Today while reading in Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian I was hit head on by these thoughts....
"Whatever security, happiness, relief, rescue, affirmation, meaning, and sense of purpose we're privileged enough to experience - it still isn't enough. Something within us hungers for what we don't yet have. And whether or not we realize it, this drives our every pursuit. We crave the more - sometimes wildly and illogically, it seems, but consistently, recurrently."
"All complain - princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us from misfortune to misfortune." (Pascal)
"The infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself." (Pascal)
"You made us for yourself, and out hearts are restless until they rest in you." (Augustine)
May those around me not see one who has a complaining spirit, who is restless but let those around me see one who finds her rest in Him who created and saved her. May my only want be more of Him!
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
My daughter and I started a new book tonight for her "night time book". I normally try to pick a missionary biography of some sort. Tonight we started "John Newton Out of the Depths". We only made it 2 pages and I was blessed by its words and couldn't help sharing...
"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee through the wilderness."
The importance and comfort of these words is still greater, if we consider them in a spiritual sense, as addressed to all who are passing through the wilderness of this world to a heavenly Canaan; who, by faith in the promises and power of God, are seeking an eternal rest in that kingdom which cannot be shaken. The hope of that glorious inheritance inspires us with some degree of courage and zeal to press forward. When our eye is fixed upon the Lord, we are more than conquerors over all that would withstand our progress.
But we have not yet attained; we still feel the infirmities of a fallen nature. Through ignorance and unbelief, we often mistake the Lord's dealings with us, and are ready to complain. If we knew all, we should rejoice.
Even in this imperfect state, though we are seldom able to judge aright present circumstances, yet, if we look upon the years of our past, and compare what we have been brought through, with the frame of our minds under each successive period; if we consider how wonderfully one thing has been connected with another, so that what we now number among our greatest advantages, perhaps, took their first rise from incidents which we thought hardly worthy of our notice. We have sometimes escaped the greatest dangers that threatened, not by any wisdom or foresight of our own, but by the intervention of circumstance of which we neither desired not thought. By the light offered us in the Scriptures, we may collect proof, from out narrow circle, that the wise and good providence of God watches over His people from the earliest moment of their lives, overrules and guards them through all their wanderings in a state of ignorance, and leads them in a way that they know not." (pg. 7-9)
"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee through the wilderness."
The importance and comfort of these words is still greater, if we consider them in a spiritual sense, as addressed to all who are passing through the wilderness of this world to a heavenly Canaan; who, by faith in the promises and power of God, are seeking an eternal rest in that kingdom which cannot be shaken. The hope of that glorious inheritance inspires us with some degree of courage and zeal to press forward. When our eye is fixed upon the Lord, we are more than conquerors over all that would withstand our progress.
But we have not yet attained; we still feel the infirmities of a fallen nature. Through ignorance and unbelief, we often mistake the Lord's dealings with us, and are ready to complain. If we knew all, we should rejoice.
LOOKING BACK
But to us there is a time coming when our warfare shall be accomplished, our views enlarged, and our light increased. With what transports of adoration and love shall we look back upon the way by which the Lord led us! We shall then see and acknowledge that mercy and goodness directed every step; we shall see that what our ignorance once called adversities and evils, were in reality blessings which we could not have done well without. Nothing befell us without cause; no trouble came upon us sooner or pressed on us more heavily, or continued longer than our case required. Our many afflictions were, each in their place, among the means employed by divine grace and wisdom to bring us to the possession of that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which the Lord has prepared for His people. Even in this imperfect state, though we are seldom able to judge aright present circumstances, yet, if we look upon the years of our past, and compare what we have been brought through, with the frame of our minds under each successive period; if we consider how wonderfully one thing has been connected with another, so that what we now number among our greatest advantages, perhaps, took their first rise from incidents which we thought hardly worthy of our notice. We have sometimes escaped the greatest dangers that threatened, not by any wisdom or foresight of our own, but by the intervention of circumstance of which we neither desired not thought. By the light offered us in the Scriptures, we may collect proof, from out narrow circle, that the wise and good providence of God watches over His people from the earliest moment of their lives, overrules and guards them through all their wanderings in a state of ignorance, and leads them in a way that they know not." (pg. 7-9)
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