Day 24

 

“I have learnt to love the darkness of sorrow; there you see the brightness of His face.”

--Madame Guyon

 

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21, Day 22, Day 23, Day 24

 

Day 23

Suddenly, the month is almost over! I'm not sure how that happened! :)

The following quote sounds coarse to my ears. I am slightly embarassed to post it. But it is truth. And when a culture and people are set on inundating us with falsehood, it is only right to come back with the truth that addresses their claims. Besides, you have to love the poetic way Chesterton expresses himself. :)

"I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself.... Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman.... It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it.... [I]t is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind."  --G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, "The Ethics of Elfland"
 

"Let them be only your own,
And not for strangers with you."
--Proverbs 5:17

P.S. I'm back home where I can post at midnight. :)

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Day 21, Day 22

Day 22

"The answer to prayer may be approaching, though we discern not its coming. The seed that lies under ground in winter is taking root in order to a spring and harvest, though it appears not above ground, but seems dead and lost."

--Bickersteth, quoted in Cowman's devotional

Day 21

This is my favorite prayer from The Valley of Vision and served as my theme prayer a few years ago when I was struggling with what God's will was.

"O God Whose will conquers all,

There is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying thee

and being engaged in thy service;

Thou art All in all, and all enjoyments are what to me thou makest them, and no more.

I am well pleased with thy will, whatever it is,

or should be in all respects,

And if thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair,

I would choose to refer all to thee,

for thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss,

as I am in danger of doing.

I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal,

and it delights me to leave them there."

--"God the All," The Valley of Vision

Day 20

"God loves an uttermost confidence in Himself-- to be wholly trusted. This is the sublimest of all the characteristics of a true Christian--the basis of all character."

--Henry Van Dyke

FMF "Look"

Look.

Look, I'm typing at my aunt's house. The cooking channel's on. I can't think too focused.

Look. My aunt is showing me crazy pictures of her and my mom on her cellphone. Photos that make you want to run and scream. :)

Behold. Behold your God. Isaiah 39:9-10 - Say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" Behold, the Lord GOD shall come wiht a strong hand . . . . And carry them in His bosom. - Our God is both strong and gentle.

Look. Look here, look there. The lack of focus. I'm staying at a cat-sitting at a house with cable. My eyes want to go straight to the TV. The Waltons. Turner Classic Movies. Hallmark movies. Restaurant Impossible. Look, look, look.

Look. You might not be able to focus in depth on a book in the Bible like you just did Isaiah, but instead of just hardly reading anything, why not speed read through the Gospels? I can do that. I can do that!

Look. Look at the words on the page and feel the life flow through you. Just a little discipline.

Look, God is gracious. He tells His people in Isaiah to just return. Return. Julianna Morlett reminds me that I can love God with all I have right now. And that He'll accept it.

Look at the time! The five minutes are over! :)

Day 19

"The word 'missionary' does not occur in the Bible. But the word 'witness' does . . . . [T]o be a witness to God is, above all, to know, believe, and understand Him. All that He asks us to do is but means to this end. He will go to any lengths to teach us, and His manipulation of the movements of men . . . is never accidental. Those movements may be incidental to the one thing toward which He goads us: the recognition of Christ."

--Elisabeth Elliot, The Savage My Kinsman

"'You are My witnesses,' says the LORD,

'And My servant whom I have chosen,

That you may know and believe Me,

And understand that I am He.

Before Me there was no God formed,

Nor shall there be after Me.'"

Isaiah 43:10

Day 18

"There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up."

". . . I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life. . . .[L]ife-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time."

--Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 57

Day 17

Morning by morning
I wake up to find
the power and comfort
of God's hand in mine.

Season by season
I watch him amazed,
in awe of the mystery
of his perfect ways.

All I have need of
his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me.

I can't remember
a trial or a pain
he did not recycle
to bring me gain.

I can't remember
one single regret
in serving God only
and trusting his hand.

All I have need of
his hand will provide.
He's always been faithful to me.

This is my anthem,
this is my song,
the theme of the stories
I've heard for so long.

God has been faithful,
he will be again.
His loving compassion,
it knows no end.

--Sara Groves, "He's Always Been Faithful"

Day 16

I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it....

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificient?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are going what all men do when they speak of what they care about....what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.

--C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

 

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15

Day 15

"Avoid the mistake of concentrating overmuch upon your feelings. Above all, avoid the terrible error of making them central."

--D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, quoted by C.J. Mahaney in Christ Our Mediator

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14

Home of over a thousand other 31 Dayers this month of October: http://www.thenester.com/2012/09/31-dayers-2012.html

Day 14

http://www.royrogers.com/lane-index.html

"The marvelous thing about Christianity is that as you struggle to know more about Jesus, the more you earnestly seek Him, the more you come to know that He is the God He claimed to be, and nothing short of it."

--Dale Evans Rogers (actress and wife of Hollywood 1940s/50s cowboy Roy Rogers), My Spiritual Diary



31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14

Day 13

Another week without wireless internet. So no more midnight postings. :)

Day 13:
"Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token respect to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is above, and his true position will be exposed. . . . [O]ther things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life."

--A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

 

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12



Day 12

On Day 2 I said I was breaking out of the mold I had formed for myself for these 31 days. Well, again I do so, because a dear friend posted on Facebook a quote that precisely describes the lovely whimsy of this season. With the coming of fall a comfort forms in my belly. I have a light step as the wind whisks around my still-short sleeved arms, blowing leaves into a whirlwind. All the hopes of the holidays sing around and in you, but the stress and dreariness of perpetual overcast days are not here yet. There is a freshness in the air as the heat of summer subsides.

I am attempting to fully embrace fall this year, and I hope you are able to too. See below for links to other 31 Day-ers who are inspiring my celebration.

"October is a fine and dangerous season in America. It is dry and cool and the land is wild with red and gold and crimson, and all the lassitudes of August have seeped out of your blood, and you are full of ambition. It's a wonderful time to begin anything at all." -Thomas Merton

 

http://www.onlyabreath.com/

http://www.almondplace.com/

http://thefrugalhomemaker.com/

http://ohiofarmgirl.blogspot.com/

 

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

 

Day 11

"Why did Paul prefer to go afoot? And how may we account for his desire to go alone?

There are times in every man's life when he wants no comrade on the road with him. A precious part of our Creed is 'I believe in the communion of saints,' but, after all, it is not in such communion that we have the closest fellowship with God in Christ. It is in secret that we learn the secret of the Lord. . . .

I love the lonely creative hours with God."

--Madame Guyon

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10

Day 10

Isn't this fun? :) One of the new blogs I've discovered and am enjoying through 31 Days is http://juliannamorlet.blogspot.com/. You should check it out! And then check out the 1100--wait, make that 1200!--some odd other blogs participating in 31 Days of blogging!

Here is another all-time favorite quote (see Day 1 for my other :)). All-time favorite because it's true, but not something we think about. It is by Joy Dawson and comes from her book Intimate Friendship with God.

People are requesting prayer regarding their besetting sins and character weaknesses instead of coming in honesty and humility to God and saying, "I am constantly tempted to commit this sin because I love this sin. I do not hate it. I need the fear of God. O God, give me a hatred for what I now love. I receive it by faith in Jesus' name."

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day  9

Day 9

If you have not yet read Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliot's narrative of the death of her husband and several other men who took their families to Ecuador to share the gospel there, then you really should pick it up. It is a compelling read. In my Bible, I have a quote by Barbara Youderian, one of the wives of the men that were martyred, next to Psalm 48:14. I'll include both her words and the verse below.

"Tonight the Captain told us of his finding four bodies in the river.... As I came face to face with the news of Roj's death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his homegoing.... I wrote a letter to the mission family, trying to explain the peace I have. I want to be free of self-pity. It is a tool of Satan to rot away life. I am sure that this is the perfect will of God.... Roj came to do the will of Him that sent him. The Lord has closed our hearts to grief and hysteria, and filled in with His perfect peace."

 

"For this is God,

Our God forever and ever;

He will be our guide

Even to death."

 

 

What does Christianity look like? I think it plays out in an incomprehendable faith in God's sovereignty that allows people like Barbara Youderian to trust the Lord when her husband is martyred, or like yesterday's verses, to allow Ezekiel to continue to do God's work even when his heart must have felt like it was ripped in two. It looks crazy sometimes, and the faith is not won without deep learning, but it is beautiful. Christianity lived in the middle of trials is beautiful.

 

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8

Day 8 (posted a half hour early)

"He wants us to manifest the sweet grace of continuance amid all the sudden and saddening upheavals of our intensely varied life. This was the prophet’s triumph. He made his calamity a witness to the eternal. He made his very loneliness minister to his God."   

--J.H. Jowett, quoted by Mrs. Cowman in her Devotions for Morning and Evening

 

This quote refers to Ezekiel 24:18: "So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded."

The dedication of Ezekiel! To be willing for the Lord to do all these things to him! This is the supremacy of the knowledge of the LORD. To sacrifice any and all "that they may know that He is the LORD."

31 Days of Quotes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

Day 7

A full week of blogging! Woohoo! I thus present you with 2 quotes for the price of one post. :)

“The end of life is to do God’s will…That is the object of your life and mine—to do God’s will. It is not to be happy or to be successful, or famous, or to do the best we can…It is something far higher than this—to do God’s will.” –Henry Drummond, quoted by Gary Thomas in Thirsting for God

 

“I delight to do Your will, O my God” –Psalm 40:8

 

“Radical Christianity is the complete and utter surrender of our own will to the will of God. Nothing is more radical, extreme…or rare.” –David Timms, Sacred Waiting

“God knows what He is doing. My life is about His glory, not my dreams. If He is glorified, then I will have had a good life, even if I don’t get my dreams.

It is a comforting thought. Because mostly I want to have a good life.” –journal entry, July 8, 2012

Day 6

Day 6 of 31 Days of Quotes:

“You see, He knew even before I was born that I could easily allow food to be an idol in my life, that I would go to food, instead of Him, to fulfill my needs. And in His great wisdom, He created my body so that it would experience the consequences of such a choice, so that I would continually be drawn back into His arms. He wants me to come to Him for fulfillment, emotional healing, comfort—and if I could go to food for that and never gain an ounce, well then, what would I need God for?” –Lysa Teurkerst quoting a friend in Made to Crave (p. 105)

Check out the blogs of over 1100 others joining together this month for 31 Days of their chosen topic!