"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world".....C. S. Lewis
"Let me find thy light in my darkness, thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley."....The Valley of Vision
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33......
It might be a difficult day for you, but there is help! Have a blessed, beautiful Spring Sunday
z
20 comments:
Good Sunday Morning.
I just wanted to pop in and say hello, it's been a while.
Happy Sunday, but Spring? A high of 39 and mixed snow/rain today and for the week to come.
God bless!
Have a wonderful Sunday!
FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD
"Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Genesis 18:17
Its Delights. This chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God as compared with occasional feelings of His presence in prayer. To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are God's will, and all your common-sense decisions are His will for you unless He checks. You decide things in perfect delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will always check; when He checks, stop at once.
Its Difficulties. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He was not intimate enough yet to go boldly on until God granted his desire, there was something yet to be desired in his relationship to God. Whenever we stop short in prayer and say - "Well, I don't know; perhaps it is not God's will," there is still another stage to go. We are not so intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as He wants us to be - "That they may be one even as we are one." Think of the last thing you prayed about - were you devoted to your desire or to God? Determined to get some gift of the Spirit or to get at God? "Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." The point of asking is that you may get to know God better. "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
- Entry for March 20, My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
A message we need to get here might be that what we want for ourselves and others is not necessarily what God wants for us. In other words our desires and our goals may not bring worthwhile results into our lives. If we find our ambitions continually thwarted, our response should be one of gratitude not anger or disappointment, because people of faith must assume that God is in control, and that whatever happens will ultimately prove to be a blessing no matter how unfair and undesirable it may seem at the moment.
Have a lovely Sunday. Here in So. California, we're either having a late winter storm, or an early April shower.
Whichever it is, it's a good day to stay cozy and warm indoors.
Pris
Hi, Mal...good to see you.
Faith, POURING rain here...my favorite type of Spring :-) But, then, we haven't had the snow you've had!
Brooke, thanks...
Anonymous...My goodness, a whole new posting of other thoughts than mine! And it's not even your thoughts!
Please don't copy/paste off topic anymore, please, I've asked you before. Thank you.
Beautiful thoughts here, dear one. Thank you.
Anyone who reads this, please pray for "Clavenda." She is a dear woman who lives nearby me, & is suffering greatly today. Thanks.
The quotation from My Utmost For His Highest -- a famous, highly respected daily devotional book of longstanding by Oswald Chambers was the only posting so far that could properly be construed as relevant to the quotations listed in the initial blog post.
Weather reports and generic expressions of good will, while perfectly nice, don't really qualify as commentary on the initial blog post at all.
I included an entire paragraph interpreting the meaning and significance of Chambers' observations in my own words.
Two Symptoms of Classic Bullying Behavior:
• constant nit-picking, fault-finding and criticism of a trivial nature - the triviality, regularity and frequency betray bullying; often there is a grain of truth (but only a grain) in the criticism to fool you into believing the criticism has validity, which it does not; often, the criticism is based on distortion, misrepresentation or fabrication
• where you are in a group ... being singled out and treated differently; for instance, everyone else can get away with murder but the moment you put a foot wrong - however trivial - action is taken against you
Over and over again I offer something which I hope might be of potential value, and it gets deliberately twisted and misinterpreted as some sort of abuse.
Not fair! Not nice! Not rational!
Free Thinker...please stop.
I don't want copy/pastes, I don't want to be chided by you anymore. I don't want other readers' comments dissed.
Spring is totally part of the blog, of course!
You hurt me terribly with some awful comments and I'm DONE, okay? You showed me how you feel about me and my blog and I'm amazed you come back, frankly.
I wish this hadn't happened, believe me. It gives me no pleasure to write this.
Maybe you'll just be happier elsewhere? I hope so.
Ducky won't be posting much next week. He's in the Berkshires for some R&R. Don't take it to hard but have a nice week, all.
Ducky, have a GREAT time....enjoy, rest. Thanks for letting us know.
Really, have a good time.
FeebThinky,
You shouldn't feel singled out and picked on.
Z really does treat all unwelcomed belligerent assholes like you the same way.
Sundays are grand now that we no longer attend the church.
Found out that they were conducting an exorcism and tried desperately to keep this from the members. Now that it leaked out, people are dropping out like flies.
Another reason why I fear American churches. How a Catholic practice ends up in a Church of Christ befuddles me, but we're OUT.
Have a blessed Sunday.
Steve, 'fear' them? wow.
I hope you find the comfort and fun that I and so many friends find at their churches....
Or at least I hope you never start missing yours.
Exorcism? Yikes! I'd say that's not your typical church!!
An exorcism on a Christian church member?
That's downright creepy.
This point may be lost on Catholics and other types of people unfamiliar with the Bible, but
"You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. - John 4:4
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39
Christians, by definition, CAN'T be "possessed by demons."
Any "Church of Christ" teaching differently, and "performing exorcisms" on its members, is badly misnamed.
Beamish, absolutely right.
Steve has had some rotten luck with churches (did you see his other post where we blog together yet? It gets worse!)
thanks for that Scripture...
and I'm so happy it hasn't spoiled Steve's faith in Christ, as he says at the other place.
Haven't been there yet... on my way :)
Free Thinker, you're a very sad man and I wish you the best.
By the way, I only deleted your long and very sad comment because I have dear friends who learned of my blog today and I know they were coming to see this one in particular....
By the way, Free Thinker; why do you keep coming back..? You seem to only be bent on trying to make others unhappy. Please, think of good things, find places to go that make you happy, and stop subjecting yourself to somewhere which you feel so negative about and you've repeatedly been told to leave over the nastiness of past comments! I've never had anything like this here and won't have it again... it's silly, really.....almost a compulsion of yours?
I'm very sorry about that for you
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