I Need to Love Something
by Mary Cosby
I need to love something so desperately that the love of it will cast out every fear. A lot of us know about that kind of love. For something, some cause, some combination of wonder that is happening -- to love it so desperately that you move right into it and there is no fear because your love is so great. The highest love is that of the Lord himself. That love can be so focused, so deep, so intense and so related to the call of God that even when I know I'm not "safe" in the surface sense, being faithful to that call I know I'm safe. I know that all things are working together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
Selah.
Source: Sermon (April 30 1989)
Showing posts with label true love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label true love. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Love from innocent eyes
Love described by 4-8 year old children
Here are some pretty excellent descriptions of love from the eyes of children. Sometimes kids get it a lot better than grownups... and here, some of these kids are pretty amazing in their takeaways of love. For instance, the one boy who says that when someone loves you, your name is safe in their mouth -- pretty awesome! Or, the boy who says that love is what is in the room at Christmas if you stop opening gifts and just listen. Or, the girl who says that love is the grandfather who paints the toenails of his wife, when she can no longer bend over from arthritis... incredible! So, enjoy!
Rebecca - age 8:
Billy - age 4:
Karl - age 5
Chrissy - age 6:
Terri - age 4:
Danny - age 7:
Emily - age 8:
Bobby - age 7:
Nikka - age 6:
Noelle - age 7:
Tommy - age 6:
Cindy - age 8:
Clare - age 6:
Elaine-age 5:
Chris - age 7:
Mary Ann - age 4:
Lauren - age 4:
Karen - age 7:
Mark - age 6:
Jessica - age 8:
Selah.
Happy Valentine's Day! :-)
Here are some pretty excellent descriptions of love from the eyes of children. Sometimes kids get it a lot better than grownups... and here, some of these kids are pretty amazing in their takeaways of love. For instance, the one boy who says that when someone loves you, your name is safe in their mouth -- pretty awesome! Or, the boy who says that love is what is in the room at Christmas if you stop opening gifts and just listen. Or, the girl who says that love is the grandfather who paints the toenails of his wife, when she can no longer bend over from arthritis... incredible! So, enjoy!
Rebecca - age 8:
'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'
Billy - age 4:
'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'
Karl - age 5
'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'
Chrissy - age 6:
'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'
Terri - age 4:
'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'
Danny - age 7:
'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'
Emily - age 8:
'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that.. They look gross when they kiss'
Bobby - age 7:
'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'
Nikka - age 6:
'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.'
Noelle - age 7:
'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday..'
Tommy - age 6:
'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'
Cindy - age 8:
'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'
Clare - age 6:
'My mommy loves me more than anybody You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night...'
Elaine-age 5:
'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'
Chris - age 7:
'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'
Mary Ann - age 4:
'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'
Lauren - age 4:
'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'
Karen - age 7:
'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.'
Mark - age 6:
'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'
Jessica - age 8:
'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'
Selah.
Happy Valentine's Day! :-)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Though I unworthy be
My spirit longs for thee
Words: John Byrom (@1692-1763)
Tune: Amen Court
My spirit longs for thee
within my troubled breast,
though I unworthy be
of so divine a guest.
Of so divine a guest
unworthy though I be,
yet has my heart no rest
unless it come from thee.
Unless it come from thee,
in vain I look around;
in all that I can see
no rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found
but in thy blessèd love:
O let my wish be crowned,
and send it from above!
Selah.
Words: John Byrom (@1692-1763)
Tune: Amen Court
My spirit longs for thee
within my troubled breast,
though I unworthy be
of so divine a guest.
Of so divine a guest
unworthy though I be,
yet has my heart no rest
unless it come from thee.
Unless it come from thee,
in vain I look around;
in all that I can see
no rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found
but in thy blessèd love:
O let my wish be crowned,
and send it from above!
Selah.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The nature of true love
Love at the Source
"For true love is inexhaustible;the more you give,the more you have.And if you go to drawat the true fountainhead,the more water you draw,the more abundant is its flow.”
Selah.
Antoine De Saint Exupéry
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
The falsity of communal reassurance based on nothing
Love vs. aura of benevolence
To be "thought of" kindly by many and to "think of" them kindly is only a diluted benevolence, a collective illusion of friendship. Its function is not the sharing of love but complicity in a mutual reassurance that is based on nothing. Instead of cultivating this diffuse aura of benevolence, you should enter with trepidation into the deep and genuine concern for those few persons God has committed to your care.
Selah.
Thomas Merton
To be "thought of" kindly by many and to "think of" them kindly is only a diluted benevolence, a collective illusion of friendship. Its function is not the sharing of love but complicity in a mutual reassurance that is based on nothing. Instead of cultivating this diffuse aura of benevolence, you should enter with trepidation into the deep and genuine concern for those few persons God has committed to your care.
Selah.
Thomas Merton
Monday, June 22, 2009
O be not thou dismayèd
Praise God! Praise God with singing
Words: Johann Roh (fl. 1529-1547) tr. John D. Libbey (1830-1892)
Tune: Komm
Praise God! Praise God with singing,
Rejoice thou Christian flock!
Fear not though foes are bringing
Their hosts against thy rock;
For though they here assail thee,
And seek thy very life,
Let not thy courage fail thee;
Thy God shall turn the strife.
O be not thou dismayèd,
Believing little band;
God, in his might arrayèd,
To help thee is at hand.
Upon his palms engraven
Thy name is ever found;
He knows, who dwells in heaven,
The ills that thee surround.
His purpose stands unshaken-
What he hath said he'll do;
And, when by all forsaken,
His Church he will renew.
With pity he beholds her,
E'en in her time of woe;
Still by his word upholds her,
And makes her thrive and grow.
To him belong our praises,
Who still abides our Lord,
Bestowing gifts and graces,
According to his word;
Nor will he e'er forsake us,
But will our guardian be,
And ever stable make us,
In love and unity.
Selah.
Words: Johann Roh (fl. 1529-1547) tr. John D. Libbey (1830-1892)
Tune: Komm
Praise God! Praise God with singing,
Rejoice thou Christian flock!
Fear not though foes are bringing
Their hosts against thy rock;
For though they here assail thee,
And seek thy very life,
Let not thy courage fail thee;
Thy God shall turn the strife.
O be not thou dismayèd,
Believing little band;
God, in his might arrayèd,
To help thee is at hand.
Upon his palms engraven
Thy name is ever found;
He knows, who dwells in heaven,
The ills that thee surround.
His purpose stands unshaken-
What he hath said he'll do;
And, when by all forsaken,
His Church he will renew.
With pity he beholds her,
E'en in her time of woe;
Still by his word upholds her,
And makes her thrive and grow.
To him belong our praises,
Who still abides our Lord,
Bestowing gifts and graces,
According to his word;
Nor will he e'er forsake us,
But will our guardian be,
And ever stable make us,
In love and unity.
Selah.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
The loving slowness of awful omnipotence
How God conquers evil
Subtitle: Why this long valley of suffering, waiting and pain?
There are many who think to reverence the Most High by assuming that He can and should do anything or everything that pleases Him in a mere moment. In their eyes power is a grander thing than love. But His Love is higher than His omnipotence. See what it cost Him to redeem the world! He did not find that easy, or to be done in a moment without pain or toil. Yes, God is omnipotent -- awfully omnipotent. For He wills, effects, and perfects the thing which, because of the bad in us, He has to carry out in suffering and sorrow. Evil is a hard thing, even for God to overcome. Yet thoroughly and altogether and triumphantly will He overcome it. But not by crushing it underfoot -- any god of man's idea could do that! -- but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all. Nothing shall be too hard for God that fears not pain, but will deliver and make true and blessed at His own severest cost.
Selah.
George MacDonald, "Down the Hill," The Gentlewoman's Choice, edited by Michael R. Phillips.
Subtitle: Why this long valley of suffering, waiting and pain?
There are many who think to reverence the Most High by assuming that He can and should do anything or everything that pleases Him in a mere moment. In their eyes power is a grander thing than love. But His Love is higher than His omnipotence. See what it cost Him to redeem the world! He did not find that easy, or to be done in a moment without pain or toil. Yes, God is omnipotent -- awfully omnipotent. For He wills, effects, and perfects the thing which, because of the bad in us, He has to carry out in suffering and sorrow. Evil is a hard thing, even for God to overcome. Yet thoroughly and altogether and triumphantly will He overcome it. But not by crushing it underfoot -- any god of man's idea could do that! -- but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all. Nothing shall be too hard for God that fears not pain, but will deliver and make true and blessed at His own severest cost.
Selah.
George MacDonald, "Down the Hill," The Gentlewoman's Choice, edited by Michael R. Phillips.
Monday, June 01, 2009
A divine measure of love
How a man truly loves a woman
A heart has to be taught to love, and its first lesson, however well learned, no more makes it perfect in love, than the A B C makes a philosopher. The man who loves most will love best.
The man who thoroughly loves God and his neighbor is the only man who will love a woman ideally -- who can love her with the love God thought of between them when he made man male and female. The man, I repeat, who loves God with his very life, and his neighbor as Christ loves him, is the man who alone is capable of grand, perfect, glorious love to any woman.
Because his love was towards everything human, he was able to love her as others were not able to love her. To that of the most passionate of unbelieving lovers, his love was as the fire of a sun to that of a forest. The fullness of a world of love-ways and love-thoughts was his. In sweet affairs of loving-kindness, he was in his own kingdom, and sat upon its throne.
And it was this essential love, acknowledging and embracing, as a necessity of its being, everything that could be loved, which now concentrated its rays on the individual's individual. His love to her stood like a growing thicket of aromatic shrubs, until her confession set the fire of heaven to it, and the flame that consumes not, but gives life, arose and shot homeward. He had never imagined, never hoped, never desired she should love him like that. Only from her own lips could he have come to believe that she would view him more than a nobody, a mere burning heart running about in tattered garments.
His devotion to her had forestalled every pain with its antidote of perfect love, had negated every lack, had precluded every desire, had shut all avenues of entrance against self. Even if "a little thought unsound" should have chanced upon an entrance, it would have found no soil to root and grow in: the soil for the harvest of pain is that brought down from the peaks of pride by the torrents of desire.
Immeasurably the greater therefore was his delight, when the warmth and scent of the love that had been from time to him immemorial passing out from him in virtue of consolation and healing, came back upon him in the softest and sweetest of flower-waking spring-winds. Then indeed was his heart a bliss worth God's making. The sum of happiness in the land, if gathered that night into one wave, could not have reached half-way to the crest of the mighty billow tossing itself heavenward as it rushed along the ocean of his spirit!
.
Selah.
George MacDonald, The Baronet's Song.
A heart has to be taught to love, and its first lesson, however well learned, no more makes it perfect in love, than the A B C makes a philosopher. The man who loves most will love best.
The man who thoroughly loves God and his neighbor is the only man who will love a woman ideally -- who can love her with the love God thought of between them when he made man male and female. The man, I repeat, who loves God with his very life, and his neighbor as Christ loves him, is the man who alone is capable of grand, perfect, glorious love to any woman.
Because his love was towards everything human, he was able to love her as others were not able to love her. To that of the most passionate of unbelieving lovers, his love was as the fire of a sun to that of a forest. The fullness of a world of love-ways and love-thoughts was his. In sweet affairs of loving-kindness, he was in his own kingdom, and sat upon its throne.
And it was this essential love, acknowledging and embracing, as a necessity of its being, everything that could be loved, which now concentrated its rays on the individual's individual. His love to her stood like a growing thicket of aromatic shrubs, until her confession set the fire of heaven to it, and the flame that consumes not, but gives life, arose and shot homeward. He had never imagined, never hoped, never desired she should love him like that. Only from her own lips could he have come to believe that she would view him more than a nobody, a mere burning heart running about in tattered garments.
His devotion to her had forestalled every pain with its antidote of perfect love, had negated every lack, had precluded every desire, had shut all avenues of entrance against self. Even if "a little thought unsound" should have chanced upon an entrance, it would have found no soil to root and grow in: the soil for the harvest of pain is that brought down from the peaks of pride by the torrents of desire.
Immeasurably the greater therefore was his delight, when the warmth and scent of the love that had been from time to him immemorial passing out from him in virtue of consolation and healing, came back upon him in the softest and sweetest of flower-waking spring-winds. Then indeed was his heart a bliss worth God's making. The sum of happiness in the land, if gathered that night into one wave, could not have reached half-way to the crest of the mighty billow tossing itself heavenward as it rushed along the ocean of his spirit!
.
Selah.
George MacDonald, The Baronet's Song.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
God helps those who...
Friday, April 10, 2009
Acuerdate oh Señor -- Holy Week
I'll share this video with you all, created for use in our special Tenebrae service. Part of my ordination vows say to serve the people with "intelligence, imagination, creativity and love." Well, this service [including video slideshow] took every ounce of that! Lots of effort and imagination, finding, creating, choosing pictures and then choosing the right song: my first attempt at creating multi-media for worship. But I absolutely couldn't have done this without integral help from Patrick. He was the technical brain behind this video. He worked so hard to make the Tenebrae service a success: thanks, Patrick! Way above the call of duty -- heavenly.
So, friends, enjoy this prayer song and video.
Make sure to click the full screen version, second button from the right.
God bless you this Easter season!
Loy
p.s. Translation of Acuerdate oh Señor
Acuerdate oh Señor
Acuerdate oh Señor
De las naciones de la tierra acuerdate
Que tu favor y tu amor
Sean derramados sobre el mundo oh Señor
En tu bondad acuerdate
En tu bondad acuerdate
Remember, oh Sir!
Remember, oh Sir!
For the nations of the earth remember
That your favor and your love
Are spilled out on the world, oh Sir!
In your kindness remember…
In your kindness remember…
Selah.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Jesus laughing with Mary in the carpenter shop
Jesus had the best sense of humor ever: it was perfect, loving life, seeing irony without cynicism, bringing others into the fair dance of Life.
If you know Him, you just have to love Him. If you don't know Him, what better time of year to make His acquaintance? He's smiling and laughing, beckoning you onward and home!
Selah.
Monday, March 16, 2009
You alone
That I may love... for you alone
Give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.
Selah.
Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation
Give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.
Selah.
Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thy nature and thy name is Love
Come, O thou traveller unknown
Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
Tune: Traveller
Come, O thou traveller unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name;
Look on thy hands, and read it there:
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.
In vain thou strugglest to get free;
I never will unloose my hold!
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold:
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.
Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
Thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell;
To know it now resolved I am:
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.
What though my shrinking flesh complain,
And murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain,
When I am weak, then I am strong;
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-Man prevail.
Yield to me now; for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.
'Tis Love! 'Tis Love! thou diedst for me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love thou art;
To me, to all, thy mercies move:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
My prayer has power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
I know thee, Savior, who thou art,
Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend;
Nor wilt thou with the night depart,
But stay and love me to the end;
Thy mercies never shall remove:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
The sun of righteousness on me
Has risen with healing in his wings;
Withered my nature's strength, from thee
My soul its life and succor brings;
My help is all laid up above:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Contented now upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On thee alone for strength depend;
Nor have I power from thee to move:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Lame as I am, I take the prey,
Hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And as a bounding hart fly home,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
Tune: Traveller
Come, O thou traveller unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name;
Look on thy hands, and read it there:
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.
In vain thou strugglest to get free;
I never will unloose my hold!
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold:
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.
Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
Thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell;
To know it now resolved I am:
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.
What though my shrinking flesh complain,
And murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain,
When I am weak, then I am strong;
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-Man prevail.
Yield to me now; for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.
'Tis Love! 'Tis Love! thou diedst for me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love thou art;
To me, to all, thy mercies move:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
My prayer has power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
I know thee, Savior, who thou art,
Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend;
Nor wilt thou with the night depart,
But stay and love me to the end;
Thy mercies never shall remove:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
The sun of righteousness on me
Has risen with healing in his wings;
Withered my nature's strength, from thee
My soul its life and succor brings;
My help is all laid up above:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Contented now upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On thee alone for strength depend;
Nor have I power from thee to move:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Lame as I am, I take the prey,
Hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And as a bounding hart fly home,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and thy name is Love.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Presumption? I can only widen my assertion
The potent outshining of sons
“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing [the outshining] of the sons of God.”
When the sons of God show as they are, taking, with the character, the appearance and place that belong to their sonship, when the sons of God sit with the Son of God on the throne of their Father, then shall they be in potency of fact the lords of the lower creation, the bestowers of liberty and peace upon it. Then shall the creation, subjected to vanity for their sakes, find its freedom in their freedom, its gladness in their sonship. The animals will glory to serve them, will joy to come to them for help.
Let the heartless scoff, the unjust despise! The heart that cries Abba, Father, cries to the God of the sparrow and the oxen. Nor can hope go too far in hoping what that God will do for the creation that now groans and travails in pain because our higher birth is delayed. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Shall my heart be more compassionate than His?
If to any reader my interpretation be unsatisfactory, I pray him not to spend his strength in disputing my faith but in making sure of his own progress on the way to freedom and sonship.
Only to the child of God is true judgment possible. Were it otherwise, what would it avail to prove this one or that right or wrong? Right opinion on questions the most momentous will deliver no man. Cure for any ill in me or about me there is none but to become the son of God I was born to be. Until such I am, until Christ is born in me, until I am revealed a son of God, pain and trouble will endure – and God grant they may!
Call this presumption, and I can only widen my assertion – until you yourself are the son of God you were born to be, you will never find the good life intended. If I presume for myself, I presume for you also.
But I do not presume. Thus has Jesus Christ represented God – as a Father perfect in love, grand in self-forgetfulness, supreme in righteousness, devoted to the lives He has uttered. I will not believe less of the Father that I can see in the face of the Son. He is the express image of the Father, by which we, His imperfect images, are to read and understand Him…
Selah.
George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, "Abba, Father!"
“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing [the outshining] of the sons of God.”
When the sons of God show as they are, taking, with the character, the appearance and place that belong to their sonship, when the sons of God sit with the Son of God on the throne of their Father, then shall they be in potency of fact the lords of the lower creation, the bestowers of liberty and peace upon it. Then shall the creation, subjected to vanity for their sakes, find its freedom in their freedom, its gladness in their sonship. The animals will glory to serve them, will joy to come to them for help.
Let the heartless scoff, the unjust despise! The heart that cries Abba, Father, cries to the God of the sparrow and the oxen. Nor can hope go too far in hoping what that God will do for the creation that now groans and travails in pain because our higher birth is delayed. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Shall my heart be more compassionate than His?
If to any reader my interpretation be unsatisfactory, I pray him not to spend his strength in disputing my faith but in making sure of his own progress on the way to freedom and sonship.
Only to the child of God is true judgment possible. Were it otherwise, what would it avail to prove this one or that right or wrong? Right opinion on questions the most momentous will deliver no man. Cure for any ill in me or about me there is none but to become the son of God I was born to be. Until such I am, until Christ is born in me, until I am revealed a son of God, pain and trouble will endure – and God grant they may!
Call this presumption, and I can only widen my assertion – until you yourself are the son of God you were born to be, you will never find the good life intended. If I presume for myself, I presume for you also.
But I do not presume. Thus has Jesus Christ represented God – as a Father perfect in love, grand in self-forgetfulness, supreme in righteousness, devoted to the lives He has uttered. I will not believe less of the Father that I can see in the face of the Son. He is the express image of the Father, by which we, His imperfect images, are to read and understand Him…
Selah.
George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, "Abba, Father!"
Friday, January 02, 2009
Love all lovely, love divine
Love came down at Christmas
Words: Christina Rossetti, 1885
Tune: Hermitage
Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas:
star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith the sacred sign?
Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.
Selah.
Words: Christina Rossetti, 1885
Tune: Hermitage
Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas:
star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith the sacred sign?
Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.
Selah.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Lord, you have loved me first
My Lord, I did not choose you
Josiah Conder (1789-1855)
My Lord, I did not choose you,
for that could never be;
my heart would still refuse you
had you not chosen me.
You took the sin that stained me,
you cleansed me, made me new;
for you, Lord, had ordained me
that I should live in you.
Unless your grace had called me
and taught my opening mind,
the world would have enthralled me,
to heavenly glories blind.
My heart knows none above you;
for you I long, I thirst,
and know that, if I love you,
Lord, you have loved me first.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Josiah Conder (1789-1855)
My Lord, I did not choose you,
for that could never be;
my heart would still refuse you
had you not chosen me.
You took the sin that stained me,
you cleansed me, made me new;
for you, Lord, had ordained me
that I should live in you.
Unless your grace had called me
and taught my opening mind,
the world would have enthralled me,
to heavenly glories blind.
My heart knows none above you;
for you I long, I thirst,
and know that, if I love you,
Lord, you have loved me first.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Friday, November 07, 2008
The soul of prayer
True prayer struggles with God
P.T. Forsyth
The popularity of much acquiescence [in prayer] is not because it is holier, but because it is easier. And an easy gospel is the consumption that attacks Christianity. It is the phthisis to faith [phthisis = wasting disease].
If we come to think that we best say "Thy will be done" when we acquiesce, when we resign, and not also when we struggle and wrestle, and in time all effort will seem less pious than submission. And so we fall into the ecclesiastical type of religion, drawn from an age whose first virtue was submission to outward superiors. We shall come to canonize decorum and subduedness in life and worship [as the Episcopal Church with its monarchical ideas of religion has done]. We shall think more of order than of effort, more of law than of life, more of fashion than of faith, of good form than of great power. But was subduedness the mark of the New Testament men? Our religion may gain some beauty in this way, but it loses vigor. It may gain style, but it loses power. It is good form, but mere aesthetic piety. It may consecrate manners, but it impoverishes the mind. It may regulate prayer by the precepts of intelligence instead of the needs and faith of the soul. It may feed certain pensive emotions, but it may emasculate will, secularize energy, and empty character. And so we decline to a state of things in which we have no shocking sins -- yes, and no splendid souls; when all souls are dully correct, as like as shillings, but as thin, and as cheap.
All our forms and views of religion have their test in prayer. Lose the importunity of prayer, reduce it to soliloquy, or even to colloquy, with God, lose the real conflict of will and will, lose the habit of wrestling and the hope of prevailing with God, make it mere walking with God in friendly talk; and, precious as that is, yet you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last. In principle you make it mere conversation instead of the soul's great action. You lose the food of character, the renewal of will. You may have beautiful prayers--but as ineffectual as beauty so often is, and as fleeting. And so in the end you lose the reality of religion. Redemption turns down into mere revelation, faith to assent, and devotion to a phase of culture. For you lose the power of the Cross and so of the soul.
Resist God, in the sense of rejecting God, and you will not be able to resist any evil. But resist God in the sense of closing with God, cling to Him with your strength, not your weakness only, with your active and not only your passive faith, and He will give you strength. Cast yourself into His arms not to be caressed but to wrestle with Him. He loves that holy war. He may be too many for you, and lift you from your feet. But it will be to lift you from earth, and set you in the heavenly places which are theirs who fight the good fight and lay hold of God as their eternal life.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth
The popularity of much acquiescence [in prayer] is not because it is holier, but because it is easier. And an easy gospel is the consumption that attacks Christianity. It is the phthisis to faith [phthisis = wasting disease].
If we come to think that we best say "Thy will be done" when we acquiesce, when we resign, and not also when we struggle and wrestle, and in time all effort will seem less pious than submission. And so we fall into the ecclesiastical type of religion, drawn from an age whose first virtue was submission to outward superiors. We shall come to canonize decorum and subduedness in life and worship [as the Episcopal Church with its monarchical ideas of religion has done]. We shall think more of order than of effort, more of law than of life, more of fashion than of faith, of good form than of great power. But was subduedness the mark of the New Testament men? Our religion may gain some beauty in this way, but it loses vigor. It may gain style, but it loses power. It is good form, but mere aesthetic piety. It may consecrate manners, but it impoverishes the mind. It may regulate prayer by the precepts of intelligence instead of the needs and faith of the soul. It may feed certain pensive emotions, but it may emasculate will, secularize energy, and empty character. And so we decline to a state of things in which we have no shocking sins -- yes, and no splendid souls; when all souls are dully correct, as like as shillings, but as thin, and as cheap.
All our forms and views of religion have their test in prayer. Lose the importunity of prayer, reduce it to soliloquy, or even to colloquy, with God, lose the real conflict of will and will, lose the habit of wrestling and the hope of prevailing with God, make it mere walking with God in friendly talk; and, precious as that is, yet you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last. In principle you make it mere conversation instead of the soul's great action. You lose the food of character, the renewal of will. You may have beautiful prayers--but as ineffectual as beauty so often is, and as fleeting. And so in the end you lose the reality of religion. Redemption turns down into mere revelation, faith to assent, and devotion to a phase of culture. For you lose the power of the Cross and so of the soul.
Resist God, in the sense of rejecting God, and you will not be able to resist any evil. But resist God in the sense of closing with God, cling to Him with your strength, not your weakness only, with your active and not only your passive faith, and He will give you strength. Cast yourself into His arms not to be caressed but to wrestle with Him. He loves that holy war. He may be too many for you, and lift you from your feet. But it will be to lift you from earth, and set you in the heavenly places which are theirs who fight the good fight and lay hold of God as their eternal life.
Selah.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The power of your love
Wisdom from Francis of Assisi
From the first known letter from Francis to all believers:
May the power of your love, Lord Jesus Christ
May the power of your love, Lord Christ,
fiery and sweet as honey,
so absorb our hearts
as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven.
Grant that we may be ready
to die for love of your love,
as you died for love of our love. Amen.
Selah.
From the first known letter from Francis to all believers:
O how happy and blessed are those who love the Lord and do as the Lord himself said in the gospel: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul, and your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, let us love God and adore him with pure heart and mind. This is His particular desire when he says: True worshipers adore the Father in spirit and truth. For all who adore Him must do so in the spirit of truth. Let us also direct to Him our praises and prayers, saying: "Our Father, who are in heaven," since we must always pray and never grow slack.
Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Humans lose all the material things they leave behind in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God's sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father's children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May the power of your love, Lord Jesus Christ
May the power of your love, Lord Christ,
fiery and sweet as honey,
so absorb our hearts
as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven.
Grant that we may be ready
to die for love of your love,
as you died for love of our love. Amen.
Selah.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
A word for the day: adversity, loving-kindness, return
Hear the sound of loving-kindness in the morning!
Psalm 90 selection
Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning;
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
Make us glad by the measure of the days
that you afflicted us
and the years in which we suffered adversity.
Show your servants your works
and your splendor to their children.
May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;
prosper the work of our hands;
prosper our handiwork!
Selah.
Love bears, believes, hopes and endures
1 Cor. 13 selection
Love bears all things and believes all things;
love hopes all things and endures all things.
Love never ends...
Selah.
Psalm 90 selection
Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning;
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
Make us glad by the measure of the days
that you afflicted us
and the years in which we suffered adversity.
Show your servants your works
and your splendor to their children.
May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;
prosper the work of our hands;
prosper our handiwork!
Selah.
Love bears, believes, hopes and endures
1 Cor. 13 selection
Love bears all things and believes all things;
love hopes all things and endures all things.
Love never ends...
Selah.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thoughts between daughter and Father IX
KNOWING ONLY TO FOLLOW
Her thoughts said, “How can I know that it is the time to move?”
Her Father said,
“And it shall be when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle. Thou shalt certainly hear that sound. There will be a quiet sense of sureness and a sense of peace.”
The daughter said, “If another also heard that sound it would be easier.”
Her Father said,
That may not always be. The sound of going is like the voice of the shepherd that the sheep know, but how they know they could not tell, knowing only to follow.”
THE TOKEN
The daughter said, “But how can I be sure?”
Her Father said,
When He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know His voice. And a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers. Therein lies the token. Thou wilt recognize the Voice of the Shepherd. The voice of the stranger will be nothing to thee.”
NO POWER CAN BAR THE WAY
Her thoughts said, “I wish that the sea might be made into dry land and the waters divide – then all would understand that Thou art leading me.”
Her Father said,
That crossing of the sea was the first and the easier obedience. The crossing of the river later on asked for a more daring faith. The way did not open in Jordan until the feet of the priests were dipped in the water. But it did open then. Rivers turn to roads, mountains become valleys, when He who is named Remover of Hindrances goeth before. Then no one can forbid. No power can bar the way.”
LOVE AND THOU SEEST
The daughter thought of Absalom, who dwelt two full years in Jerusalem and say not the King’s face. What if she be like Absalom?
And she remembered Bartimaeus, and how, casting away his garment, he sprang up and came to the Lord Jesus. Was there a garment that she had not cast away?
Her Father said,
“O foolish and blind, if there be any hindering thing known to thee, cast it away now; if such there be and thou dost not know it, I will reveal it to thee. Be not anxious even about that. Dost thou not love? I know that thou lovest. Love and thou comest. Love and thou seest.”
Love and thou seest!
Selah.
Prayer
Dear God of my rivers and deserts, help me today to serve you in faithful obedience. Help me to hear the sound of moving in the mulberry trees of the spirit, and then to move... holding nothing back, casting away the garments that have held me and framed me in lesser things, I spring up to follow you. Then others who do not hear the sound of moving may see it in my life, and be blessed. Then will they understand, according to your will -- yet may I not use that lack of understanding as a garment crutch! May I be to you today as Abraham and Sarah, who journeyed across the wilderness in faith, to the land of promise. May I be today as the priests who walked into the river, and found it a road!
Today, Father, I claim the promise that at your right hand are pleasures forevermore, and you know best, far and away, what is best for me! Today I will sing and wait for you, causing you the delight of those who bring you pleasure by waiting on you, as though the promise had already arrived!
Thank you that you are working in me -- this day -- both to will and do your good pleasure. I wait for you and give you my praise! Grant a new filling of the Spirit in my life to fulfill this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Selah.
Note: More thoughts from the private conversation of Amy Carmichael, as she talked to her Father about the issues of life and personal challenges around her. God used her to rescue many young girls from ritual Hindu temple prostitution, and wrought miracles through her prayer life. Here is glimpse into that prayer life. May it bless you today!