We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you.
-2 Corinthians 1:12 NLT
–Picture Credit: Drew Hopper
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“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
-Robert Frost
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It is a matter of the heart, my brothers. There are many offices a man might fulfill as a king – father of a household, manager of a department, pastor of a church, coach of a team, prime minister of a nation – but the heart required is the same. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (Prov 21:1). The passage is often used to explain the sovereignty of God, in that he can do with a man whatever he well pleases. Certainly, God is that sovereign. But I don’t think that’s the spirit of this passage. God rarely forces a man to do something against his will, because he would far and above prefer that he didn’t have to, that the man wills to do the will of God. “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). What God is after is a man so yielded to him, so completely surrendered, that his heart is easily moved by the Spirit of God to the purposes of God.
That kind of heart makes for a good king.
Watch how Moses leads Israel out of bondage, and guides them to the Promised Land. Notice how every chapter telling the story of the Exodus begins, from chapter six to chapter fourteen: “Then the Lord said to Moses…” and the rest of the chapter is Moses doing what God told him to do. Is this how the men you know run their corporations, their churches, their families? I’m stunned by how little daily guidance Christian men seek from God. They have a good idea, and they just go do it. Not the great kings. Look at David. “In the course of time, David inquired of the Lord. ‘Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?’ he asked. The Lord said, ‘Go up.’ David asked, ‘Where shall I go?’ ‘To Hebron,’ the Lord answered. So David went up there…” (2 Samuel 2:1-2). In his heart, and in his daily practice, David is a man yielded to God. He is called, may I remind you, a man after God’s own heart.
This is the way Jesus lived. “For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John 12:49-50). Jesus could have asserted his own will; he certainly had the power to do so, and the talent, and we might add he also could be trusted to do so. But no – he was yielded to the Father, in all things. Regardless of age, position, or natural abilities, a man is only ready to become a King when his heart is in the right place. Meaning, yielded to God in all things.
-John Eldredge, Fathered by God,
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Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
-2 Corinthians 1:6-7 NLT
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Incredible. What a self-indictment. “Nothing dangerous is happening here.” Those men have already been taken out because they’ve swallowed the Enemy’s first line of attack: “I’m not here-this is all just you.” You can’t fight a battle you don’t think exists. This is right out of The Screwtape Letters, where Lewis has the old devil instruct his apprentice in this very matter:
My dear Wormwood, I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us by the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves.
As for those who want to be dangerous (cutting-edge), take a close look at 1 Peter 5:8-9: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
What is the Holy Spirit, through Peter, assuming about your life? That you are under spiritual attack. This is not a passage about nonbelievers; he’s talking about “your brethren.” Peter takes it for granted that every believer is under some sort of unseen assault. And what does he insist you do? Resist the devil. Fight back, take a stand.
-John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, 159, 160
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But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ said. They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.
But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.
-Jude 1:17-21 NLT
Picture Credit: Gordon Hyde
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Paul speaks of different glories—the glory of the sun, as compared to the glory of the moon. There are different humilities as well. You have the humility of setting aside an office—the king takes off his crown to become a pauper in the street. But there is the greater humility of setting aside the power—the Son of God lays down his glory to become a human being. It is the humility of utter dependence. Jesus wept, he prayed, he learned obedience. So that we might learn to do the same. What we are witnessing when Jesus “disciples” his followers is something like the emperor stepping down in the arena to face the lions with us, show us how it’s done, using only the tools available to us. Staggering. And so hopeful.
-John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw, 138 & 139
Picture Credit: Alexander Nerozya
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For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.
-2 Corinthians 5-7 NLT
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“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn–that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness–that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.”
-Jane Austen, Persuasion
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, Autumn, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, fall, fall colors, hiking, life, literature, local, love, nature, personal, photography, poetry, spirituality, travel
In the mythic story of The Lion King, the lion cub Simba is separated in his youth from his father through a murder engineered by his uncle, Scar, the character symbolizing the evil one in our story. Scar arranges for the cub to be caught in a stampede of wildebeests, knowing that his father, Mufasa, will risk his life to save his son. He does, and Simba is saved, but Mufasa is killed. Scar then turns on Simba and accuses him, at such a vulnerable and desperate moment, of causing his father’s death. Brokenhearted, frightened, racked with guilt, Simba runs away from home.
This is the enemy’s one central purpose-to separate us from the Father. He uses neglect to whisper, You see-no one cares. You’re not worth caring about. He uses a sudden loss of innocence to whisper, This is a dangerous world, and you are alone. You’ve been abandoned. He uses assaults and abuses to scream at a boy, This is all you are good for. And in this way he makes it nearly impossible for us to know what Jesus knew, makes it so very, very hard to come home to the Father’s heart toward us. The details of each story are unique to the boy, but the effect is always a wound in the soul, and with it separation from and suspicion of the Father.
It’s been very effective.
But God is not willing to simply let that be the end of the story. Not in any man’s life. Remember what Jesus taught us about the Father’s heart in the parable of the lost son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NIV). Filled with compassion, our Father God will come like a loving Father, and take us close to his heart. He will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn’t get finished. He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son.
-John Eldredge, Fathered By God
Picture Credit: Karl Magnusson
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, enemy, evil, God, Jesus Christ, life, literature, local, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation, spirituality, survival, travel
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