Christian life

Poets Corner – Amy Carmichael

And shall I pray Thee change Thy will, my Father?
Until it be according unto mine?
But, no, Lord, no, that never shall be, rather
I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.
I pray Thee hush the hurrying, eager longing,
I pray Thee soothe the pangs of keen desire:
See in my quiet places wishes thronging,
Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire.
And work in me to will and do Thy pleasure,
Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry content my Well-beloved’s leisure,
At last, at last, even as a weaned child.

Do Not Worry about Tomorrow

Possessions delude the human heart into believing that they provide security and a worry-free existence, but in truth they are the very cause of worry. For the heart that is fixed on possessions, they come with a suffocating burden of worry. Worries lead to treasure, and treasure leads back to worry. We want to secure our lives through possessions; through worry we want to be come worry free, but the truth turns out to be the opposite. The shackles that bind us to possessions, that hold us fast to possessions, are themselves worries. The misuse of possessions consist in our using them for security for the next day. Worry is always directed toward tomorrow. In the strictest sense, however, possessions are intended only for today. It is precisely the securing of tomorrow that makes me so insecure today. “Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matt. 6:34b). Only those who place tomorrow in God’s hands and receive what they need to live today are truly secure. Receiving daily liberates us from tomorrow. Thought for tomorrow delivers us up to endless worry.

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger, p. 82.

The Danger of Real Love

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

– C. S. Lewis

Of Churches and Cakes

[T]he church consists of people who are incorporated into Christ and each other like the ingredients of a cake: none for himself, but instead each is blended with the others in the fellowship of love. Luther himself depended on the “consolation of the brethren” (consolatio fratrum) whenever he suffered inner turmoil and temptation – especially in the year 1527, when he was plagued by illness, the loss of friends, and various forms of Anfechtung. Communion meant true communication with Luther, through word and sacrament, in the giving of oneself to Christ and to one’s neighbor. Just as Christ emptied himself for the world on the cross (Phil. 2:5-11), so the Christian is to empty himself to his neighbor in love.

– Erich W. Gritsch, quoted in Embodied Hope, p. 132.

If One Member Suffers, All Suffer Together

God freely employs the faith of others, expressing itself through prayer, to sustain and uphold the faith of the suffering Christian. Faith is not simply the means through which a person becomes a Christian but also the essential manner of the Christian life. The wounded believer often depends on other saints to sustain them through seasons of suffering…Yes, the individual was called to believe, but the faith can in fact only be lived within an organic connection to the locally constituted church. One of the regular ways the body of Christ maintains its health, even as parts of the body are attacked with disease, is for the other parts to carry some extra weight. When a person’s ankle is broken, they instinctively place more weight on the strong leg. This is not because they despise the weak leg but because it can only return to full health if its burden is borne by the other limb. Similarly, Christians bear one another’s burdens (cf. Gal 6:1-5)….Thus in our own distress, when we find it easy to doubt God’s grace and provision, the body of Christ gives shelter and sustenance under the canopy of their faith. As the body of Christ we can together face any worries about divine apathy, judgment, or abandonment. The flame of individual faith weakens when it is alone, but in true community the fire of faith illumines the night.

– Kelly Kapic, Embodied Hope, pp. 126-127.

It’s Not That They Didn’t Mean Well

Far too often we sound like Job’s friends when we encounter those who suffer, whether from tragic events or physical pain. We start out strong, offering our sympathy and support. Job’s friends sat silent with him for seven days and seven nights. They even lay there in the ashes with him, trying to show him “sympathy and comfort” (Job 2:11). Yet after the accepted time of mourning was over, they clearly had expectations of progress and resolve. After that accepted period, however, Job did not finally speak into the silence as a calm stoic. No, he spoke as a frustrated believer who laments his birth, which has now led to heartbreak rather than happiness (Job 3). He lives in pain:

For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
   and what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
   I have no rest, but trouble comes. (Job 3:25-26)

With this break in the silence his friends begin to speak, even aware that their words may provoke his impatience (Job 4:1-2). But they speak, and so do we. As time moves on, we expect the wounded person to get better; we expect their frustrations and questions to turn into stoic acceptance. We expect denial or victory – ongoing struggle is the option we are most uncomfortable with, yet that is exactly where most who live with ongoing pain and suffering actually are.

– Kelly Kapic, Embodied Hope, p. 65.

Remember You Are Dust, and to Dust You Shall Return

One important result of practicing an awareness of our mortality is that it can breed a greater concern for divinely given relationships. Historically, such heavenly mindedness was not meant to belittle this world but to value it, and to encourage the keeping of short accounts and always living in the present. You shouldn’t hold a grudge or harbor hostility because you never know if you might die without making things right. When someone is aware of the brevity of life, each day can be received as a gift, offering opportunities and meaning not for some imaginary future but fully living in the moments that God has provided. Knowledge of death can also liberate people to live with courage in the present, even when it is risky: all die at some point, so be courageous and do the right thing since God will not let death be the final word. A sober awareness of a person’s mortality can mean freedom from making self-preservation the highest value. In our day we often live somewhere between fear of the past and the demanding possibilities of a mythical future. The untiring call of the future – with its grand plans to be accomplished, vacations to be had, retirements to be enjoyed – can become so strong it swallows our ability to live in the now. This often means people fail to be fully present, to live in the moment. We neglect spouses and children, disregard care for our bodies, and dismiss relationships that naturally require time and attention as an impossible luxury. We fall into this trap all the more easily when we are not mindful of our weakness and mortality.

– Kelly Kapic, Embodied Hope, p. 61.

The Place for Lament

The human experience requires lament, at least as long as we live in the current world as we know it. Biblically there can be no question about the place and need of this practice – sin and sickness mean we must create space for genuine lamentation. Not because we despair but because we recognize the wounds of this world and of our hearts. God instructs us to bring to him our tears, our hurts, our confusion. Old Testament scholar Daniel J. Simundson reminds us of this scriptural tradition:

The lament allows for honest interchange between humans and God, the freedom to admit even bad theology and hostile thoughts. The lament turns to God as the ultimate source of help and, in the typical lament form, ends with the assurance that God has heard and will save. The lament does not solve all of the sufferer’s intellectual questions about the origin and meaning of the suffering, but does provide a structured way for the faithful to bring their suffering to God’s attention and to cope with it.

If we do not restore space for lament in our individual and corporate church life, our suffering will drive us not only away from others but away from God himself.

– Kelly Kapic, Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, p. 31.

The Importance of Knowing Christ

There is little doubt that almost all Christians are content to have won Christ and thus to have received the gift of eternal life. But how many are equally concerned to know him? How often we cut Jesus in half, wishing to know that we are saved and that all is well with our destiny, but forgetting that to be truly saved means we must truly know him! On the gravestone of the Scottish Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford (d. 1661), we read of his passion to know Christ:

True godliness adorned his name,
He did converse with things above,
Acquainted with Emmauel’s love…
Most constant he did contend
Until his time was at an end.
Then he won to the full fruition
Of that which he had seen in vision.

Such words describing him at death correspond well with what he wrote in life in his Letters:

Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradises, like the Garden of Eden, in one. Put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness, in one. Oh, what a fair and excellent thing would that be! And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest Well-beloved, Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths.

Put all the pleasures of life such as family, job, recreation, music, sports, entertainment, cuisine, and technology in one. Oh, what excellent joys they are! Yet such joys pale in comparison with the delight of knowing Jesus and basking in communion with his person, not just his work! Is Christ the ‘drop of rain’ or is he the ‘whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths’?

– Mark Jones, Knowing Christ, pp. 2-3 (emphasis mine).