Evelyn Underhill

“We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: To Want, To Have, and To Do. Craving, clutching and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual- even on the religious- plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having, and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life.”  – Evelyn Underhill (The Spiritual Life)

Best Ad of the Year

Martyn Lloyd Jones

“…when the devil comes and says, ‘You have no standing, you are condemned, you are finished’, you must say, ‘No! my position did not depend upon what I was doing, or not doing; it is always dependant upon the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Turn to the devil and tell him, ‘My relationship to God is not a variable one. The case is not that I am a child of God, and then again not a child of God. That is not the basis of my standing, that is not the position. When God had mercy upon me, He made me His child, and I remain his child. A very sinful, and a very unworthy one, perhaps, but still his child!

And now, when I fall into sin, I have not sinned against the law, I have sinned against love. Like the prodigal, I will go back to my Father and I will tell Him, “Father, I am not worthy to be called your son.” But He will embrace me, and He will say, “Do not talk nonsense, you are My child,” and He will shower his love upon me! That is the meaning of putting on the breastplate of righteousness! Never allow the devil to get you into a state of condemnation. Never allow a particular sin to call into question your standing before God. That question has been settled.” – Martyn Lloyd Jones, The Christian Soldier, p. 255    (HT- Ray Ortland)

Thousands protest global warming…

To Dabble and Splash

“This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea (I think St. John of the Cross called God a sea) and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash.”            - C. S. Lewis

Ernie Harwell: Dying Well – Lessons from a Baseball Legend

Ernie Harwell is dying. If you’re a sports fan you at least know the name, if not the voice. After reading this article I wish I could have known the man himself. As a matter of fact, even though I don’t know him, I hope I can become more like him. For example-

When asked whether he was worried about dying, his answer was reminiscent of Paul’s attitude in Philippians 1. “If you worry, that’s like telling God that you don’t think he can handle things. It’s a slap in the face of God,” said Harwell. “”My confidence is in God. Long ago, I gave my life to him. My life is in his hands.”

And this,

Harwell and his wife Lulu have been married for 68 years and have seven grandchildren. When asked how he wants to spend his final months before the call to glory arrives, Harwell said he wants to do all he can to serve his wife with the time he has left.

Amen.

Would I rather be clever, or kind?

“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.” -Abraham Heschel

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be clever. I wish, now, that I had spent more time being kind.

Praying for your children

“Until you are convinced that you can’t change your child’s heart, you will not take prayer seriously.” – Paul Miller, A Praying Life

Some tension is a good thing

I think it’s a good and humbling thing to remember to hold both these in tension.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (italics mine)

“For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” Rom. 9:15

Eugene Peterson on Following Jesus

“Following Jesus necessarily means getting his ways and means into our everyday lives. It is not enough simply to recognize and approve his ways and get started in the right direction. Jesus’ ways are meant to be embraced and assimilated into our habits. This takes place only as we pray our following of him. It cannot be imposed from without, cannot be copied. It must be shaped from within. This shaping takes place in prayer. The practice of prayer is the primary way that Jesus’ way comes to permeate our entire lives so that we walk spontaneously and speak rhythmically in the fluidity and fluency of holiness.” –Eugene Peterson (The Jesus Way)