When I was working through the series on guilt, pertinent blog posts appeared in my feed, and I passed them on in my blog.
When I started thinking about suffering (November!) I started looking for blog posts on suffering, thinking I'd have more to share this time around. Not until this week have I been given any additional perspective in this way.
So here are some gleanings from my reading this week:
From The Contemplative Cottage, an extended quote from Christ the Tiger by Thomas Howard.
John Piper speaks about preparing for (inevitable) suffering.
Tony Reinke reflects on what John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, wrote to his young step-daughter about the inevitable hazards of life.
Lovely Holly Gerth wrote about not letting the fear of getting hurt dominate your decisions.
I follow the {in}courage bloom book club, and one day this week the vlog was about Prayer of the Heart, Meditative Prayer, and Contemplative Prayer.
Perhaps this kind of praying happens most naturally when you are flat on your back or flat on your face.
The way that intense suffering humbles and empties a person may prepare her for deep communion with her God.
change
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change is weird.
and usually uncomfortable.
but it can be exciting too!
for quite a while I have been feeling the need
to stretch my artistic wings,
to sepa...
10 years ago
3 comments:
The Spirit makes excellent points. Like this one: The reality that we might get hurt doesn’t give us a reason not to do something.
I am really really trying to learn this these last years - and have been given opportunity to learn this!! and the spirit has whispered the same and ministered even through the Word - The thought of being hurt should not stop us... that is not the heart of Jesus - yet in Churches we bubble wrap people and tell them Jesus never will allow them pain :-/ so they don't mature in Him as they don't have a true understanding of even what he did(I was there!!!) and then often, when hurt DOES come as it will! They through the baby(God) out with the bathwater! But Jesus tells us up front! he never hides Truth from us, He prepares us and tells us He will be with us IN the trials... he is so gracious and it is why he can be trusted!
Wow tangent sorry lol!
For those who love God, “all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). This promise is easier to affirm when you are dockside, rather than when you are trying to get a grip on the Pilot in a tossing and turning ship. For believers, life in the open sea is a daily test of faith. “Me-thinks I may sum up all my wants and prayers in one sentence,” Newton once lamented, “Lord, give me faith!”
This post was beautiful! Thank you
If when you become a Christian you write a big red “LOSS” across all the things in the world except Christ, then when Christ calls you to forfeit some of those things, it is not strange or unexpected. The pain and the sorrow may be great. The tears may be many, as they were for Jesus in Gethsemane. But we will be prepared. We will know that the value of Christ surpasses all the things the world can offer and that in losing them we gain more of Christ.
Oh Jesus! Help me make this a true reality in my heart and life! I fall so far short in my flesh and I don't want even that excuse!
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