The Calm Spirit of Christ

Today is moving day. There will be plenty of reason for fretting and stewing, impatience, and turbulence. I am one who seems to feel that unless I do things or unless they are done my way, they will not be done right, and the day will disintegrate. But I have been watching the sea--very turbulent this morning because of a tropical storm hundreds of miles away--and I remember Him whose word was enough to calm it.

Speak that word to me today, dear Lord: peace. Let your calm spirit, through the many potentially rough minutes of this day, in every task, say to my soul, Be still. Even this day's chaos, with all its clutter and exertion, will be ordered by your quiet power if my heart is subject to your word of peace. Thank You, Lord.

When Trials Come

When trials come no longer fear
For in the pain our God draws near
To fire a faith worth more than gold
And there His faithfulness is told
And there His faithfulness is told

Within the night I know Your peace
The breath of God brings strength to me
And new each morning mercy flows
As treasures of the darkness grow
As treasures of the darkness grow

I turn to Wisdom not my own
For every battle You have known
My confidence will rest in You
Your love endures Your ways are good
Your love endures Your ways are good

When I am weary with the cost
I see the triumph of the cross
So in it's shadow I shall run
Till He completes the work begun
Till He completes the work begun

One day all things will be made new
I'll see the hope You called me to
And in your kingdom paved with gold
I'll praise your faithfulness of old
I'll praise your faithfulness of old

Keith & Kristyn Getty
Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music

Autumn

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

George Eliot

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

William Cullen Bryant

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

Stanley Horowitz

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.

Faith Baldwin

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

Emily Dickinson
Nature XXVII, Autumn.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

Emily Bronte

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

Robert Louis Stevenson
Autumn Fires.

Give Him All Things

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
--PSALMS 91:1

AS soon as I woke in the morning I threw myself into the arms of Divine Love as a child does into its father's arms. I rose to serve Him, and to perform my daily labor simply that I might please Him. If I had time for prayer, I fell on my knees in His divine presence, consecrated myself to Him, and begged Him that He would accomplish His holy will perfectly in me and through me, and that He would not permit me to offend Him in the least thing all through the day. I occupied myself with Him and His praise as long as my duties permitted. Very often, I had not leisure to say even so much as the Lord's Prayer during the day; but that did not trouble me. I thought it as much my duty to work for Him as to pray to Him, for He Himself had taught me, that all that I should do for love of Him would be a true prayer. I loved Him and rejoiced in Him. If my occupations required all my attention, 1 had nevertheless my heart turned towards Him; and, as soon as they were finished, I ran to Him again, as to my dearest Friend. When evening came, and every one went to rest, I found mine only in the Divine Love, and fell asleep, still loving and adoring Him.
--ARMELLE NICOLAS

Where There Is Injury

Have you ever found the taste of revenge sweet? Does there lurk in your heart, as in mine at times, a desire for at least the milder forms of revenge if you have been hurt--a desire to see the person apologize, an urge to remind him that he was nasty to you, or even the temptation to pay him back somehow? It was not God's plan that man should take revenge. That He has reserved for Himself, and when we seize that power we are taking a huge risk. It is, in another form, the risk Adam and Eve took when they ate the forbidden fruit--arrogating to themselves powers, lethal burdens, for which they were never designed.

What if God paid us for our sins? What if He were not Love? His mercy is everlasting and has brought us salvation and forgiveness. Remembering that, and how we ourselves have offended Him times without number, shall we dare to retaliate when someone sins against us? Think of the measure of forgiveness God has offered us. Think of the price. Think what the cross means.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace--

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon....

For it is in forgiving that we are forgiven,

It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Isaiah 26:3

You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.

Amplified Bible

See Jesus

"And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him."

Mark 3:13

Here was sovereignty. Impatient spirits may fret and fume, because they are not called to the highest places in the ministry; but reader be it thine to rejoice that Jesus calleth whom He wills. If He shall leave me to be a doorkeeper in His house, I will cheerfully bless Him for His grace in permitting me to do anything in His service. The call of Christ's servants comes from above. Jesus stands on the mountain, evermore above the world in holiness, earnestness, love and power. Those whom He calls must go up the mountain to Him, they must seek to rise to His level by living in constant communion with Him. They may not be able to mount to classic honours, or attain scholastic eminence, but they must like Moses go up into the mount of God and have familiar intercourse with the unseen God, or they will never be fitted to proclaim the gospel of peace. Jesus went apart to hold high fellowship with the Father, and we must enter into the same divine companionship if we would bless our fellowmen. No wonder that the apostles were clothed with power when they came down fresh from the mountain where Jesus was.

Look up to Him

We need to learn that true Christianity is inseparable from deep joy; and the secret of that joy lies in a continual looking away from all else--away from sin and its ways, and from the manifold hindrances to the good we would do--up to God, His love, His purpose, His will. In proportion as we do look up to Him we shall rejoice, and in proportion as we rejoice in the Lord will our religion have tone and power and attractiveness.

CHARLES GORE

Being Useful

"Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar."

Psalm 120:5

As a Christian you have to live in the midst of an ungodly world, and it is of little use for you to cry "Woe is me." Jesus did not pray O that you should be taken out of the world, and what He did not pray for you need not desire. Better far in the Lord's strength to meet the difficulty, and glorify Him in it. The enemy is ever on the watch to detect inconsistency in your conduct; be therefore very holy. Remember that the eyes of all are upon you, and that more is expected from you than from other men. Strive to give no occasion for blame. Let your goodness be the only fault they can discover in you. Like Daniel, compel them to say of you, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Seek to be useful as well as consistent.

Perhaps you think, "If I were in a more favourable position I might serve the Lord's cause, but I cannot do any good where I am"; but the worse the people are among whom you live, the more need have they of your exertions; if they be crooked, the more necessity that you should set them straight; and if they be perverse, the more need have you to turn their proud hearts to the truth. Where should the physician be but where there are many sick? Where is honour to be won by the soldier but in the hottest fire of the battle? And when weary of the strife and sin that meets you on every hand, consider that all the saints have endured the same trial. They were not carried on beds of down to heaven, and you must not expect to travel more easily than they. They had to hazard their lives unto the death in the high places of the field, and you will not be crowned till you also have endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Therefore, "stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."

In the Multitude of My Thoughts

In the multitude of my thoughts in mine heart, thy comforts have rejoiced my soul.

Psalm 94:19

Just to Let Thy Father Do What He Will

JUST to let Thy Father do what He will;
Just to know that He is true, and be still.
Just to follow, hour by hour, as He leadeth;
Just to draw the moment's power, as it needeth.
Just to trust Him, this is all. Then the day will surely be
Peaceful, whatso'er befall, bright and blessed, calm and free.

Just to let Him speak to thee, through His Word,
Watching, that His voice may be clearly heard.
Just to tell Him everything, as it rises,
And at once to bring to Him all surprises.
Just to listen, and to stay where you cannot miss His voice,
This is all! and thus today, you, communing, shall rejoice.

Just to trust, and yet to ask guidance still;
Take the training or the task, as He will.
Just to take the loss or gain, as He sends it;
Just to take the joy or pain as He lends it.
He who formed thee for His praise will not miss the gracious aim;
So today, and all thy days, shall be moulded for the same.

Just to leave in His dear hand little things;
All we cannot understand, all that stings.
Just to let Him take the care sorely pressing;
Finding all we let Him bear changed to blessing.
This is all! and yet the way marked by Him who loves thee best:
Secret of a happy day, secret of His promised rest.

Faults

Vexation at a fault is generally more of a fault than the fault itself.

FRANCOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON