Life’s Balance Sheet

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Today’s reading from Our Daily Walk devotional by F. B. Meyer really spoke to me, especially the second paragraph. “To save ourselves, to build warm nests, to avoid every discomfort and annoyance, … to invent schemes for our own pleasure” — that has too often been my focus. But that’s not how Christ lived, and it is not how He called us to live.

LIFE’S BALANCE SHEET

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”– Mar 8:36.

SIMON PETER had been urging our Lord to spare Himself the suffering to which He had referred, but He answered that this could not be for Himself, or for any other who would follow in His footsteps. Proceeding from His own deep experience, He went on to show that in the same measure every one must deny his own choice and will and pleasure, in order that he may reach the highest life for himself and others.

It is not necessary for any man to make a cross; it is our part simply to take up that which God has laid down for us. The cross is no exceptional piece of asceticism, but it is the constant refusal to gratify our self-life; the perpetual dying to pride and serf-indulgence, in order to follow Christ in His redemptive mission for the salvation of men. And it is in proportion as men live like this that they realize the deepest and truest and highest meaning of life. When we live only to save ourselves, to build warm nests, to avoid every discomfort and annoyance, to make money entirely for our own use and enjoyment, to invent schemes for our own pleasure, we become the most discontented and miserable of mankind. How many there are who have given themselves up to a life of selfishness and pleasure-seeking, only to find their capacity for joy has shrivelled, and their lives plunged into gloom and despair. They have lost their souls!

If a fire is raging, and a millionaire saves his palace from destruction, but in so doing loses his own life, does it pay? And are there not many who are building for themselves palaces of wealth and pleasure, but are losing the power of enjoyment because they are destroying all the finest sensibilities of their nature. Our Lord asks, what does it profit to gain the whole world, and forfeit one’s own soul?

But not to adopt the policy of the world is certain to bring upon us dislike and hatred, before which many have been daunted; and yet to refuse Christ’s policy of life, and to be ashamed of acknowledging that we are His followers, will mean ultimately our rejection. For how can our Lord use us in any great schemes of the future, if we have failed Him in the limited sphere of our human life?

PRAYER

O God, we have been disappointed because the cisterns that we have hewn out for ourselves have not given the water needed to quench our thirst. Fountain of Living Water, of Thee may we drink! Bread of Life, of Thee may we eat! Light of Life, shine upon our hearts, that we may walk in Thy light. AMEN.

~ F. B. Meyer

Mimosa

Posted on June 28, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Sometimes people who work in children’s ministries can get discouraged due to the seeming lack of fruit or the fact that they have some children just a few times and then never see them again. Mimosa by Amy Carmichael tells the story of a little girl who was marvelously changed by just a short encounter with the gospel.

When Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India she learned that some little girls were sold to the temples for immoral purposes. Whenever she could, she tried to rescue these girls, to talk their parents into letting them stay with her instead. One such little girl was named Star. She had been with Amy for a while when her father came, bringing her sister, Mimosa, with him, to try to take Star back. He met and talked with Amy and Mr. Walker, the director, and at one point even stretched out his arm to take Star — yet he felt he could not move, that some strange power was preventing him.

Mimosa saw this. Some of the workers had a short time to talk with her, not even time enough to present the gospel completely. Mimosa asked her father to let her stay: he would not hear of it.

Those who had met with Mimosa longed for her: she seemed intelligent and interested. They lamented that they had not had time to tell her more. “How could she possibly remember what we had told her? It was impossible to expect her to remember……Impossible? Is there such a word where the things of the Lord are concerned?”

Something of what she heard about a God who loved her stayed with her. She knew instinctively she could no longer rub the ashes of her family’s god on her forehead, as was their custom. The women in the house thought her naughty or “bewitched” and beat her with a stick. She was bewildered, but she knew God loved her, in spite of all she could not understand of her circumstances.

After she was married at age seventeen, she found she had been deceived by her husband’s family: He was “landless [and] neck-deep in debt.” It was no shame to be in debt: in that culture: “”If you have no debt, does it not follow that no one trusts you enough to lend you anything, and from that is it not obvious that you are a person of small consequence?” But Mimosa’s character could not endure it, though she had never been taught against it. She encouraged him to sell the land in her name, the only piece of land he had that he had given as a dowry, to pay off the debt, and then suggested they would work. He was amazed at such a thing, but agreed. His unscrupulous elder brother suggested they start a salt market and that Mimosa sell her jewels to get them set up: he would take care of it. He instead somehow misused the money. She gave some money to her mother to keep for her, but then her mother would not give it to her when she asked for it: her mother was angry with her over the loss of the jewels that had been passed to her. “Let thy God help thee!” she told her daughter.

Mimosa went out to pray: “O God, my husband has deceived me, his brother has deceived me, even my mother has deceived me, but You will not deceive me…Yes, they have all deceived me, but I am not offended with you. Whatever You do is good. What should I do without you? You are the Giver of health and strength and will to work. Are not these things better than riches or people’s help?….I am an emptiness for You to fill.”

Thus her life went. She was a derision because she would not worship the false gods or engage in idolatrous practices. She worked hard because her husband would not. There were times when she was weak and could not work that God worked in unusual ways to provide for her. She had three sons; then a snake bite left her husband blind and crazy. In a couple of instances she received a bit more information about the God she loved, and she clung to it and to Him.

Meanwhile, Star was concerned for her sister. She felt led to write to her and prayed someone would read the letter to Mimosa. A cousin did read it to her, as often as Mimosa asked him, but neither of them thought to write back to Star, so she and the ladies of Dohnavur were left to wonder and pray.

A mysterious illness which took the life of one of her sons caused the neighbors to torment her further with their words. They felt it was all her fault since she would do nothing to appease the gods. Mimosa replied, “ My child God gave; my child has God taken. It is well.” Though weak, ill, grieving, and alone, she still told God, “I am not offended with you.”

The years followed in much the same way. She had two more sons. The oldest one was taken by the father (who had regained something of his right mind) to another town to work but, to Mimosa’s grief, required him to rub the god’s ashes on his forehead.

She began to long that her children should have “what she had never had, the chance to learn fully of the true and living and holy God and themselves choose His worship.” It would take too much space here to tell how God wondrously worked out the all the details to go to Dohnavur, even, miraculously, her husband’s approval. Her sister, Star, was strongly burdened to pray for Mimosa and discovered later that was just the time when all of this was coming to pass. Twenty-two years after she first visited Dohnavur, she returned. It can only be imagined what she felt as she soaked up Christian fellowship, learned to read, studied the Bible, was baptized. After a time she went back to her husband, determined to win him. He was in a less tolerant caste, yet amazingly he did not put her away. Her life was not easy. “But then, she has not asked for ease; she has asked for the shield of patience that she may overcome.”

“Is not the courage of the love of God amazing?” Amy Carmichael wrote. “Could human love have asked it of a soul? Fortitude based on knowledge so slender; deathless, dauntless faith — who could have dared to ask it but the Lord God Himself? And what could have held her but Love Omnipotent?“

Small things

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Barbara Harper

The reading for today in Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer really spoke to my heart. I was going to just quote the last paragraph, but really couldn’t leave out the first two. But the last paragraph set off a train of thought about other small things God has used: the “little maid” who told Naaman about the prophet, the book Mimosa by Amy Carmichael about the life-changing truth a young girl heard in just a short time at the Dohnavur compound, and many others.

THE POWER OF SMALL THINGS

“Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed nothing shall be impossible unto you.”– Mt 17:20.

THE GRAIN of mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, but Jesus says that it is a fitting emblem of the Kingdom of God, and the unostentatious beginnings of the Christian era. The number and social position of the disciples was insignificant in the extreme. And the first germ of truth sown in the heart of man, woman, or child, is sometimes equally insignificant. It may be just a sentence, a text, a passing remark which results in a mighty harvest (Mark 4:30-32).

What is it that enables this tiny seed to make such a prodigious increase? It lies in its receptive power, as it receives into its nature the mighty forces which slumber in the soil, the effect of sunbeams, moisture, and air. So long as a little aperture is kept open, there is no limit to the fertility and usefulness of the plant. You may be but a child, and your life seem weak and ineffective, but if you will open your heart to God by faith, He will pour in His mighty fullness, and the tiny seed become a great tree of strength and usefulness, grace and beauty.

Let us not despise the day of small things. Faith may be as a grain of mustard seed, but as it is used it will grow. Your effort to do good may seem so insignificant that it would be hardly missed, if it were discontinued, and yet out of it may emanate some mighty work which will bring help and comfort to thousands. How many orphanages, schools, and philanthropic efforts have owed their origin to the most infinitesimal beginnings. One destitute child cared and ministered to for Christ’s sake has led to another, until finally thousands of little ones have received a good start in life. What could be more insignificant than the beginnings of the Gospel message in many a heathen country. Do not be discouraged. Like Gideon, you may be only a cake of barley bread, but by faith you may overturn the tents of Midian. Like the little lad, you may only be able to place five tiny loaves and two small fish in the hands of Jesus, but He will bless them and make them sufficient to feed the multitude. A stone may bring Goliath to the dust; an arrow may pierce through the armour of the mailed warrior. Have faith in God; Reckon on God’s faithfulness to you!

PRAYER

Lord, increase our faith. Give us a child-like faith to receive what Thou dost offer, and from this moment may a new sense of the presence and power of God, through the Holy Spirit, come to us. AMEN.

Feeling blah

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Barbara Harper

I finished two books this morning and I started to review one, but the with the time of day it is already and the need to get some other things done and the desire to take great care with one of them, I think I’ll save it until I can do it justice.

I was amazed at the Ladies’ meeting Monday night that I felt great, and I thought, Wow, this must’ve been the shortest cold in history! But I think the Lord was just giving me a respite to get through the meeting. Over the weekend I had more of a foggy-brained and tried feeling with a few cold symptoms, but by Tuesday morning, the drippy nose and sore throat started picking up, joined now by a barking cough. Bleah. I’m not “feeling” as bad as I did over the weekend, but this part is a real nuisance!

I slept in this morning and need to go get dressed and get a few necessities done, but otherwise I don’t have great plans for the day.

I wanted to leave with you something I marked the other day. A few years ago I read Joy and Strength, a devotional book of verses, poems and quites by Mary Wilder Tileston, because it was recommended by Elisabeth Elliot, but it hasn’t been one of my favorites. Some parts of it are too “mystical” for me. Nevertheless parts of it did really speak to me, and off and on this year I’ve been recording quotes from it that I had marked. This one from June 8 was a rebuke to me:

Put on therefore, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye.
COLOSSIANS 3:12,13 (R. V.)

THE discord is within, which jars
So sadly in life’s song;
‘Tis we, not they who are in fault,
When others seem so wrong.
FREDERICK WM. FABER

SELF-PREOCCUPATION, self-broodings, self-interest, self-love,–these are the reasons why you go jarring against your fellows. Turn your eyes off yourself; look up, and out! There are men, your brothers, and women, your sisters; they have needs that you can aid. Listen for their confidences; keep your heart wide open to their calls, and your hands alert for their service. Learn to give, and not to take; to drown your own hungry wants in the happiness of lending yourself to fulfil the interests of those nearest or dearest. Look up and out, from this narrow, cabined self of yours, and you will jar no longer; you will fret no more, you will provoke no more; but you will, to your own glad surprise, find the secret of “the meekness and the gentleness of Jesus”; and the fruits of the Spirit will all bud and blossom from out of your life.
HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND

Marital Rating Scale

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Carrie at Reading To Know recently posted this Marital Rating Scale from the 1930s which she saw at Crooked House.

There is an article in Monitor on Psychology about it here. It was developed by a psychologist to help marriages based on interviews with 600 husbands about wives’ positive and negative qualities. I thought it was fun to look at.

This must only be the first page, because there is no way to get a Superior rating even if you scored all merits and no demerits listed here.

I get 7 demerits and 17 merits. I do tend to stay up later than my husband and I’m not as timely as I should be about mending. I wouldn’t have the first clue about how to darn socks. Thankfully curling irons take the place of going to bed with curlers and I don’t wear hose at all any more, much less with seams. But, I agree, if you’re going to wear seamed nylons, the seams need to be straight. 🙂 I do run late more often than I like — not for lack of trying to get places on time.

I think I’m an OK hostess and can carry on an interesting conversation. Meals aren’t always on time. No musical instruments, sorry! I don’t “dress” for breakfast except for a nightgown and robe, and my house isn’t always what I’d call tidy. It’s not a disaster area, but it’s not squeaky-clean. The kids generally put themselves to bed, though I do have devotions with Jesse at bedtime still. And I think I score ok on the last four items on the merit list — we get up for breakfast and church on Sundays, but I don’t wake him up until necessary.

Funny how it lists the wife being relgious and her and the children going to church. I am glad my husband takes us and doesn’t send us! And though I don’t wear red nail polish, I wonder what was considered wrong with it — probably too bold and racy in those days.

I don’t think I put cold feet on my husband, but it was funny in some of the comments on the other blogs, some thought that was a basic reason for getting married and should be written in the vows. 🙂

I wonder how a similar checklist would read today. I think some things would carry over — being clean, punctual, not flirting, etc., while the hose and nail polish issues are dated. Though we’re a traditional family, I don’t think things like putting the kids to bed belongs to one gender or the other.

There was a test for husbands, too, though this shows only the first half. Though I didn’t check off or tally up the scores, my husband rates pretty well. 🙂 But I could have told you that without a test. 😀

Though it’s fun, I don’t know how helpful this kind of thing would really be. Maybe if a couple was having trouble, this could get them started talking out the issues. But it could start one fault-finding. NO ONE is going to be perfect in anyone else’s estimation: we’re all going to have little foibles. Colossians 3:12-14 applies in marriage as much as anywhere else:

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Book Review: In Trouble and In Joy

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Barbara Harper

The first part of the title of In Trouble and In Joy: Four Women Who Lived for God by Sharon James comes from a line in a hymn by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady:

Through all the changing scenes of life,
In trouble and in joy,
The praises of my God shall still
My heart and tongue employ.

The four women Sharon James writes about in this book exemplify that truth: in varying degrees of trouble and joy, they lived for God.

Margaret Baxter was a rebellious, glamorous, well-to-do teen-ager who became a Christian under the preaching of her Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter. Though he was twice her age, Margaret fell in love with him, and in time her feelings were reciprocated, and they married. The union was a step down for Margaret financially (Richard took care to arrange their finances in such a way that he did not have access to her money so it would not be thought he married her for her money) and socially, but she had found her purpose in life and blossomed. This was a time when “Non-conformists” were persecuted, and when Richard was imprisoned for a while, Margaret voluntarily joined him. Both were, like all the rest of us, very human. Margaret was known for being generous, cheerful (Mrs. James notes, “It is simply not true that the Puritans went around looking miserable. Indeed, Richard Baxter wrote, “Keep company with the more cheerful sort of the godly; there is no mirth like the mirth of believers'” [p. 49]), industrious, competent, capable, patient, supportive — and anxious, fearful, perfectionist, and over-zealous. Yet she was aware of and grieved by her faults, and it was her desire to live a holy life for God.

Sarah Edwards had eleven children as the wife of Jonathan Edwards in the early 1700s. The Edwards were known for their “uncommon union,” their great love and respect for each other, and Sarah’s hospitality. Sarah thrived as a wife and mother, but the Edwards’ faced their share of difficulty as well when Jonathan was dismissed from the church where he pastored and some of their children died.

Anne Steele lived in a small English village in the 1700s, never married, suffered from poor health most of her life (with what is thought now to have been malaria), published two volumes of hymns and poems, and was known for her cheerfulness and faith. It was expected at that time that young women would marry and have a family, and there is some correspondence of teasing between Anne and her sister about Anne’s unmarried state even though the sister admitted her life was not all rosy.

Frances Ridley Havergal lived in the Victorian 1800s and is best known as the writer of hymns such as “Take My Life and Let It Be” and “Like a River Glorious.” Her father was a pastor and she was very active in the ministry of the church, thriving in personal work, one-on-one discussions with others about the gospel and spiritual truth. When her father died, her step-mother made unusual demands and seemed to even be mentally unstable, but Frances did her best to honor her. She did travel a lot and kept running, amusing accounts of her experiences: letters from her travels to Switzerland were gathered together in a book titled Swiss Letters. She turned down several proposals of marriage, though she “once wrote of the sense of ‘general heart-loneliness and need of a one and special love…and the belief that my life is to be a lonely one in that respect…I do so long for the love of Jesus to be poured in, as a real and satisfying compensation'” (pp. 193-194). She was a prolific writer of hymns and books. She “loved life, enjoyed people, revelled in nature, and laughed a lot” (p. 200).

The book deals with each woman individually, detailing her historical setting, the story of her life, her character and significance, and excerpts from her writing. Mrs. James’ style of writing is somewhat academic, more like teaching a class than telling a story: that’s not a bad thing, but I had picked up this book because I had read and enjoyed her earlier one, My Heart In His Hands about Ann Judson, and I don’t remember it being quite that way, though it has been years since I read it.

I didn’t agree with all of Mrs. James’ conclusions about why the women did what they did or the few things for which she criticized them: for example, she faults some of the women for not being more socially active. She wrote of Frances: “Although she was always ready to give benevolent help on an individual level, there is little evidence that Frances had strong feelings about the blatant social and political inequalities of that time” (p. 201). Some of us feel that dealing with individual hearts, resulting in a true heart change, will take care of the larger issues, and that Christians are called to share the gospel and make disciples, not necessarily battle the culture itself (though it’s not wrong to fight social ills). Mrs. James does go on to say of Frances, “And yet the ‘limiting’ of her vision to gospel issues meant that she was extraordinarily focused. Her mental and spiritual energies were not diffused into many different areas,” allowing a greater concentration on vital issues of “salvation, consecration, and worship” (p. 201). These women had their hands full enough with what they did do to warrant criticism for what they didn’t do.

I did appreciate Mrs. James research, insight, and masterful compilation of the details of these women’s lives. There is much about each woman’s life to instruct Christian women. To give just one example, one of Frances’s letters tells of the hostility and “appalling service” she received at an inn in Switzerland. Where most of us would be fuming and calling for the manager, Frances reacted patiently and finally said to the angry, spiteful woman, “You are not happy. I know that you’re not.” the woman was startled, “tamed…made a desperate effort not to cry” and listened while Frances spoke to her “quite plainly and solemnly about Jesus.” She received a tract, promised to read it, and thanked Frances over and over. Frances concluded, “Was it not worth getting out of the groove of one’s usual comforts and civilities?” (pp. 250-251). I have to confess that was a rebuke to me: I rarely think of such situations as a means of service to others.

Mrs. James concludes:

They had different personalities and varied situations, but each of these four women lived focused lives, wanting to praise God through days of trouble as well as joy. As is true of many women, they had to juggle all sorts of responsibilities. Pursuing holiness did not mean running away from these responsibilities: it involved living every day wholeheartedly for God (p. 253).

(This review will be linked to Semicolon’s Saturday Review of books and Callapidder Days’ Spring Reading Thing Reviews.)

Sin

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Barbara Harper

On my way home from taking Jesse to school, I caught the very end of a radio broadcast in which the speaker read a letter to the editor in which the author said he was sick of hearing about sin and wanted only a religion that taught things like gentleness and tolerance.

That’s understandable: no one really likes hearing about sin, especially their own. But that attitude is a bit like going to a doctor and saying, “I just want you to teach me about wellness and health: I don’t want to hear anything about this mass that you’re going to tell me needs to be removed.” What kind of doctor would be doing his patient any favors by telling him only the positive and neglecting to deal with the unpleasant negative of the ailment that will destroy him?

What exactly is sin? Besides detailing specific sins, the Bible speaks of these broader characterictics:

1. Falling short of God’s glory

Romans 3:23: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

2. Failure to believe God

Hebrews 11:6: But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

3. Failure to do good

James 4:17: Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

4. Unrighteousness

I John 5:17a: All unrighteousness is sin

5. Acting against conscience, acting apart from faith

Romans 14:23: And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin

6. Transgressing the law

I John 3:4: Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

We might think, well, sure, defined like that, yes, we’re all sinners, but my sin isn’t as bad as other people’s. Going back to our patient analogy, that’s like saying my illness isn’t as bad as the other guy’s, so I don’t have to worry about mine. According to Romans 3:23 mention above, the standard is not how we compare to others: it’s how we compare to God. I heard it once described like this: if we all needed to leap over a 500 foot chasm, some would make it farther than others, but we’d all fall short.

The sin Adam and Eve engaged in which plunged the rest of the human race into sin was not what we would call gross sin: they simply did what God told them not to do. Jesus said the greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” It follows, then, that the greatest sin is to fail to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds.

So, a sinful nature is there within all of us. We can’t ignore it. It’s too destructive. We know it’s destructiveness and painfulness when others sin against us. It separates us from God: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. Isaiah 59:2. Psalm 38 details the physical and mental anguish resulting from sin, not to mention the eternal punishment.

Thankfully there is a remedy: I Corinthians 15:3-4: For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Isaiah 53:5-6: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Because the Lord Jesus, who was inherently sinless and who is God Himself, took on our sin and the punishment for it, when we believe on Him, all our sin can be forgiven. Even after becoming believers, on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection, when we sin we can come to Him and have the slate wiped clean. I John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

When He has cleansed our sin away, dwells within us, and given us a new nature, then we are enabled to show forth love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Galatians 5:22-23)– all the good and positive qualities that are a blessing to other people.

I hadn’t planned to write about this today: I had two other posts in mind and was trying to decide which one to go with when I heard that bit of a radio broadcast, and as I thought meditated on what I had heard, some of these other truths came to mind, so I felt that perhaps this was what I should write about today.

Proverbs 28:13: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

The visible teaches of the Invisible

Posted on May 23, 2009 by Barbara Harper

“For the invisible things of him…

…from the creation of the world…

…are clearly seen…

…being understood by the things that are made…

…even his eternal power and Godhead…Romans 1:20a.

(All photos except the last two are from the morguefile.)

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

~ Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

Sometimes the joy comes after

Posted on May 21, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Yesterday was the kind of day some harried mother must have had when she coined the phrase, “If a woman’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car?”

I knew I had to be at one place at 9 a.m., but I hadn’t foreseen several other things coming up and errands piling upon errands throughout the day. I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account, but by 5:30 p.m. I ended up bringing fast-food dinner home to sit down for a few minutes until church. During the course of the day I was informed of an opportunity for service at church that evening — actually more of a responsibility than an opportunity. Maybe because it was unexpected, maybe because I was already tired — I’m a homebody, and being out all day makes me tired and a little cranky — I did not react with joy and enthusiasm at the news. Some of the unexpected errands had to do with preparations for this unexpected event. By church time, honestly, if I hadn’t had this responsibility, I might have talked myself into being too tired to go.

Yet we live by faith, not by feeling, and part of faith is not just what we believe but also the outworking of that faith into our daily lives, sometimes in spite of feelings. So I went. And as so often happens, I was glad I did. I had begun the evening tired and harried, and came home joyful and refreshed.

That has happened so often in my life: I remember times of being asked to do something and not feeling the liberty to say no (it’s not that I never say no — I feel perfectly free to decline at times), yet instead of “serving the Lord with gladness” I dragged my feet and chafed at the intrusion on my time and energy. Then afterward I was so ashamed of myself for my negative feelings and so immensely glad I done the task — not just in the satisfaction of having done one’s “duty” or “a good deed” but — I don’t know how to describe it — just joy in actually serving.

Last night I picked up a copy of Joy And Strength, a devotional book of quotes and verses compiled by Mary Wilder Tileston. I had gone through it a few times several years ago and had it nearby to glean some of the quotes of it I wanted to remember. The reading for yesterday fit perfectly:

He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
EPHESIANS 1:4

O LOVE, who formedst me to wear
The image of Thy Godhead here;
Who soughtest me with tender care
Through all my wanderings wild and drear;
O Love! I give myself to Thee,
Thine ever, only Thine to be.
JOHANN SCHEFFLER

WE live not for ourselves, but for God; for some purpose of His; for some special end to be accomplished, which He has willed to be accomplished by oneself, and not by another; something which will be left undone, if we do it not, or not be done as it would have been done, if the one ordained to it had done it. We live gifted with certain forms of spiritual grace embodied in us, for some purpose of Divine Love to be fulfiled by us, some idea of the Divine Mind to be imaged forth in our creaturely state. To devote oneself to God is to concentrate the powers of one’s being to their ordained end, and therefore to have the happiest and truest life–happiest, because happiness must be in the accordance of these powers with the law of their creation, and truest, because the attainment of the highest glory must be in the accomplishment of the end for which we were created.
T. T. CARTER

The May 21-25 readings are good and applicable as well.

Oh Jesus I Have Promised

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Barbara Harper

O Jesus, I have promised to serve Thee to the end;
Be Thou forever near me, my Master and my Friend;
I shall not fear the battle if Thou art by my side,
Nor wander from the pathway if Thou wilt be my Guide.

O let me feel Thee near me! The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear;
My foes are ever near me, around me and within;
But Jesus, draw Thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.

O let me hear Thee speaking in accents clear and still,
Above the storms of passion, the murmurs of self will.
O speak to reassure me, to hasten or control;
O speak, and make me listen, Thou Guardian of my soul.

O Jesus, Thou hast promised to all who follow Thee
That where Thou art in glory there shall Thy servant be.
And Jesus, I have promised to serve Thee to the end;
O give me grace to follow, my Master and my Friend.

O let me see Thy footprints, and in them plant mine own;
My hope to follow duly is in Thy strength alone.
O guide me, call me, draw me, uphold me to the end;
And then in Heaven receive me, my Savior and my Friend.

~ John E. Bode, 1868