Day 3

Day 3:

 

“He placed everything on the altar, and he expressed no bitterness at all when God decided to keep it. [He] just kept serving Him.”

 

This quote comes from Gary Thomas’ book Thirsting for God and refers to Blaise Pascal. I don’t remember the details.

I have a hard time with this quote. When he had placed everything on the altar and then watched it burn, felt it hurt, and saw no pot of gold emerge from the flames, “he expressed no bitterness at all.”

I wonder if Blaise Pascal ever warred within himself. Did he ever spend quiet moments wrestling with God, wrestling with his flesh that wanted to pick up the charred remains and find a better resting place? I don’t know.

 Asaph knew what it was like to question God’s handling. He wrote, “I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. [What? An author of Scripture acted like that before God??] Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:22-26).

After we question and shed tears and cry out to God, in the end I think (hope?) we too, with our seeming lack of resolve, commitment, and decision in the moment of “God deciding to keep it,” will, like Pascal and Asaph, “just keep serving Him."

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