Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Don't Forfeit Your Peace
It would not be possible to exaggerate the importance hymns and spiritual songs have played in my spiritual growth. One of the latter, familiar to most of you, has this line: "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer" (Joseph Scriven). Prayerlessness is one of many ways by which we can easily forfeit the peace God wants us to have. I've been thinking of some other ways. Here's a sampling:
Resent God's ways.
Worry as much as possible.
Pray only about things you can't manage by yourself.
Refuse to accept what God gives.
Look for peace elsewhere than in Him.
Try to rule your own life.
Doubt God's word.
Carry all your cares.
= = =
If you'd rather not forfeit your peace, here are eight ways to find it (antidotes to the above eight):
"Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them" (Psalm 119:165 KJV).
"Circumstances are the _expression of God's will," wrote Bishop Handley Moule.
"Don't worry about anything whatever" (Philippians 4:6, PHILLIPS).
"In everything make your requests known to God in prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Then the peace of God... will guard your hearts" (Philippians 4:6,7, NEB).
"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me... and you will find rest" (Matthew 11:29, NIV).
"Peace is my parting gift to you, my own peace, such as the world cannot give" (John 14 27, NEB).
"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (Colossians 3:15, NIV).
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing" (Romans 15:13, KJV).
"Cast all your cares on him for you are his charge" (1 Peter 5:7, NEB).
"Grant, O Lord my God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites us and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except Yourself. May I seek always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without You and never seek any that is beside You. O Lord, may I delight in any work I do for You and tire of any rest that is apart from You. My God, let me direct my heart towards You, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment." --St. Thomas Aquinas
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
THANKS.
Encouraging words to me:
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Scripture: Ephesians 1:11 Luke 1:35 Psalm 131:1-2 Deuteronomy 30:11-14 Job 42:3
The Incarnation is a Thing Too Wonderful
Some things are simply too wonderful for explanation--the navigational system of the Arctic tern, for example. How does it find its way over twelve thousand miles of ocean from its nesting grounds in the Arctic to its wintering grounds in the Antarctic! Ornithologists have conducted all sorts of tests without finding the answer. Instinct is the best they can offer--no explanation at all, merely a way of saying that they really have no idea. A Laysan albatross was once released 3,200 miles from its nest in the Midway Islands. It was back home in ten days.
The migration of birds is a thing too wonderful.
When the angel Gabriel told Mary, "You will be with child and give birth to a son," she had a simple question about the natural: How can this be, since I am a virgin?!
The answer had to do not with the natural but with something far more mysterious than the tern's navigation--something, in fact, entirely supernatural: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35, NIV). That was too wonderful, and Mary was silent. She had no question about the supernatural. She was satisfied with God's answer.
...
At the end of the book of Job, instead of answering his questions, God revealed to Job the mystery of Who He was. Then Job despised himself. "I have uttered what I did not understand,/ things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3, RSV).
In one of David's "songs of ascents" he wrote, "My heart is not proud, O Lord,/ my eyes are not haughty;/ I do not concern myself with great matters/ or things too wonderful for me./ But I have stilled and quieted my soul; / like a weaned child with its mother,/ like a weaned child is my soul within me" (Psalm 131:1,2, NIV).
A close and fretful inquiry into how spiritual things "work" is an exercise in futility. ....an awful waste of energy. God knows how. Why should I bother my head about it if I've turned it over to Him? If the Word of the Lord to us is that we are "predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with his purpose" (Ephesians 1:11, NIV), we may apprehend this fact by faith alone. By believing that God means just what He says, and by acting upon the word (faith always requires action), we apprehend it--we take hold of it, we make it our own. We cannot make it our own by mere reason--"I don't see how such-and-such an incident can possibly have anything to do with any divine 'plan.'"
Why should we see how! Is it not sufficient that we are told that it is so? We need not see. We need only believe and proceed on the basis of that assured fact.
Do you understand what is going on in the invisible realm of your life with God? Do you see how the visible things relate to the hidden Plan and Purpose? Probably not. As my second husband Addison Leitch used to say, "You can't unscrew the Inscrutable."
But you do see at least one thing, maybe a very little thing, that He wants you to do. "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult [other translations say too hard, too wonderful] for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven.... nor is it beyond the sea.... no, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it" (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, NIV).
Let it suffice you, as it sufficed Mary, to know that God knows. If it's time to work, get on with your job. If it's time to go to bed, go to sleep in peace. Let the Lord of the Universe do the worrying.