Oh the drama of life! How little we know of the struggles people endure! Behind closed doors where threats and oppressions thwart the very lives of some. The courage and tenacity it takes for them to hang on to a frayed thread! To continue in the face of interminable assaults to your very sense of being!
Oh Jesus, you take us to these battles of woe, in these hidden places of the soul sufferers. Daring to draw back the curtain where abuses immeasurable strike and slay what once were vibrant and hopeful spirits. We are led into the deepest sorrows, the darkest corners of human misery, and with our mustard seed faith, hope to bring a draught of healing, some degree of remedy where whelming storms of desperation flood. Oh what a heart rending venture to enter the souls of the downcast with His yearning to bring hope and aid, where despair and anguish have claimed days, years!
But we press in, armed and hopeful with the compelling love of Christ: we venture where hope's been abandoned, life no longer holds meaning or promise: dreams abandoned, life drained of its life blood.
Lord, you have taught us it is good to be in the house of the mourning, it is there we commune most closely with your healing Spirit and witness your resurrection power displayed today.

 

 

"There is a place in us that is kind, gentle, trusting, and wants to do the right things. we want to be close to others without critical judgments or sabotaging reactions. But when we try to express the good part, much of the time something distorted comes out; especially with those closest to us." 

   I ran across this picture the other night and it just moved me so. 
This young fella, in what are no doubt his only set of clothes, lost in a sea of people where grinding poverty abounds; still has his chin up and a look of pride on his face. I can't help but feel that if he had some little help, he would make a large imprint on the world for good. As fellow human beings, each of us simply must be helping someone, somewhere and not be distracted by our own needs and forget or turn a blind eye to others in greater need than ours. We must, "do to others as we would have done to us."   

  "Some in the emerging church consider the movement as an approach which emphasizes the priority of love, not as something which stands opposed to knowledge of God, or even as simply more important than knowledge of God, but, more radically still, as knowledge of God.

  To love is to know God precisely because God is love. The emerging community, at its best, can teach us again that love must be the first word on our lips and also the last, and that we must seek to incarnate that sacred word in the world.

I recently heard a well-known speaker say that if faith doesn't cost us something, then it is nothing. Only much later could I respond: if faith does not cost us everything, it is nothing. Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the 'truth' with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing in the right way, as bringing love to the world around us and within us... that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it." Peter Rollins. 

  "Many Christians testify to having been caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them. In short, the experience that gives birth to faith, at its most luminous, is analogous to the experience of an infant feeling the embrace and tender kiss of its mother." Peter Rollins. 

That was my experience but certainly, many others grow, little at a time, into the relationship.

-St. Augustine, City of God:
“Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues people, it then openly arrogates itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity” From Pastor Eric's site.

"The path of least resistance makes men and rivers crooked." 

  Old age, physically, terrible! But with it comes the ability to see, with failing eyes, the little things of life, the very nectar of life, that younger years often overlook. 

"The women are like fleeing birds scattered from the nest 
The daughters are trying to cross the river.
“Give us advice, make a decision;
Cast your shadow over us like the night in the blazing noon sun.
Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.
“Let the outcasts stay with you;
Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.” Isaiah 16:1-4

Jesus loves the lost and outcast! Isn't He wonderful!

  Oh the joy of loving! The pursuit of happiness is in vain, but the reward of happiness as a by product of serving is joy unspeakable!

 God has graced me with 8 granddaughters and two Great granddaughters. When I saw this picture my heart just leapt with joy and immediately my face broke into a spreading smile. There are no words to express the joy of little girls, all their silly little antics, heart melting lisps, giggles and delicious accents! Can there be a miracle that rivals them, surely not. 

When I saw this photo it just made me thin, "What's wrong with us? How can adults divide by flesh-tones?" I pray the next generations will get past this plague of hate. 

 We all want to cultivate a life that is useful and brings joy into living. The Bible inspires us to learn of the love of God, the source of happiness. And God has given us all good things to enjoy. The following piece is a great example of how to live a truly joyous life within. The principles are especially important for those who've suffered trauma and addiction, which robs us of these very principles. It stifles our ability to find delight and joy, and delight is something each of us needs. 

  "Joy and delight are the things that brims the channel of life, stimulates, freshens, enlivens, tantalizes and attracts. It must at all costs be beautiful. It must embrace that part of religion that glows for us, the thing which we find beautiful in other souls, the art, the poetry, the tradition, the love of nature, the craft, the interests we hanker after. 
It is by meeting the larger spirit that lies behind life, recognizing the impulse which meets us in a thousand forms, which forces us not to be content with narrow and petty things, but emerges as the energy, whatever it is, that pushes through the crust of life, as the flower pushes through the mould. 

  Now many of us have a dark suspicion of all that is joyful, inherited perhaps from or Puritan ancestry, a fear of yielding ourselves to its influence, a terror of being grimly repaid for indulgence, an old superstitions dread of somehow incurring the wrath of God, if we aim at happiness at all. 

 We must aim then at fulness of life; not at husbanding our resources with meagre economy, but at spending generously and fearlessly, grasping experience firmly, nurturing zest and hope. The frame of mind we must beware of, which is but a stingy vanity, is that which makes us say, "I am sure I should not like that person, that book, that place!" It is that closing-in of our own possibilities that we must avoid." Arthur Benson. 

  Now these pursuits have nothing to do with money or spending, or luxury; but rather, this is all about attitudes and our souls inner pursuits that are all spiritual, and all about embracing the good in the world which Christ has provided for us to brace and strengthen us in our battle against evil. 

 I here so much talk of "woman power" today; but this photo, this struggle, this desperate need is where the power of women's is truly displayed. The power of a woman's love knows no bounds, has no fear and all through history has overcome all odds. 

  Here is the mission field of today; oh Christian, are you prepared? Do you see her haunting past and depth of anguish? Do you see the hunger and thirst for love, almost completely eclipsed by loss of hope in anything good, much less pure. Behind those eyes are wounds and sorrows.  Oh friend, Jesus is working in hearts and lives like hers today! If you think her face is set against Christ you have forgotten His great power and love! Here lies the ground for revival, as always, in the hearts of the hurting in desperate need of His love.  

  Did Lazarus, who sat at the gate of the rich man have it any worse than this man here in Portland? I doubt not, but this man has no dogs for comfort. Every homeless person you ever see, has gone through horrific trauma; or they have debilitating mental problems. Know this, if you ever find yourself curbing your sympathy, this man is exactly who Jesus was talking about. If I fail to see him that way I am as blind as the rich man was. Woe unto me, God's heart is always for the oppressed and downcast; without exception. 

 "When Miranda has the New Testament in her hand, she supposes her self at the feet of our Savior and His Apostles, and makes every thing that she learns of them, so many laws of her life. She receives their sacred words with as much attention, and reverence, as if she saw their persons, and knew that they were just come from Heaven on purpose to teach her the way that leads to it."

William Law, A sincere call to a devout and holy life.

  “My friends, the world we live in, the time and town we live in, are full of unhealthiness. There are exaggerations, affectations, complications, thin frenzies, theatrical excitement, fashions of passions, fitful stars of morbid fascinating brilliance, till our souls grow sick and tired of it all. Where is the escape from it? 
Only in what St. Paul calls, “The simplicity which is in Christ.” Go up into the mountain of His love and service, and you shall leave all these mists and fogs below.” 
Phillips Brooks

 
"Then the Spirit took me up... and the Lord said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with you." Ezek. 3:12.22

   "You whose work is pre-eminently on the plain, get a preliminary glimpse of God! Come up and see the sunrise before you go down into the toils of the wilderness! You who labor among the sick, come first to the top of the hill! You who labor among the poor, come first to the the of the hill! - take a deep draught of hope before you traverse the dens and alleys! You who labor among the lapsed, come first to the top of the hill! - get a sight of human possibilities before you tread the path of tears! For it is not despair that emboldens you or nerves you, you workers in waste and wilderness. They among whom you sojourn may be sunk in depravity, dead in trespasses and sin; yet it is not despair that nerves you. Paul says we are saved by hope; yes, and we save others by hope. You that toil in the penitentiaries, what is it you see? Is it the depraved soul walking amid the tombs? No, it is the soul set free -- the soul as God painted it. Never lose sight of the Christ when you stand in Bethlehem's manger! For it is Christ that makes the manger bearable. Hope, and you will help; be bright, and you will bear; enjoy the vision of triumph, and you will endure the vale of tears. They who have mounted up as eagles in the morning, shall in the afternoon walk and not faint." George Matheson. 

  At seventy two, and after walking with the Lord for fifty years: I've learned there is always a way. Often it is not the way we would've chosen or discovered without God's help, but He always makes a way. 

  "Lord, there are many whom you can send to the gentiles - the impoverished of the earth; but send me!
There are myriads of celestial spirits who wait to do your bidding; but send me! I am slower in hand and feebler in heart than they, yet send me!
Send me because I am slower in hand and feebler in heart! It is not your holy angels that need to be trained in the joys of paradise; it is I. 
Shall I receive no message in the language of heaven- the language of sympathy! Shall all your messages of mercy be carried by Gabriel and Michael, and none by me! If by every couch of pain I beheld your ministering angel, I would never learn the science of sympathy." George Matheson.