Keep a Quiet Heart

This morning I joined a new bible study and we are studying Becoming a Woman of Simplicity by Cynthia Heald. One of the Bible verses we read today reminded me of a quote I read a few years ago in Elisabeth Elliot's book Keep a Quiet Heart. I needed to be reminded of these wise words.

Do Not Rush. TRUST. And Keep a Quiet Heart.

" I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one's work. Then one can feel that perhaps one's true work - one's work for God - consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one's day. It is not a waste of time as one is tempted to think. It is the most important part of the work of the day - the part one can best offer to God. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work' trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it."

- Annie Keary

Sometimes I get so focused on my own agenda - on getting my work done, that I don't really consider what it might be that God wants me to do on any certain day. Maybe my work for the day is to help someone else, or maybe it is to spend time alone with God.

Isaiah 30:15 - This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

Summer Thoughts from the Transforming Center

Let Me Live Grace-fully

by Ted Loder

Thank you, Lord,

for this season

of sun and slow motion,

of games and porch sitting,

of picnics and light green fireflies

on heavy purple evenings;

and praise for slight breezes.

It's good, God,

as the first long days of your creation.

Let this season be for me

a time of gathering together the pieces

into which by busyness has broken me.

O God, enable me now

to grow wise through reflection,

peaceful through the song of the cricket,

recreated through the laughter of play.

Most of all, Lord,

let me live easily and grace-fully for a spell,

so that I may see other souls deeply,

share in a silence unhurried,

listen to the sound of sunlight and shadows,

explore barefoot the land of forgotten dreams and shy hopes,

and find the right words to tell another who I am.

Copyright © 1981 Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1981), p 131.

Discipline, Duty, and Drudgery

"So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books." 2 Peter 1:5-9 MSG

In today's reading from My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes: "Drudgery is the test of genuine character." I often struggle with doing the "daily" things in life. It's not that I don't do them. It's more a matter of doing them with the wrong attitude. I am often trying to please myself instead of trying to please God; trying to make myself look good or feel good, instead of serving others out of a grateful heart. Pleasing myself never produces the results I desire. I just end up feeling frustrated.

Peter pictures faith as the foundation needed for building character. To faith we must add spiritual understanding, patience, etc. It's like a puzzle, each piece fitting together and making the picture clearer. Take any of the pieces away, and the picture is incomplete or ruined. Chambers sums it up well: "If I will do my duty, not for duty's sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ."

O Lord, help me to build on my faith with your building blocks. May my service to you and to others not be built out of a sense of duty, but out of gratefulness for what You have done for me.

Advent Poem

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait

For the right time in which to discover

Who we are, where we are to go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So thank you ... for the waiting time.

- John Bell

Home Again

Returning from Mozambique is difficult on many levels. The 6 hour time distance plus the very long plane ride wreak havoc on the body. Finding the right time zone is a challenge. Catching up with work is difficult. And discovering what has happened at home while you were gone can be disconcerting. For us, this year, it meant learning that Bruce's mom had suffered a severe stroke, and was not expected to recover, and then just last Wednesday, she died, and now is living in Heaven.  A lot has happened in a very short time.

This morning my devotions were from Genesis 9:8-17. God put the rainbow in the clouds as the sign of his promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood.  The following poem reminds me that Bruce's mom has entered heaven, and instead of suffering pain and loss, she is enjoying the "light which never shall decay." For that we are thankful. 

A Prayer of Gratitude

The rainbow bending in the sky bedecked with sundry hues

Is like the seat of God on high, and seems to tell these news -

That as thereby he promised to drown the world no more

So by the blood which Christ has shed He will our health restore...

Unto such joys for to attain God grants us all his grace

And send us after worldly pain in Heaven to have a place,

Where we may still enjoy the light which never shall decay

Lord, for this mercy lend us might to see that joyful day.

- Adapted from "Gascoigne's Good Morrow" by George Gascoigne (1542-1577)

10 More Days!

Bruce, Rachel, and I are getting ready to head to Mozambique in only 10 days! I know the time will fly by. There are still a few things to prepare, but I think we're in pretty good shape. It will be good to be on our way, and doing the work God has prepared for us to do. Every day I have to remember to TRUST God. Worry is not an option. Trust is a choice, though. It doesn't come naturally. Sometimes, I just think, "I can't do this! I'm not qualified." Then I remember the Apostle Paul's words from I Corinthians 12:9 - But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you,for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me.  

O Lord, Help me to trust You!

A Prayer for Effective Ministry

Fill me, O Christ, with wonder, love and praise, that I may praise you, God with us.

O Lord, be my light and my strength.

O Lord, in my weakness, perfect your strength.

O Lord, make me your messenger.

O Lord, arm me with the sword of you Spirit.

Lord Jesus, speak to me that I may speak for you.

Lord Jesus, help me to speak the truth.

Enable me to show how sweet it is to love you,

to weep with you, and

to rejoice with you.

     - Anonymous