to post a few notes each day about what I learned about leadership from Return of the Jedi. *Spoiler Alert*

 The first one is this: Good leaders, even if they have fallen out of the saddle, and retreated to sort things out, are willing to get back up on their horse and lead when the time is ready.

 The older Luke Skywalker is found hidden away, far from the madd'ing crowd, on an island far from society. Ironically, in real life, the site where they filmed Skywalker's hermitage is Skellig Michael, one of the earliest monastic locations in Ireland. You had to be brave to live there but you went there to get away from the world and focus on God. It was for extreme seekers. You had to know how to dig deep to make it there. Luke Skywalker had long retreated from the public eye. He's tried to forget that he's gifted. He's tormented by his failure. When Rey comes and starts to feel the Force, she stares at him boldly and says, "but I couldn't feel you in it, you've cut yourself off from it, haven't you!?"

Luke knows that being on the razor edge of fighting for good puts you up close to bad, and that you can lose your balance. But he has cut himself off from the Source of his life. He is trying, like the prophet Jonah, to run from his call and bury his gift. Good leaders deal with the mess of sorting this out in their own lives. Sometimes it takes time. Working through the process of failure is what makes them good at leading when they get back up! Good leaders acknowledge that spiritual battle has real dangers and work through it. It makes them more aware of their need for God. Good leaders don't go forward in their own power, they know when to retreat, but they also know when its time to rise back up.

Sometimes they need help, a mentor like Yoda, or a reason to do it, like the young Jedi warrior Rey showing up on his proverbial stone doorstep asking for help. Rey knows she has a gift, but she needs "someone to show me my place in all this." We all need that methinks. We don't care that you've failed, we want you to use what you have to help us because if we have come asking for help we recognize that you still know more than we do--even when you have failed. If your heart is right, you get past the failure, learn from it and become a better warrior, even a mentor. If it's not, you die on the island alone and let the world fall into the hands of the enemy.

Greater Than all My Failures

 Some One larger than all of my failures is stirring inside of me. .. Let the Holy
Spirit  arise within you and do His Work. God is not worried about what you are not or not
yet. He is jealously guarding what He has planted within you. Let it rise up amidst the weeds.
His life will mold you and make you even  in challenging circumstances. It is immutable life.
It is eternal. 

Friends, Dwell in the Living Spirit

"Friends, Dwell in the Living Spirit, and quench not the motion of it in yourselves, nor the movings of it in others; though many have run out and gone beyond their measures, yet many more have quenched the measure of the Spirit of God; and have become dead and dull  and have questioned through a false fear; so there has been hurt both ways. Therefore, be obedient to the power of the Lord  and His Spirit; war with the Philistine that would stop up your well and your springs." --George Fox, Quaker, 1683

photo taken of morning mist on Lake Quantabacook, Searsmont, ME

                            Depart from the highway, and transplant thyself in some enclosed ground,

   for it is hard for a tree that stands by the wayside to keep its fruit until it be ripe. ---John Chrysostom

It's a nice time of year to retreat and allow the Lord to fill us back up....far

from the 'madding crowd...

lovely snow falling from pines....Easthampton, MA 

The Indwelling Truth in Presence & Power --George MacDonald

Our Lord had no design of constructing a system of truth in intellectual forms. The truth of the moment in its relation to him, The Truth, was what he spoke. He spoke out of a region of realities which he knew could only be suggested—not represented—in the forms of intellect and speech. With vivid flashes of life and truth his words invade our darkness, rousing us with sharp stings of light to will our awaking, to arise from the dead and cry for the light which he can give, not in the lightning of words only, but in indwelling presence and power.

How, then, must the truth fare with those who, having neither glow nor insight, will build intellectual systems upon the words of our Lord, or of his disciples? ....

 To men who are not simple, simple words are the most inexplicable of riddles.

[George MacDonald, unwritten sermons I: "I shall not be forgiven", p 24 of this link]


photo taken in West Suffield, CT.
 

Letting God Rescue Us : A Lakeside Fish Tale

Recently, I was at the lakeside home of a friend. With the really, really hot and oppressive temperatures we have had here in New England, it was
nice to sit by the lake and just relax, until, well.  What you need to know is
that I have spent a good deal of my adult life doing dog rescue, and had even  
met this particular friend through our many years of saving dogs from unnecessarily premature deaths. I have tried to put the "rescue" part in a much smaller part of my life but somehow it keeps popping up. So now it is  fish rescue.

The tale unfolds thus: 

There is a tiny stream that feeds into the lake on my friend's property. It gradually slopes down from the road into the lake, with little pockets that
fill up with water when it rains or water drains into it. Well, OK, so another
friend and I were relaxing nicely until she saw that some little fish had
been caught in the stream pockets that were rapidly drying up and extremely hot. So on went the rescue hats!  We spent quite awhile trying to rescue the little ones from impending death. The "quite awhile" part came because the small fish were either unaware of their certain doom or were aware of it but still content to stay where they were and hope for the best.

They would do their utmost to hide from us, and with trying to find them, a lot
of silt muddied the water, making it worse for all of us.  We could see the
dead bodies of two fish whose little pondette had already dried up. Too late! 
And we knew time was of the essence for the others.  One by one we captured them and put them in the lake, running quickly lest they jump out of the net
to another kind of demise. They fought us all the way, flipping and jumping
out of the little mesh screen we used to try and scoop them up with. But then, 
as they were put in the large lake, after a few minutes of adjustment and 
gill-full of fresh oxygen, they darted merrily into the depths. 

I started to think about this and suddenly knew God was trying to show me
something.  These little fish had set off in a spirit of adventure and ended
up getting trapped in a stifling pool that was drying up. Yet, they fought
those who would try to help them out and hid from them.  Slowly, they would suffocate if they did not get out.  They were determined but we were also determined because we knew what they did not know.  

How much is this like our life with God? We often set out in search of 
new ground, not knowing its dangers. We end up, off track, trapped in a small pool that will slowly suffocate us. God comes to rescue us, putting His Hands underneath us and scooping us out of the situation back into the expansive and wonderful depths of the Big Lake, and yet we try to evade Him and flip out of His Hands. Our little world has become stifling but there we sit in it, our original sense of adventure drying up with every passing minute because we are getting less and less oxygen to think and act clearly!  Our sense of self-preservation can sometimes work completely against us.

In our lives with God, there is time we must be willing to get out of our stifling, rotting ponds--waters that we may have gotten into because of our own silliness or even our good intentions, but from which God must rescue us or we will die. Let us trust His hands in the changes He brings us to. They are surely meant for our good--to bring life to us.  And let us, too, be aware of the little ones around us who are inches away from death, those who, also, need God's rescue, 'til we all swim happily in that Big Ocean of God in the sky. :)

          
 

Wearing Out the Saints of the Most High

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. Daniel 7:25


The prophet Daniel writes these words as he sees future events unfolding to him in  a vision scarier
than a horror movie. He is greatly agitated because this is not a movie, but a warning and a preview
of what will happen in the latter days. Daniel sees the Antichrist rising, and he sees these two things:
that the Antichrist will "speak great words against the Most High" and "shall wear out the saints of the most  High."  These words are written for our benefit and we need to take heed to what it is they
are warning us about.

The enemy of our souls has many techniques that he uses against the saints of God.  In this verse
it says that he shall "wear out" the saints of the most High.  Life can be a long journey. We start
out well, but the question is, will we finish well? It is question we all must prepare to answer with a
resounding "yes!"   It is the strategy of the devil, even now, to wear us out, bit by bit, without our
noticing how drained we have gotten. And from the looks of it, he is winning a lot of ground. Jesus tells us, in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25), that five were very foolish and did not labor to prepare for the long period of darkness that came while they were waiting for the bridegroom. The darkness was longer than they expected and took more preparation then they realized

In this parable Jesus places both the responsibility of preparation and the blame of  not preparing, on the virgins themselves. So in this it is important to see that while the devil is our enemy, we are the ones who decide what will happen to us.

The Antichrist (and the apostle John has told us that many antichrists are already in the world at work) will wear out or wear down the saints.  Have you ever been so tired that you could make no
effort? Have you ever been so discouraged that you could not get up? God gives to His servants
all that they need to accomplish His will. But that impartation can be whittled away. How does this happen? In several ways! In the first part of verse 25 it says that the Antichrist will speak "great words against the most High."

Even now many words are spoken against the most high and we feel the affects of them.  People live in godless ways and speak of godless things. In Ezekiel 13, God speaks against false prophets who speak in such a way that the righteous are made sad and discouraged:  "Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life " (Ezekiel 13:7) . Here it is not even the heathen that are speaking with  ungodliness but false prophets who say they are from God! Let the reader ponder this!

To hear things that grieve the heart of God, and to see things that grieve the heart of God wears
upon the souls of the godly.  This exposure to evil is not going away and is promised to increase as we near the day of the Lord's victorious return,  so we must learn to guard our hearts with the truth that God will soon blow away the wicked and His kingdom of goodness will be an everlasting one. The problem and effects of evil will be with us until the Lord's coming but we must see past the temporal and encourage our hearts in the eternal.

A second way that we are worn down is to spend our time and resources on that which does not
satisfy.   God asks, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live (Isaiah 55: 2 &3). 

God admonishes us to incline our ears to listen to Him and to delight ourselves in rich food!
I am sure that He does not mean cheesecake! We must feed upon the rich food of the Word,
upon meat and not milk. Milk is not meant to sustain an adult whether spiritually or naturally.
If we are only nibbling at empty tidbits and the words of men, rather than learning to eat for 
ourselves from the grand buffet of God's meaty word, than we will soon be weak and thus, will
 be worn out. Satan seeks to rob us by putting spiritual junk food in front of us. Thinking we are full we soon fall flat because we have no nutrients. 

Another way that we get worn out is to do more than God has asked us to. Jesus said,   
 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (John 5:19).
So often we think that "more" is more valuable spiritually. So often we do not ask God if He
wants us to do something, we just do it thinking it is a good idea. So often we buy into the world's idea of what a full life is: to be busy is to be someone important and to be living life with gusto.
This will soon wear us down to a thread. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing and 
showing Him to do.  And so often we are lured into busyness by the will of others and made to
feel bad if we do not pipe to their musical cacophony.  So let us be careful.

There, also, are seasons in life when things swing out of control and we are thrown into situations that will wear us down and there is nothing we can do about it--but that should not be ALL  of our life.  God allows certain of these ordained seasons to see if we will draw on His strength. During these times we draw upon the wells of  deep water in our spirits -- hours and days of time we have spent with God in quiet and confidence during quieter days and from the Holy Spirit who ministers grace in due season.  It is that stockpile that carries us through.

These seasons are times of testing and times when we learn more fully to not trust in our own strength but in the merciful strength that God has planted within us for such a season.  Later, when the trial is over, there is time when God gives us a chance to rest and we must take it and see its value as equally important to our busiest God-ordained movement. Our strength needs constant replenishing. If we let our strength run dry we will be like the foolish virgins whose lamp goes out just when it is most needed. This is  the plan of the enemy and  a most important consideration for all of us in these days.

Make Me Thy Fuel, O Flame of God!

 

 

“From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher
 

From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified)
... From all that dims Thy Calvary

O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
 

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.”

 

-Amy Carmichael

 

Travel Light

I have a beautiful Border Collie that has come to stay with me, most likely permanently.
Her name is Precious, and so she is! Gentle, sweet, loving and intense as Border
Collie's can be. She came to me with literally nothing--no possessions.  As always, I am
learning a lot from her.  Border Collies like to herd, as I am finding out. As she has
begun to amass possessions with the proclivity of a raven--a stuffed toy, various bones,
 a ball, a hard piece of bread, her dog bowl, she herds them all into her bed. Then she lays
 down on them so she can make sure they are "safe."   Sometimes when I call her and
she won't come its because she is "on guard duty" on her bed.  She counts all the items,
I think, because I have taken things from her bed when she is not looking and then I
soon find the item back in her bed.

All of this reminds me very much of how we, as humans, can relate to our possessions.
We start out with our birthday suit and pretty soon we can't get out of our bed, even
when the Master calls, because we are "watching our stuff."

Sometimes I put food in the bowl in her bed. and then I go back and gently pretend that
I am going to take it back. She is very good--she would not growl at  me or refuse me the
right to take it back, but she does a good job at herding me off in another direction--
the old "hey, look over there" trick. She does let me take the food back, but
it creates anxiety in her. Hmm...now do you or I get like that when God touches our stuff?

We know all our things belongs to Him, we know we are His, and all that we have
came to us from Him. We came with nothing, but now we get nervous if He starts to
"touch" our "stuff." Perhaps we had less when we had no worldy possessions, but then
we get them and anxiety about taking care of them fills our minds. And this does not just
apply to physical items but to the very essence of our lives--we guard our lives, and the more
vigilant a personality we are, the more we guard it.    Border Collies are not slackers,
they are type A personalitie--they are on the job 24/7.  But that trait can work against
them when they are put in charge of minding things--because they don't know when
to stop and call it a day. They don't know when to go home and  go to bed because
even in their bed they have to guard! Yikes!

All I can tell you is that there is a big lesson in all this: If you are the Lord's Border Collie,
give all your items back to Him. Travel light, my friend.  

Putting Away That Which Hinders

"Comrades in this solemn fight- this awful conflict with awful powers- let us settle it as something that cannot be shaken: We are here to live holy, loving, lowly lives. We cannot do this unless we walk very, very close to the Lord Jesus. Anything that would hinder us from the closest walk that is possible to us till we see Him face to face is not for us. We need to be sensitive to the first approach of the hindering thing. For the sake of the souls that may be stumbled if we turn even ever so little aside, for the sake of our Master's glory- dearer surely to us than all else- let us ask Him to show us whether in anywise we have been showing crooked patterns." - Amy Carmichael

(trees in a massive windstorm, Feeding Hills, MA)

If you want the fire of God, you must become the fuel of God

                      If you want the fire of God, you must become the fuel of God.
                                                                                          --Tom Tenney

photo taken in Cambridge, UK


 

 

The Lord Knoweth Them That Are HIs

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. (2 Timothy 2:9)

photo taken near Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

Jonathan Edwards: I Know Not How to Express...

This I know not how to express otherwise than by a calm, sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this world; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart; an ardor of soul, that I know not how to express.
... I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father’s pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, as I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.



photo taken on the far side of Pike's Peak...
near the Florrisant Fossil Beds,
Colorado

Enjoy Me!

Just these two words He spoke
changed my life.

"Enjoy Me."

What a burden I thought I was to carry--
a crucifix, as did He.

Love once said to me,
"I know a song,
would you like to hear it?"

And laughter came from every brick in the street
and from every pore
in the sky,

After a night of prayer, He
changed my life when

                        He sang,
"Enjoy Me."

--from Theresa of Avila, "Laughter came from every Brick"
--Love Poems from God  edited by Daniel Ladinsky

photo taken at Magic Wings Butterfly
So. Deerfield, MA

Following Christ into the Wilderness

"If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road,

I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all"

 - David Livingstone

photo taken in White Sands, New Mexico