Satan’s goal

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Barbara Harper

You know how you can read a particular Bible passage for years, be blessed by it, get much from it, and then someone asks a question or brings an insight that you did sort of know on one level, but the way they put it opens up whole new vistas for you?

That happened yesterday in Sunday School. The overall topic was afflictions, and the teacher mentioned a few verses in Scripture that spoke of afflictions, reasons for them, etc. Then we spent most of the class period on Job. After reviewing a little bit about Job’s situation, and the discussion between Satan and God in Job 1 and 2, our teacher asked, “What was Satan’s goal in afflicting Job?” He wanted Job to curse God.

I knew that — but putting it like that made me think — when we are going through any kind of trial, do we think about this aspect of things? So often we just want relief, we want out. That’s normal — Job did, too. We don’t have any record that he had any idea of this conversation behind the scenes. But we have it — and we can seek God’s grace not only to get through any trial, but to uphold God’s honor.

“Blast From the Past”

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I saw this at Barb’s and Laurel Wreath’s and a few other places and thought it looked like fun.

The instructions are:

This is a NEW meme to help get to know your bloggin’ buds!!!

Here is how it works….

Here is a list of categories add the titles and links to previous posts that you feel fit these descriptions… and tell why if yah wanna!

Funny:

Miscommunication

Serious:

Hard to decide on just one here, so I’ll say Blessed Assurance and Encouragement for mothers of young children.

Ugly:

One thing I don’t like about getting older…

All About Me:

Famous in our own lunchtimes

I tend to tag the same people and don’t want them to feel like I am “bugging” them. 🙂 I don’t know who likes or doesn’t like being tagged. So I will leave it to you: if you’d like to do this, leave a comment and I’ll come see your blast from the past. 🙂

Psalm Sunday: Psalm 5

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Barbara Harper

1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.

2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.

5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.

7 But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

8 Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.

9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

10 Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.

11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.

12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

In verses 1-3, David cries out to the Lord to hear his prayer.

Verse 4 is one reason David has confidence that God will hear and answer: God does not take pleasure in wickedness, so David has confidence that the wickedness of his enemies will not prevail. We have that hope and expectation as well: ultimately evil will be taken care of and all will be set right. “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,” as one song says. God’s timetable is not the same as ours: Israel had 10 wait 400 years for deliverance out of Egypt; some people in Hebrews 11 died without having seen the promises to them fulfilled. But quite often God does give us the victory, or at least a glimmer of it, in a shorter time. Verses 5-6 continue describing the wicked and what God hates about their activities.

In verse 7, David contrasts himself with the wicked he has just been talking about, not with a cocky self-righteousness, but with reverence and trust on God’s mercy. A true understanding of God’s mercy will lead to reverence, godly fear and humility as well as confidence in Him. That mercy is available to the wicked, too, if they would but humble themselves before Him.

In verse 8 David asks the Lord to lead him in His righteousness — again, nothing cocky or self-righteous there, but an utter trust in God’s righteousness. “Make Thy way straight before my face.” How often I need to pray that, that I might clearly know His way and what direction to take.

In verse 9 he goes back to describing the wicked from whom he needs deliverance, and in verse 10 calls for their destruction. In a sense that is a difficult passage because as New Testament believers we have been taught to love our enemies, pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us, etc. (Matthew 5:43-45.) One way to reconcile those two thoughts is to remember that David had not had that instruction yet. There is a sense in which more and more is revealed of God’s will through history. For instance, there is instruction in later books of the Bible about having more than one wife which Jacob did not have, instructions about not marrying a relative which Abraham did not have. In our own lives, God does not deal with everything all at once (and that is such a good thing — think how overwhelming that would be!) — when we’ve been saved 20 years we might be convicted about things that we weren’t at first. For instance, when I was first saved the Lord dealt with me about lying. Years later that was refined beyond just outright lies to conviction about not being manipulative with facts, not telling about a situation in such a way as to favor my actions. And I think that’s true historically. We have so much more of God’s Word today that the patriarchs did — and to whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48).

On the other hand, though, I do remember around the time of Desert Storm praying that Sadam Hussein would either come to the Lord, or, if God knew that he never would, that God would take him out of the way. If I had lived in Hitler’s time I probably would have prayed the same way about him, and I probably should pray the same way about bin Laden.

“Let them fall by their own counsels.” That’s one way enemies can be defeated! That reminds me of David’s prayer in II Samuel 15: 31: “And David said, ‘O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.'” (I don’t know if this Psalm is talking about that same situation or not. I might try to look that up later.) If you read II Samuel 15 and the next couple of chapters, that’s exactly what happened. It’s a great story!

In verses 11 and 12 David again contrasts the righteous with the wicked and rejoices that he can trust in God’s defense.

It struck me in going through this Psalm that David expresses confidence in God’s mercy (v. 7), His righteousness (v. 8), and His defense (v. 11). And we can have confidence in Him as well!

You can read more meditations on this Psalm or share your own at Butterfly Kisses. It’s interesting each week to see what each different lady got out of the Scripture.

Refined silver

Posted on February 3, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. Zechariah 13:9.

AS the purifying process is carried on, “the refiner watches the operation, with the greatest earnestness, until the metal has the appearance of a highly polished mirror, reflecting every object around it: even the refiner, as he looks upon the mass of metal, may see himself as in a looking-glass, and thus he can form a very correct judgment respecting the purity of the metal. When he is satisfied, the fire is withdrawn, and the metal removed from the furnace.” See Jesus, as the Refiner, watching “with the greatest earnestness” the purifying of thy soul in the furnace of earth. His hand has lighted the fire which is now separating the pure metal of holiness from the dross of sin in thee. His loving eye is ever eagerly watching for the moment when the purifying work is done. Then, without a moment’s delay, He withdraws the fire, and the purified soul is removed from the furnace. See, again, when it is that the purification is completed; it is when the Image of Christ is reflected in us, so that He can see Himself in us as in a mirror. Raise your eyes, then, amidst the flames, and see the Face of Jesus watching you with the tender pity and intense interest of His love.
— George Body

From the February 2 reading of Joy and Strength compiled by Mary Wilder Tileston

Photo courtesy of the Stock.xchng

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Gross

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Theme: Gross | Become a Photo Hunter | View Blogroll

I’ve been pondering this week’s theme for days, because I didn’t want to post something really, you know, gross. Then I remembered this picture my middle son took a few years ago of a game during youth group. That’s raw egg in a clear plastic tube and two guys are trying to blow it to each other. And if it reaches you first, well, that would be gross. Makes me glad I’m not in youth group any more. 🙂 But they seem to like this stuff.

My race from Middle Earth

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I saw this at Blest with sons — a quiz to determine which race of Middle Earth you belong to. The results gave me a chuckle.

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?

Entish
Take this quiz!

Snow excuse

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Sorry this is so fuzzy! It was floating around in an e-mail between my husband’s colleagues as they were trying to decide what to do about opening the plant in our slushy weather.

A contest!

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Janice at 5 Minutes for Mom is having a contest! She is giving away a cute little heart necklace or gift certificate from Alli’s Originals. There is some really cute stuff there. Click here for contest details.

The Winter Evening by William Cowper

Posted on February 1, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Oh winter, ruler of th’ inverted year,
Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d,
Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring’d with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp’d in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urg’d by storms along its slipp’ry way,
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,
And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold’st the sun
A pris’ner in the yet undawning east,
Short’ning his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gath’ring, at short notice, in one group
The family dispers’d, and fixing thought,
Not less dispers’d by day-light and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted ev’ning, know.

Those are lines 120-143 of a 193-line poem. You can find it in its entirety here. Winter is easily my least favorite season — I don’t like the bare trees, grey skies, and short days. But this poem reminds me that there are many things to love about every season God made. The following lines talk about someone doing needlework —

But here the needle plies its busy task,
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow’r,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,
And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos’d,
Follow the nimble finger of the fair…

And of

The poet’s or historian’s page, by one
Made vocal for th’ amusement of the rest;
The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds
The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out;
And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct.

It’s a sweet picture of a winter’s night at home without the usual visitors, spending time together doing needlework, making music, reading aloud to the others.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in.

Hope you have a cozy, peaceful winter’s evening.

(Graphic courtesy of Grandma’s Graphics)

Snow Day…

Posted on February 1, 2007 by Barbara Harper

…though it’s not snow, exactly. More like falling slush balls, my husband said when he went out to get the paper. There is supposed to be some combination of snow/rain/freezing rain/sleet throughout the day (what’s the difference between sleet and freezing rain, I wonder? I suppose I could go look it up.) When I turned on the news to see if our school was closed for the day the ~~weatherman~~ meteorologist said a “winter storm warning” was in effect until 6 am tomorrow.

Somehow I totally missed the forecast until later yesterday afternoon when my kids came home excited about the possibility of school being closed. I was at the store for a few things and wondered why the parking lot was so uncharacteristically full for that time of day — one of the regular news stories every year when we have a snow or ice forecast is how everyone buys out all of the milk and bread the day before.

I’m glad we have a snug, warm home. One problem, though, with this weather, especially with any iciness, is power outages, usually from tree limbs breaking off and falling onto power lines. The power lines in our neighborhood are below ground, but evidently somewhere between here and the power plant they are above ground, because it is not unusual to have some loss of power during a winter storm. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen (for the whole area, not just for me). We’re ok if it does. We have a fireplace downstairs and a stack of fire wood from last year that never got used. One room that was added onto the house by the previous owners has a gas heater. We have candles and flashlights and some D batteries (I should have gotten more of those). We have a little camp stove that we could probably use in front of a window or door (for the necessary ventilation) for however long we would need to heat something up. We have sandwich stuff. We wouldn’t have hot water for showers, but we could make do. I know people did for years without electricity. But there is something about being without electricity that just makes me cringe. I don’t like the darkness. Once when we lived in GA and our area got hit by hurricane Opal, we were without power for 3 or 4 days, and it just felt so stifling to not have full light. After the third day we went out to eat at a place nearby that did have power just to get out of the dark house. But — that’s a minor thing compared to what a lot of people have to face, so I an trying to keep it in perspective and remembering the Scriptural principle about not fretting about what the future might bring.

I am pretty much housebound in weather like this since the transverse myelitis. Both my balance and footing are faulty — my lower legs are not totally numb, but the sensation isn’t all quite there — and that combination makes slippery places a hazard for me. But I am fine with being inside since we’re well-stocked with groceries and I won’t need to go anywhere until tomorrow.

What’s going to make the day a challenge is that the monthly newsletter/booklet I write for our church ladies’ group is due out the first Sunday of the month — which is this Sunday — which I usually have ready to take to the church office to copy and staple on Friday — and for which the Thursday before is a day of heavy writing and finishing up — which will be interesting this particular Thursday with everyone home. We’ll see how it goes!