Hope on

"For Abraham, when hope was gone, hoped on in faith. His faith never quailed." (Rom. 4:18, 19.)

We shall never forget a remark that George Mueller once made to a gentleman who had asked him the best way to have strong faith.

"The only way," replied the patriarch of faith, "to learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings." This is very true. The time to trust is when all else fails.--A. B. Simpson

No rain, no rainbows...

Fix your thoughts on God instead of the pink elephant in the room

"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Romans 12:1-2, The Message

Struggling no longer...

Jacob got the victory and the blessing not by wrestling, but by clinging. His limb was out of joint and he could struggle no longer, but he would not let go. Unable to wrestle, he wound his arms around the neck of his mysterious antagonist and hung all his helpless weight upon him, until at last he conquered.

....It is not when we press and urge our own will, but when humility and trust unite in saying, "Not my will, but Thine." We are strong with God only in the degree that self is conquered and is dead. Not by wrestling, but by clinging can we get the blessing.--J. R. Miller

Running in circles

STUMBLING THROUGH THE DARK

You're so in love little girl
So much in love little girl
Running around in circles, why?
You know it's a crime

No less no more than a rose
No less no more than a rose
Try to attach a meaning
To words that you've heard

Stumbling through the dark
Seems I'm stumbling through the dark
Everybody's stumbling through the dark

The men who proceeded us here
Left only questions and fears
The vanity formed by beauty lies
You know it's a crime

Stumbling through the dark
Seems I'm stumbling through the dark
Everybody's stumbling through the dark
--The Jayhawks

It burns...

BOTHERED

Don’t be bothered by the fears
I’ll try to bottle them
Like my mother’s perfume
She wore it only on Sunday
Kept it safe in her room
In a chest with a key
We found it anyway

Don’t be bothered by the fears
They’ll only join us like the sky
That blushes red tonight
And makes the wind die down
Calms the troubled sea
More out of duty than pleasure
But out of pleasure nonetheless

Your fire burns me like a favorite song
A song I should have know all along
I feel you move like smoke in my eyes
And that is why

Don’t be bothered by the fears
That sing from my eyes like carrillon
Ringing only on Sunday
On the roof down our street
Finally over the river
Ring for you ring for me
Finally forever
It’s just I never
It’s just I never thought
I never thought that I could be this free

--Over the Rhine

A hidden spring, just where you are

Judges 15.19; En-hakkore, the well of him that cried.

Samson was hot and tired and thirsty there on the hill, thereafter known as The lifting up of the jaw-bone, or The casting away of the jaw-bone, or for short, The jaw. There was, I suppose, water underground, a hidden spring, as there is in so many hills, but Samson did not see it, did not know it was there. "He was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst? . . . But God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived." And he gave the place its beautiful name, The well of him that cried.

Have you ever been strengthened to win a victory perhaps over some inward foe, and have you suddenly found yourself tired out and sore athirst? Quite close, just where you are, there is water. Call, and the Lord will cause it to flow for you; some word of life will come to mind, some line of a hymn, some thought of peace, and your spirit will come again and you will be revived.
--from Edges of His Ways, by Amy Carmichael

In need of steadfast endurance

Heb. 10.36: Ye have need of patience [steadfast endurance], that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

This verse made me think of how continually our Lord makes obedience the test of love: "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." (John 14.21) I was thinking, too of how each act of obedience opens a window in Heaven, and light pours through upon the soul that obeys, and it walks on in that Heavenly light; whereas, just as certainly, the least disobedience shuts the window. No more light can come through. Then I came on this verse in Hebrews, which makes patience the link between obedience and receiving in their fulness the promises of God.

How does this bear upon our life to-day? Well, first I think that obedience is taken for granted (a disobedient child is not even contemplated). Can God take my obedience for granted? If He cannot, there can be only one reason: "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." If I disobey, it must be because I love someone else more. Who? But if that point has been passed, and the soul loves its Lord better than itself, and some word of His has been obeyed, or some urging in prayer yielded to, then may come the need of steadfast endurance. I think it often does. Lord, give to us all to obey and to endure, that even we may receive, for the enriching of our lives, Thy "exceeding great and precious promises." (2 Pet. 1.4)--from Edges of His Ways, by Amy Carmichael