Just wondering

Just wondering what it would be like to blog again and what my purpose and motivation might be in doing so. Also, just wondering if anyone ever still checks this site! I obviously wasn't.... :)

providence revisited

Back to the year-long learning theme of God's sovereignty and providence.....

"The primary purpose is for us to become so convinced of ...[the sovereignty, love, and wisdom of God]...that we appropriate them in our daily circumstances, that we learn to trust God in the midst of our pain, whatever form it may take" (19).

"God's providence is His constant care for and His absolute rule over all His creation for His own glory and the good of His people" (23).

Jerry Bridges' Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2008).

New book, new post :-)

New school year, new book, new post - how exciting! :)

I recently purchased Jerry Bridges' Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2008). A foundational premise is that so often it is easier to obey God than to trust Him, especially amidst difficult situations, but that trust is just as essential and God-glorifying. I appreciate the call to examine our hearts and to again look at the wisdom and the sovereignty of God in various spheres of Creation, based on the Word.

Speaking to the reason why it is sometimes hard to trust through difficult times:

"Obeying God is worked out within well-defined boundaries of God's revealed will. Trusting God is worked out in an arena that has no boundaries. We do not know the extent, the duration, or the frequency of the painful, adverse circumstances in which we must frequently trust God. We are always coping with the unknown.

"Yet it is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him....In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense....It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity" (16).

May we obey AND trust our great God and Father!

don't waste it!

"Regret and worry are two incredible wastes of your imagination."
~ Paraphrase of Mrs. B's wisdom (from a Dutch saying?!)

Of course, there are also Biblical commands not to worry and to leave things to the Lord.
All the same, I found this quotation striking. Our imagination and brainpower are drained by fruitless regret over things that we can't change and worry over things that are yet to come.

Needless to say, we need to live careful, thoughtful, reflective lives, but most often the worry and regret distract from the present; too often they invite opportunity for doubt, self-pity, anxiety, etc.

So how are you using your imagination these days (especially you teacher-folk starting school again!)

Summer

TIME and ownership

Last one from C.S. Lewis. Hopefully you've either gleaned enough to be challenged or are motivated to put The Screwtape Letters on your reading list! :)

Time.
We know it is limited.
And not our own.
Do we use it that way?
I found this passage totally convicting!

You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own.' Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours....The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels (112).

The "advice" from the senior devil was to make the human angry whenever something "interrupted" his plan for how he would use his time. Angry that someone stopped him for guidance. Angry that there was an unexpected visitor.

When we remember that time is not our own, and that this life is so fleeting, it surely puts time in a whole different light!

the need for change

Continuing to share from this brilliant piece of work by Lewis (The Screwtape Letters), below is a section referring to the desire for incessant change. The "devils" are discussing how they think they can exploit this idea to cause dissatisfaction and to draw people away from asking if things are righteous, prudent, possible, necessary....

Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up. This demand is valuable in various ways.

In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.

And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both.

And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids (137, emphasis mine).

Variety is good and, of course, not in itself sinful. Our Lord has created such a bountiful Earth with such incredible, imaginative sources of diversity and creativity. But when pure novelty and change is sought for its own pleasure, we should stop and think.