Jean Valjean, a vagabond in the classic “Les Miserables” was a just released prisoner in midlife. “Nineteen years in French prison have left him rough and fearless. He walked for four days in the Alpine chill of nineteenth century southeastern France, only to find that no inn will take him, no tavern will feed him.” Max Lucado tells the story in “Grace.” “Finally he knocks on the door of a bishop’s house. Monseigneur Myriel is seventy five years old. Like Valjean he has lost much. The revolution took all the valuables from his family, except some silverware, a soup ladle, and two candlesticks.” “Valjean expects the religious man to turn him away. “ “But the Bishop is kind. He asks the visitor to sit near a fire.” “He explains, ‘This is not my house, but the house of Jesus Christ.’””… They dine on soup and bread, figs, and cheese with…
Tag: <span>sovereignty</span>
” For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Our lives are hidden lives, we are with Christ, and we are with Him in the Father. Who is to call into question the Chosen ones of God? God justifies. He declares them legally righteous. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and rose again, and He is at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. Who can separate you from the love of God? Tribulation or imprisonment or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Romans 8:33-34 All is actual in the place of “dead and hidden.” All is legally ours, but what about in our experience? The plan of God goes to work. “According as it is written, For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we have been reckoned as sheep for…
The Book of Job teaches us some interesting phenomena about the ways of men. “The tendency to conflate, (blend), poverty with other social issues such as unemployment, welfare receipt or substance abuse, or to uncritically cite these conditions as explanations of poverty, is tied up with the tendency to portray poverty as a problem created by those experiencing it. .” From jrf.org.uk “… those who deviate are seen as the source of trouble. The obvious question observers ask is, why do these people deviate from norms? Because most people view themselves as law abiding, they feel those who deviate do so because of some kind of unusual circumstances: accidents, illness, personal defect, character flaw, or maladjustment… In other words, the deviant is the cause of his or her own problem.” Borrowed from “the sociological approach to social problems—Russ Long” I guess we must talk of this phenomena. If a person falls to chance or…
When a balloon bursts it lays flat but first it shoots as a rocket. Air escaping propels it horizontally till finally the balloon lays dead. Shape, buoyancy and bright color gone; a major tear shows apparent. Air will never re-inflate this bag of latex again. Is this a valid life-metaphor? A sharp pointed devise does the bursting. A harsh word? — Derogatory remark? — Evil report or unwanted news? Our hearts grimace, but not air-borne — rather toward people, circumstances, any avenue to blame or receive consolation. “Help, I’m going down quickly.” “People with broken hearts have one thing in common—having expectations of other people. Having expectations of how someone else is supposed to act, feel, think, speak and behave. If you never want to experience a broken heart, eliminate all expectations from your relationships.”” Norrington… Truth, but a stoic existence is healing? — where’s the hope? “Part of the pain of a…
Denial is “refusing to admit into awareness that which comes from one’s environment—e.g., what others say or do.” Job did this in Job 3. Repression is “the exclusion from awareness of troubling psychic contents.” Both definitions are from C.W. McLemore. Denial shuts out the outside; repression, what comes from within. Our fellow griever, Job, resorted to all defenses and later exposed an outward armor, in the face of God Himself. “Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? I call Job’s lament, “the exaltation of futility.” “For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest.” Job 3:13-15 What was happening with Job? Every unconscious mechanism for the preservation of life seemed to effect its cover-up all at once, including a tough exteriored religious-duty filled response; but Job’s true colors shown brighter in the ongoing.…
I have sat beside a tiny crib, And watched a baby die,As parents slowly turned toward me,To ask, “Oh, Pastor, why?” I have held the youthful husband’s head,And felt death’s heave and sigh.A widow looked through tears and said,“Dear Pastor, tell me why?” I have seen a gold-star mother weep,And hold a picture nighHer lonely breast, and softly ask,“Why? Pastor, why, oh, why?” I have walked away from babyland,Where still-born babies lie.A mother stretches empty arms,And asks me, “Pastor, why?” I have watched my drunken Father leaveOur home, and say “good-bye,”While looking into Mother’s faceI asked, “Please tell me why?” I have heard the white-tipped tapping cane, Which leads a blinded eye.And then a darkened, lonely voiceCries, Preacher, show me why.” I have caught a fiancee’s burning tears,And heard her lonely cry.She held an unused wedding gown,And shouted, “Pastor, why?” I have heard the cancer patient say,” Tis…
Grace cannot act where there is either desert or ability. Grace does not help-it is absolute, it does it all. All thoughts below originate with William Newell A life without grace will lead us to wrongdoing — either through the short skirt of shamelessness or the long skirt of controlling self and others. Both encourage sin, one by giving it up, the other by holding it back. Grace is vital for people who kill their neighbor, but also for the finger pointing busy-body across the street — or anybody else for that matter. First, grace is God acting freely. Is your life happy with letting God do anything He wants? Has your whimpering manipulated God, or your bizarre flip-out? Can your smug religious works move Him? Not this God. He “doeth whatsoever He will in the army of heaven.” Do you have a sense of privilege?…
A Christian moves. The moves lie in the “from faith to faith,” “from glory to glory,” “from strength to strength” categories and require “grace for grace.” The path of the just shines more and more unto the perfect day, and “in thy light we see (more) light.” Line upon line we learn; and precept upon precept. Job, in chapter 29 was found in a lament. Apparently, he was an amazing man of patience and ministry having a sense of God moving with him at all times. When we read this chapter we are astounded at the level of maturity he had. Nevertheless, it was all ended now; a grief and grieving was all that remained. Job was about to experience an identity crisis though dying was still more on his preferred horizon. It dawned on me while reading this portion how often this very thing occurs for us believers, in…