One Quiet Life

Praising the Lord this week for: ~Friends who join me in prayer. ~The God who answers. Not always in the way I expect, but always for good. ~Family time ~Dinner out with a friend I rarely have the pleasure of seeing ~Wise words from our pastor on resolving theological differences of opinion ~Garden bounty. I believe I could almost be a vegetarian in the summer months. ~Traveling mercies for my husband as he commutes to work each day ~The Lord's timely provision Blessings all mine, with 10,000 beside!

Resting on God O God most high, most glorious, The thought of thine infinite serenity cheers me, For I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed, but Thou art forever at perfect peace. Thy designs cause thee no fear or care of unfulfilment, they stand fast as the eternal hills. Thy power knows no bond, thy goodness no stint. Thou bringest order out of confusion, and my defeats are thy victories: The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. I come to thee as a sinner with cares and sorrows, to leave every concern entirely to thee, every sin calling for Christ's precious blood; Revive deep spirituality in my heart; Let me live near to the great Shepherd, hear his voice, know its tones, follow its calls. Keep me from deception by causing me to abide in the truth, from harm by helping me to walk in the power of the Spirit. Give me an intenser faith in the eternal verities, burning into me by experience the things I know; Let me never be ashamed...

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” ~Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV) Evangelism is a topic that makes many Christians - myself included - uncomfortable. But why? Why do I - a woman with a degree in communications - get tongue-tied when an unbeliever asks me about Christ? Why do I - a woman who's not given to fear - quake in my proverbial boots when given the opportunity to share the Gospel? Why do I - a sinful woman who's been given much grace - not shout from the rooftops, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (John 4:29) I don't believe I'm the only one. Evangelism may be one of the most misunderstood practices of the modern church....

The Quiet Life isn't always easy. There are days when my fingers long to take to the keyboard, when I am filled with wanting to ...pound out my frustrations with other people's hypocrisy/drama/ignorance ...loudly proclaim my accomplishments ...itemize my husband's attributes ...praise my daughter's achievements ...let everyone know where I've been and what I've been doing Yes, it is a struggle - sometimes of nearly epic proportions. Yet I strive, with everything that is in me, not to give in to those temptations because ...I have enough hypocrisy/drama/ignorance of my own, even though I try not to put it on public display, and much of what frustrates me isn't worth a personal confrontation (translation: UNIMPORTANT) ...my accomplishments are nothing - NOTHING - compared to what's been accomplished for me through Christ ...my relationship with my husband is between us and the Lord; no one else needs to know details ...I'd rather p...

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. ~Ephesians 2:1-8 (ESV) A church that rightly preaches the Gospel should also have a biblical understanding of conversion. Salvation that has been reduced to re...

Pondering these words, long & hard. What matters supremely, therefore, is not, the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that he knows me . I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge about him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates - in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him abo...