Category Archives: Walking Faithfully

We know not what we should pray for (Rom. 8:26) – Streams in the Desert

May 14, 2013

“We know not what we should pray for as we ought” (Rom. 8:26).

Much that perplexes us in our Christian experience is but the answer to our prayers. We pray for patience, and our Father sends those who tax us to the utmost; for “tribulation worketh patience.”

We pray for submission, and God sends sufferings; for “we learn obedience by the things we suffer.”

We pray for unselfishness, and God gives us opportunities to sacrifice ourselves by thinking on the things of others, and by laying down our lives for the brethren.

We pray for strength and humility, and some messenger of Satan torments us until we lie in the dust crying for its removal.

We pray, “Lord, increase our faith,” and money takes wings; or the children are alarmingly ill; or a servant comes who is careless, extravagant, untidy or slow, or some hitherto unknown trial calls for an increase of faith along a line where we have not needed to exercise much faith before.

We pray for the Lamb-life, and are given a portion of lowly service, or we are injured and must seek no redress; for “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and opened not his mouth.”

We pray for gentleness, and there comes a perfect storm of temptation to harshness and irritability.

We pray for quietness, and every nerve is strung to the utmost tension, so that looking to Him we may learn that when He giveth quietness, no one can make trouble.

We pray for love, and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people, and lets them say things which rasp the nerves and lacerate the heart; for love suffereth long and is kind, love is not impolite, love is not provoked. LOVE BEARETH ALL THINGS, believeth, hopeth and endureth, love never faileth. We pray for likeness to Jesus, and the answer is, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong?” “Are ye able?”

The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance, every trial, straight from the hand of a loving Father; and to live up in the heavenly places, above the clouds, in the very presence of the Throne, and to look down from the Glory upon our environment as lovingly and divinely appointed. –Selected

I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile
All sense of nearness, human and divine;
The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart,
The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine;
But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone,
The everlasting arms upheld my own.

I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds,
The moon was darkened by a misty doubt,
The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears,
And all my little candle flames burned out;
But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night,
The face of Christ made all the darkness bright.

I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease,
A slumber drugged from pain, a hushed repose;
Above my head the skies were black with storm,
And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes;
But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew,
I heard His voice and Perfect peace I knew.

I thank Thee, Lord, Thou wert too wise to heed
My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought,
Since these rich gifts Thy bounty has bestowed
Have brought me more than all I asked or thought;
Giver of good, so answer each request
With Thine own giving, better than my best.
–Annie Johnson Flint

Open Our Eyes, That We May See from “Streams in the Desert”

April 7, 2013

“Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see” (2 Kings 6:17).

This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, “Lord, open our eyes that we may see”; for the world all around us, as well as around the prophet, is full of God’s horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a “chariot” for our souls.

Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such; and, on the other hand, even the smallest trial may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we consider it.

It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. It all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them, and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars, but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God. –Hannah Whitall Smith

The Lord cannot do much with a crushed soul, hence the adversary’s attempt to push the Lord’s people into despair and hopelessness over the condition of themselves, or of the church. It has often been said that a dispirited army goes forth to battle with the certainty of being beaten. We heard a missionary say recently that she had been invalided home purely because her spirit had fainted, with the consequence that her body sunk also. We need to understand more of these attacks of the enemy upon our spirits and how to resist them. If the enemy can dislodge us from our position, then he seeks to “wear us out” (Daniel 7:25) by a prolonged siege, so that at last we, out of sheer weakness, let go the cry of victory.

Evidence of His Love from “Streams in the Desert”

February 27, 2013

“But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him…And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf” (Gen. 8:9-11).

God knows just when to withhold from us any visible sign of encouragement, and when to grant us such a sign. How good it is that we may trust Him anyway! When all visible evidences that He is remembering us are withheld, that is best; He wants us to realize that His Word, His promise of remembrance, is more substantial and dependable than any evidence of our senses. When He sends the visible evidence, that is well also; we appreciate it all the more after we have trusted Him without it. Those who are readiest to trust God without other evidence than His Word always receive the greatest number of visible evidences of His love. –C. G. Trumbull

“Believing Him; if storm-clouds gather darkly ’round,
And even if the heaven seem brass, without a sound?
He hears each prayer and even notes the sparrow’s fall.

“And praising Him; when sorrow, grief, and pain are near,
And even when we lose the thing that seems most dear?
Our loss is gain. Praise Him; in Him we have our All.

“Our hand in His; e’en though the path seems long and drear
We scarcely see a step ahead, and almost fear?
He guides aright. He has it thus to keep us near.

“And satisfied; when every path is blocked and bare,
And worldly things are gone and dead which were so fair?
Believe and rest and trust in Him, He comes to stay.”

Delays are not refusals; many a prayer is registered, and underneath it the words: “My time is not yet come.” God has a set time as well as a set purpose, and He who orders the bounds of our habitation orders also the time of our deliverance. –Selected

All beautiful reading links today

December 21, 2012

Some really inspiring reading today, including posts and photos by some of my favorite bloggers…

I loved reading Brenda’s story about her son’s graduation from college. She writes:

As I sat there this morning, I could not help but think of how my son had been labeled by the end of first grade as one who was slow, stupid, dyslexic, a trouble maker as he had trouble sitting still for long, and generally one who would not amount to much.

So we took him out of the public schools.

You’ll have to click over to read about his accomplishments in the School of Science at a top university known for its science programs.

I literally laughed out loud when I saw O Christmas Tree by Christian. Who goes shopping for a Christmas tree with blue skies and short sleeved shirts? Oh, that’s right. They live down South. Funny the different perspectives we all have on what a “normal” Christmas is. Christian also has some lovely photos of camellias lately if you scroll through her recent pictures.

Lanier recently posted that she had fifteen more copies of her handmade book, Kilmeny of the Orchard. When she offered it last year, I waited to suggest it to David as a gift. By the time I returned to her website, they were gone. This time I bought one the moment I saw the post! It is a gorgeous book. The photos really don’t do it justice. To think that she sat there and made this by hand! What an incredible labor of love. I have a feeling it is going to be harder to snag one each time as other people discover her beautiful work.

Lanier also wrote recently in Early Advent about a very personal struggle that she chose to share with the world. She writes:

I also wanted to share a piece that I wrote for the Art House America blog, if anyone is interested. I have to say, this was seriously one of the most difficult things I have ever written–like I told one friend, I wrestled this essay to the ground and came up limping. It’s something I rarely talk about, and I confess to a certain degree of inner conflict over even posting this link. There is an illusion of safety, you know, in relative anonymity. But it’s not safety we’re made for–it’s goodness. The goodness of God and the honor of sharing that goodness with other souls. Forgive my fear and trembling, kind friends, and thank you for the many ways in which you have given me courage to keep putting words out there.

And a few new to me websites/blogs that might be of interest to others…

Beyond Little House

Not Quite Amish

Enjoy!

The years the locusts have eaten from Joel 2

November 15, 2012

Many years ago God impressed upon me Joel 2:25-27 which reads (bold mine):

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.

You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.

Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.

The date in my Bible is January 11, 1996. This was two weeks before I unknowingly bought the dress that would end up being our bridesmaid dresses exactly one year to the day before my wedding to a man I had not yet met. It was about four months before I met David. A year later, I was married.

It was the Lord’s army that He sent among the Israelites. It wasn’t an accident. It was done on purpose to draw His people back to Him. I believed God had promised me that the desert years would be repaid. And I do believe He has blessed me abundantly in my marriage after years and years of waiting. What I may have missed out on in years, I have been more than blessed in terms of the quality of the harvest.

I recently came across this quote by Spurgeon during our church Bible study. This quote quickened my heart and, once again, I distinctly had the impression that God was speaking to me through Joel 2. Spurgeon writes (emphasis mine):

It will strike you at once that the locusts did not eat the years: the locusts ate the fruits of the years’ labor, the harvests of the fields; so that the meaning of the restoration of the years must be the restoration of those fruits and of those harvests which the locusts consumed. You cannot have back your time; but there is a strange and wonderful way in which God can give back to you the wasted blessings, the unripened fruits of years over which you mourned. The fruits of wasted years may yet be yours.

I am often tempted to grieve the years lost due to my physical struggles. There are so many losses because of them. Lost time, lost money, lost ministry opportunities, lost time with friends, lost creativity… So much.

And yet God can restore those things. No, I will never get back the hours and days and weeks and even years that have been lost. But God can restore the potential fruit of those years. He can restore the harvests that were consumed.

And that gives me hope. Hope that He will restore, once again, the years the locusts have eaten.

Photo credit

Praise Him in the Shower

November 7, 2012

I thought I would share something that has really been helpful as of late.

Singing in the shower every morning.

Well, not just singing. Praising God in the shower.

It basically came about because I have been waking up feeling awful pretty much every morning for a bit. (Side note: If you are under forty and/or have not entered the world known as perimenopause, get up every day and SAVOR how good you feel because you will not believe how your life will change on a dime when perimenopause kicks into full gear.) I really needed something to help me face the day with faith. I decided to just praise God in the shower.

Prayer in the shower doesn’t work for me. It is too easy to have prayer slip into thinking which then slips into planning which can then (sometimes) slip into worrying. Even praying out loud doesn’t work.

Singing praise hymns and songs out loud helps. And I make a point of singing out loud and only praise hymns and songs. No songs that ask for help or profess my weakness or whatever. Just pure, upbeat praise hymns and songs. Songs that profess my weakness or ask for help seem to slide into thinking about things which then slips into worrying about things. Simply singing about the power of God and His various character traits helps me stop thinking about myself and focus on what an awesome and powerful God I serve. It doesn’t make me feel completely better physically, but it does give me strength and perspective for the day. I really focus on the words while I am singing so it is a form of worship I can offer up to the Lord first thing each day.

Photo credit

Fear or faith-based parenting?

September 18, 2012

Here’s an excellent post on the problems with Fear-Based Parenting. So much of what is written and promoted out there in Christian circles today is clearly based on fear and control. Parents are told that the parent-child relationship is primarily an adversarial one. I’m convinced to the very core of my being this is wrong and contrary to the Scriptures.

The article lays out eight basic messages taught in fear-based parenting and then points out the way these ideas do not line up with the Scriptures. It especially points out all of the false teachings about raising children and why they are the polar opposite of how God relates to us.

Here is a good quote:

Parents, we need to trust God with our children and not live in fear. Jesus said to do to others as we would have done to us. This command doesn’t disappear just because we’re talking about our kids. Would we want to have our every motive suspect, our every action viewed in the worst light? Would we want to beg for mercy for something we’ve done, and to be given no mercy lest we think we’ve been given a license to get away with it next time? Would we want to be expected to drop everything, no matter how important to us, at the moment someone over us speaks a command, and be expected to not only show no frustration, but to feel no frustration, even when our dearest desires are denied and thwarted? Do we want our frustration and lack of cheerfulness, when we show them in spite of ourselves, to then be interpreted and punished as rebellion?

And if you can stomach it, read the link at the end of the article. I almost threw up when I read it. Why anyone thinks this is parenting that reflects the love of God is completely beyond me.

Photo credit

Understanding Friends Who Retreat

September 17, 2012

Long time readers will remember a post I did on this topic way back in 2009. Friends Who Retreat When They Are Hurting generated a lot of great discussion. I took that post and discussion and reworked it into a brief article for our denominational magazine. I just noticed today that it is posted on the magazine website, The Banner. I’m guessing that means it isn’t going to be in the monthly print edition, but I’m pleased to see it all the same.

If you’d like to check it out, see Understanding Friends Who Retreat.

Guest blogger for the Women in Ministry Series

August 31, 2012

Today I am the guest blogger for the Women in Ministry Series at In a Mirror Dimly. I’ve written Called Aside by God and Set Free By the Truth. Please head on over to Ed’s great site and feel free to leave a comment.