Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that especially spoke to me this week:

I mentioned on Saturday’s Laudable Linkage a quote from Insignificant Is Beautiful by Mark Galli (HT to Washing the Feet of the Saints). Here is another one:

When we think of making a difference, we think about making the world a better place for the next generation, not caretaking people who have no future. This is one reason we are quick to push the incontinent into “managed care” staffed with “skilled nurses.” No question that this is indeed a necessary move for many families—I had to do it with my own father, sad to say. But let’s face it. A fair amount of our motive is mixed. How much skill does it take to clean up excrement from an elderly body? Mostly it takes forbearance—and a willingness to give oneself night and day to something that, according to our usual reckoning, is not all that significant.

While the whole article is not about caring for the elderly, it makes the point that quietly taking care of someone’s most personal needs behinds the scenes can be ministry just as much as the more visible and seemingly higher-impact works. I highly recommend that whole article.

Seen at Challies:

That definitely puts things into perspective. Nothing any of us has faced can compare to what He underwent for us.

And from Start Somewhere: Losing What’s Weighing You Down from the Inside Out by Calvin Nowell and Gayla Zoz:

That one pulled me up short. When we’re wanting our own way that’s exactly what we’re doing, but I never thought about it in quite that way before.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are some that caught my attention this week:

The following is from Jeanne Damoff:

I had never thought of fear in those terms, but that’s so true.

From Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word commenting on the memorial Israel was to set up in Joshua 4 and the need to memorialize or remember how God has led in the past not only to praise Him but as a testimony to future generations (Psalm 78:1-6):

When you have living faith in a living God, the past is not “dead history.” It throbs with a living reality.

I get aggravated when some people discount all of history since it is about “dead guys.” That’s pretty short-sighted!

And from the same book concerning Calebs’ claim to his inheritance in Joshua 14:

What particularly struck me about this was his not being embittered by the past. If you remember, Caleb and Joshua were the only ones willing to trust God and go forth when the Israelites came to Canaan the first time, but the others were afraid and refused. Israel was then assigned to the wilderness for forty years while the old generation died off, and Caleb had to wait and wander even though he had been faithful. Yet he didn’t complain and was never bitter — he patiently waited until it was God’s timing for him to receive portion. A lesson to me: I probably would have been inwardly chafing much of those forty years. (I Peter 2:19-25 has more to say on suffering when you’ve done right. What greater example is there of that than the Lord Jesus?)

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that especially spoke to me this week:

From a friend’s Facebook status:

‎“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”

That caused a laugh as well as a reflection on its truth. There is a time for dreaming, but those dreams will never come to fruition without action most of the time — excepting those times, of course, when the Lord wants us to just wait on Him.

From another friend’s Facebook:

‎“Fundamentally, our Lord’s message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, ‘I am the bread.’ He did not come merely to shed light; He said, ‘I am the light.’ He did not come merely to show the door; He said, ‘I am the door.’ He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, ‘I am the shepherd.’ He did not come merely to point the way; He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ ~J. Sidlow Baxter

I am most blessed when teaching, admonition, etc., points me straight to Christ Himself.

The following two come from the October 14 reading of Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer, commenting on Galatians 6:2: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

But sin is not the only burden we are to bear with our brethren. The young man or girl who fails to make good; the business man who meets with sudden reverse; those who suffer bitter disappointment; when faces are averted, and tongues are busily engaged in criticism–let us seek out the one who has consciously disappointed everybody, and help by our strong and tender sympathy. It is like the coming of the good Ananias into Saul’s darkness, with the greeting: “Brother Saul!”

And:

Sympathy means suffering with; and as we endeavour to enter into the griefs and sorrows of those around us, in proportion to the burden of grief that we carry do we succeed in lightening another’s load. You cannot bear a burden without feeling its pressure; and in bearing the burdens of others, we must be prepared to suffer with them.

I have to confess sometimes I want to help in a way that doesn’t cause me too much pressure or time or other expenditure of energy or attention. This reminds me of David’s declaration that he wouldn’t give to the Lord that which cost him nothing. To truly bear one another’s burden does cost, and I am so thankful the Lord chose to bear ours to the point of taking on human flesh, suffering, and dying for us. May I be willing to feel that pressure of bearing another’s burden just as others have done for me. And the first is a reminder to reach out to others especially when they’re feeling ostracized.

This last one comes from Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word commenting on Joshua 1:6, 7, 18:

‎“Be strong!” is much more than an admonition, for God’s commands are God’s enablements.

In that passage God is speaking to Joshua just after Moses had died and Joshua was named the new leader, and just before the Israelites’ entry into Canaan. If I were in Joshua’s situation, I’d feel a good bit of trepidation, but the rest of the chapter is filled with God’s promises and admonitions. Implicit within God’s commands is the ability to obey, not in our own strength, but in His. I think of  the lame person whom Jesus commanded to rise and walk and the man with the withered hand whom Jesus commanded to stretch forth his hand — things they could not do — yet they did not argue with Him about why they could not obey: they just did, at His Word, and found in the command the ability to obey. In Joshua 3, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant had to step into the waters of the Jordan River first before God parted the waters. Those situations are all such a rebuke to me, because I tend to want to experience the promises and know how things will work out before obeying.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.