Be Not Blind to the Shining of His Face

Far in the future lieth a fear;
Like a long, low, mist of gray,
Gathering to fall in dreary rain;
Thus doth thy heart within thee complain.
And even now thou art afraid, for round thy dwelling
The flying winds are ever telling
Of the fear that lieth gray
Like a gloom of brooding mist upon the way.

But The Lord is always kind;
Be not blind, be not blind To the shining of His face,
To the comforts of His grace.
Hath He ever failed thee yet?
Never, never. Wherefore fret?
O fret not thyself, nor let They heart be troubled,
Neither let it be afraid.

Near, by thy footfall, springeth a joy, Like a new-blown little flower
Growing for thee, to make thee glad.
Let thy countenance be no more sad,
But wake the voice of joy and health within thy dwelling,
And let thy tongue be ever telling,
Not of fear that lieth gray, But of little flowers beside the way.

For the Lord is always kind,
Be not blind, be not blind To the shining of His face,
To the comforts of His grace.
He hath never failed thee yet.
Never will His love forget.
O fret not thyself, nor let Thy heart be troubled,
Neither let it be afraid.

~ Amy Carmichael

"Ye are Christ's." 1 Corinthians 3:23

"Ye are Christ's." You are his by donation, for the Father gave you to the Son; his by his bloody purchase, for he counted down the price for your redemption; his by dedication, for you have consecrated yourself to him; his by relation, for you are named by his name, and made one of his brethren and joint-heirs. Labour practically to show the world that you are the servant, the friend, the bride of Jesus. When tempted to sin, reply, "I cannot do this great wickedness, for I am Christ's." Immortal principles forbid the friend of Christ to sin. When wealth is before you to be won by sin, say that you are Christ's, and touch it not. Are you exposed to difficulties and dangers? Stand fast in the evil day, remembering that you are Christ's. Are you placed where others are sitting down idly, doing nothing? Rise to the work with all your powers; and when the sweat stands upon your brow, and you are tempted to loiter, cry, "No, I cannot stop, for I am Christ's. If I were not purchased by blood, I might be like Issachar, crouching between two burdens; but I am Christ's, and cannot loiter." When the siren song of pleasure would tempt you from the path of right, reply, "Thy music cannot charm me; I am Christ's." When the cause of God invites thee, give thy goods and thyself away, for thou art Christ's. Never belie thy profession. Be thou ever one of those whose manners are Christian, whose speech is like the Nazarene, whose conduct and conversation are so redolent of heaven, that all who see you may know that you are the Saviour's, recognizing in you his features of love and his countenance of holiness. "I am a Roman!" was of old a reason for integrity; far more, then, let it be your argument for holiness, "I am Christ's!"

A Song of Meekness and Rejoicing...

Then Mary said, “My heart is overflowing with praise of my Lord, my soul is full of joy in God my Saviour. For he has deigned to notice me, his humble servant and, after this, all the people who ever shall be will call me the happiest of women! The one who can do all things has done great things for me—oh, holy is his Name! Truly, his mercy rests on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has swept away the high and mighty. He has set kings down from their thrones and lifted up the humble. He has satisfied the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away with empty hands. Yes, he has helped Israel, his child: he has remembered the mercy that he promised to our forefathers, to Abraham and his sons for evermore!”

Luke  1:46-55 (J.B. Phillips) 

Living Well

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
-Theodore Roosevelt

For the Best Kind of Day...

Let the first act on waking be to place yourself, your heart, mind, faculties, your whole being, in God's hands. Ask Him to take entire possession of you, to be the Guide of your soul, your Life, your Wisdom, your Strength. He wills that we seek Him in all our needs, that we may both know Him truly, and draw closer and closer to Him; and in prayer we gain an invisible force which will triumph over seemingly hopeless difficulties.

~ H. L. SIDNEY LEAR

Love in Our Deeds

Your life is hid with Christ in God.
--COLOSSIANS 3:3

Put on therefore a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other; even as the Lord forgave you so also do ye.
--COLOSSIANS 3:12-13 (R. V.)

IT is not the deed we do,
Though the deed be never so fair,
But the love that the dear Lord looketh for,
Hidden with holy care
In the heart of the deed so fair.
--HARRIET MCEWEN KIMBALL

THESE are duties which belong to us alike, whatever our outward lot be, whether rich or poor, honored or despised, amid outward joys or sorrows. For as our life is hidden in Christ, so have we all an outward and an inward, a hidden life. Outwardly, we seem busied for the most part about common things, with trivial duties, worthless tasks. Inwardly we are, or ought to be, studying how, in all, to please God, walking in His sight, doing them in His Presence, seeking to know how He would have them done. So amid trivial things we may be, nay men are, in every station of life, pleasing God, that is, leading angels' lives, in that they are doing His will on earth, as the angels in heaven. They are "servants of His, doing His pleasure."
--EDWARD B. PUSEY

Spiritual Growth and Maturity

The open secret of healthy spiritual growth is to know and settle down upon this fact as set forth in Romans 8:28 and 29. When we see that all things are working together to make us more and more like the LORD JESUS we will not be frustrated and upset when some of these 'things' are hard, difficult to understand, and often contain an element of death.  We will be able to rest in our LORD JESUS and say to our FATHER, "THY will be done." And our constant attitude of faith will be, "Though HE slay me, yet will I trust HIM" (Job 13:14). This is our matriculation to spiritual maturity!

~- Miles J. Stanford, Principles of Spiritual Growth

Do the Next Thing

One week of homekeeping laid out.

DO not yield to the temptation of looking at everything at once, as if everything would happen at once, and all the events of the day be crowded into an hour. Do not thus forecast, but take each thing as it comes to you, and look upon it as the present expression of the will of God concerning you; then regard the next in the same way, and thus receive your day piece by piece from Him who will remember always when He gives you work to do, that you need strength to do it.
Often, when you have almost fainted in spirit, the thought comes, "If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, what shalt thou do with the horsemen?" Put it from you, it is a faithless thought; if you need more strength, you will have it, be sure of that; or the call to greater exertion may never come to you. Your business is with the present; leave the future in His hands who will be sure to do the best, the very best for you.

~ Priscilla Maurice

Do the next thing.

~ Elisabeth Eliot  

What Is Best For Us

WE know not precisely what is best for us. We know not what will make us truly happy. We know not what will help us best in our struggle against temptations. And if we were to try to make a distinction between our mere passing wishes and that which our souls really needed, we should utterly fail. But we need not try. Let us take all our wishes, all our longings, all the promptings of our consciences, to the feet of our Father. He will hear and He will do. He will hear all we say. He will know what parts of our prayer are best for us to have, and what are not. And He will give us what His fatherly love will choose. And therefore to all our prayers we will add, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

~ Frederick Temple

Photo available from allposters.com

Something to Rejoice About

For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature]. And you [a]are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power].

~ Colossians 2:9-10 (Amplified Version)

For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [[d]full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature.

2 Peter 1: 3-4

DO not try only to abstain from sin, but strive, by God's grace, to gain the opposite grace. If thou wouldest not slip back into sin, thou must stretch forward to Christ and His holiness. It is a dull, heavy, dreary, toilsome way, just to avoid sin. Thou wouldest not simply not be impatient; thou wouldest long to be like thy Lord, who was meek and lowly of heart. Thou wouldest not only not openly murmur; thou wouldest surely long, like the beloved Apostle, to rest on Jesus' breast, and will what He wills.

~Edward B Pusey

The Good Things of God

God oftentimes witholds riches and honours, and health of body from men... Honours and riches and bodily strength, are none of God's good things; they are of the number of things indifferent which God bestows promiscuously upon the just and unjust, as the rain to fall and the sun to shine. The good things of God are chiefly peace of conscience and the joy in the Holy Ghost in this life. ~ Charles Spurgeon

One Heart's Joyous Song of Thanks and Joy

With song and dance my praises make,

With harp and timbrel sing.

My Savior chose me for his own,

My Advocate, My King!

Though foreknowing all my faults,

My flaws and pride and sin,

He has promised to complete

The work begun within.

His glory, not my own, I wish

To be made manifest.

Conformed to Him, in Him abide,

His joy in every test.

So by His grace and strength I’ll run

In all that He commands.

That I may “faithful servant” hear,

When all my journeys end.

The Way Your Soul Shall Go

To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways and a Way.
And the High Soul climbs the High Way
And the Low Soul climbs the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A High Way and a Low;
And every man decideth
The Way his soul shall go.

~John Oxenham

The Wildflowers' Lesson

Much-Afraid looked at the Shepherd earnestly. 'I have often wondered about the wild flowers...it does seem strange that such unnumbered multitudes should bloom in the wild places of the earth where perhaps nobody ever sees them...They have so much beauty and sweetness to give and no one on whom to lavish it, nor who will even appreciate it.'

The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. 'Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted...and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them.....

All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love. Many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love's flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love himself walks and rejoices with his friends.

Some of my servants have indeed won great visible victories and are rightly loved and reverenced by other men, but always their greatest victories are like the wild flowers, those which no one knows about.

Hannah Hurnard ~ Hind's Feet on High Places (1955)

You Can If You Think You Can!

If you think you are beaten, you are,

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will.
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But soon or late the man who wins,
the man who thinks he can.

~ C. W. Longenecker ~

He Will Help You!

Let not your hearts faint; fear not, and do not tremble.

DEUTERONOMY 20:3

THOU wilt be near me, Father, when I fail,
For Thou hast called me now to be Thy son,
And when the foe within me may assail,
Help me to say in Christ, "Thy will be done;"
This ever calms, this ever gives me rest;
There is no fight in which I may not stand,
When Christ doth dwell supreme within my breast,
And Thou uphold'st me with Thy mighty hand.
JONES VERY

THOU must begin low, and be glad of a little light to travel with, and be faithful thereunto; and in faithfulness expect additions of light, and so much power as may help thee to rub on. And though thou may be long weak and little and ready to perish; yet the Father will help thee, and cause His life to shoot up in thee. Thankfully receive the smallest visitation that comes from Him to thy soul; for there is life and peace in it, and death and perplexity in turning from it.
ISAAC PENINGTON

All the evil we do not commit, all the temptations to which we do not consent or which never visit us; all our holy thoughts and good intentions, all our longings after that which is right,--are so many witnesses of His loving kindness towards us. How could He help you thus unless He cared for you?
CHARLES DE CONDREN

Psalm 125 (Amplified Bible)

1 THOSE WHO trust in, lean on, and confidently hope in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides and stands fast forever.

2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from this time forth and forever.

3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest upon the land of the [uncompromisingly] righteous, lest the righteous (God's people) stretch forth their hands to iniquity and apostasy.

4 Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are right [with You and all people] in their hearts.

5 As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways [of indifference to God], the Lord will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel!

It isn't work

It isn't work if you like to do it,
It isn't work if it gives a thrill,
If always pleasant thoughts imbue it,
If you do it gladly and with a will.

It isn't "housework" - dusting, mending,
Scrubbing floors and baking things,
Washing dishes and pans unending,
To one who laughs and smiles and sings.

It isn't work, if you find good measure
Of cheer and sun in every minute,
It isn't housework - it's home pleasure,
With a little love and laughter in it!

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1927)

A Mystery of Love and Sovereignty

All of the past, I believe, is a part of God's story of each child of His--a mystery of love and sovereignty, written before the foundation of the world, never a hindrance to the task He has designed for us, but rather the very preparation suited to our particular personality's need.

"How can that be?" ask those whose heritage has not been a godly one as mine was, whose lives have not been peaceful. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter" (Proverbs 25:2, NIV). God conceals much that we do not need to know, yet we do know that He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When does that begin? Does the Shepherd overlook anything that the sheep need?

William Kay, who translated the Psalms in 1870, gives this note on Psalm 73:22: "Though I was supported by Thee and living 'with Thee' as Thy guest, yet I was insensible to Thy presence;--intent only on a small section of the visible course of things;--like the irrational animals that are ever looking down at the ground they are grazing.

"Yet I am perpetually with Thee, Thou hast laid hold on my right hand," wrote the psalmist. "Thou wilt guide me with Thy counsel and afterwards receive me in glory.... And as for me, nearness to God is my good; I have put my trust in the Lord God" (vv. 23, 24, 28, WK).