Mostly Dead

He’s not dead. He’s only mostly dead. I’ve seen worse. ~Miracle Max

Misfortune

We are perplexed to see misfortune falling upon decent, inoffensive, worthy people–on capable, hard-working mothers of families or diligent, thrifty little trades-people, on those who have worked so hard, and so honestly, for their modest stock of happiness and now seems to be entering on the enjoyment of it with the fullest right….Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for the moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands before them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them….the creature’s illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature’s sake, be shattered; and…God shatters it.

Weakness

The Christian often tries to forget his weakness: God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply. The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it: God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it. The Christian mourns over his weakness: Christ teaches His servant to say, “I take pleasure in infirmities; most gladly will I glory in my infirmities.” The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hindrance in the life and service of God: God tells us that it is the secret of strength and success. It is our weakness, heartily accepted and continually realized, that gives us our claim and access to the strength of Him who has said, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I Choose to Believe

I choose

to believe

That God Himself

And what He chooses to provide

At this moment

Are all I truly need

My inner longings are completed

Greater Progress

In general, the soul makes greater progress when it least thinks so…most frequently when it imagines that it is losing.

The Waif & The King

I sat down one day and wrote this story.  I realized it was actually the story of my life and my relationship with Christ. It is my story of how I journeyed from struggling to earn Christ’s love to realizing that I already had it. When I first wrote this story, I didn’t like the sour-faced officials. However, I soon realized that many sour-faced officials long for  deeper relationship with the king, but don’t understand how to gain it–so they are to be pitied, not hated. I also realized that most (or all) of us start out as self-righteous officials, and at times we still are.

Once upon a time a little waif eagerly skipped to the palace to spend some time with the King. He had invited her to come, you see, because although she didn’t always remember it, she was His precious daughter and He loved her beyond imagining. As she entered His palace, she was met by some well-meaning but sour-faced officials, who looked at her in horror. “You can’t go to the King looking like THAT,” they sputtered. She looked down at her very best dress, which she had put on just for the King, and suddenly saw all the rips and stains and wrinkles that she hadn’t seen before. A couple of the officials, who understood the King a wee bit more than the others but not as much as they thought they did, said, “Don’t worry, dearie, the King probably won’t even notice that big huge ugly stain here or the really long horrible rip there, especially if you keep your hand over the stain and then twist your skirt a little.” The statement drew the waif’s attention to the big huge ugly stain and the really horrible long rip and she felt embarrassed and tried to hide them. Perplexed, she said, “But I thought the invitation said ‘come as you are.'” The well-meaning but sour-faced officials explained condescendingly, “Well, yes, that will get you through the doors, but you have to work very hard to clean yourself up before you actually get to see the King.”

I Am A Christian

‘When I say.. ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not shouting ‘I’m clean living,’

I’m whispering ‘I was lost, Now I’m found and forgiven.’

~

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

~

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak and need His strength to carry on.

~

When I say.. ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not bragging of success.

I’m admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.

~

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

~

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I still feel the sting of pain…
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

~

When I say… ‘I am a Christian’ I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner Who received God’s good grace, somehow!

 

 

~ MAYA ANGELOU

Wonder of Wonders

The wonder of wonders as she looked on His face

that this little boy spoke the worlds in their place

The stars and the moon shining brightly on them
The earth and the sun were created by Him

~

The wonder of wonders as she looked down and smiled
That He was her maker as well as her child
He created the womb that had given Him birth
He was God incarnate come down to the earth

~

The wonder of wonders as she heard His small cry
That His voice had thundered on Mount Sinai
The small hand she held so tenderly
Had made a dry path through the mighty Red Sea

~

Chorus:

The wonder of wonders–oh, how could it be
That God became flesh and was given for me
The Almighty came down and walked among men
The wonder of wonders He died for my sin!

Like A River Glorious

Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious in it’s bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love.
We may trust Him fully All for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest;
Finding, as He promised, Perfect peace and rest.

Others May, You May Not

If God has called you to be really like Christ in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Faith

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. …A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist. Very well, then. The main thing we learn from a serious attempt to practice the Christian virtues is that we fail.”

Anyway

PEOPLE are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway. 

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway. 

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway. 

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway. 

If you find serenity and joy, some may be jealous.
Be joyful anyway.

The good you do today will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

~ Mother Teresa

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

~

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

~

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

~

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

 

~Rudyard Kipling

Ask For God’s Help

…You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

Choices

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.