Drink Deeply

As I was reading a little this morning, I came across a statement that caused me to pause and ponder:

"We rarely drink deeply at the well of the present moment."

Ken Boa in Conformed to His Image

As I think about the present moment--the covid-19 pandemic that has affected us all--I consider how I should be drinking deeply instead of just wanting to pray the problem away. What characterizes this "present moment" for me, personally? What is the efficacy of the here and now for me? It's certainly not to kick against the goad, but rather to look for God's good graces in it. And so I'm setting the image of the swan on my computer desktop to remind me to do so.

My tendency is to be a doer. These days, however, my "doing" has been curtailed. I'm offered time to think more deeply about "being" rather than "doing." Of course, the doing should be flowing from the being, but there are times when it's good to stop and consider what fountain the "doing" is actually flowing from.  

And to look for God's grace and mercy flowing in and through the present moment. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there are many good changes that I'm experiencing, as I'm sure is happening to many people. So I encourage us all to be fully present in the moment, even though we long for this situation to be over. To glean from it what is there for our good. And to express gratitude for God's abundant grace and mercy. To Him as well as to those through whom He sends it. 

Image via Pixabay

Just A Fidget Spinner ~ With Lights

Sisters, Frederick Morgan (1847-1927)

I took my sister to a medical appointment today, and we stopped for lunch and did a little shopping afterward. I've mentioned before that she can go nowhere unless someone in the family takes her. She is dependent on those who love her, and when I picked her up, she was eager for the day.

Our first stop--a shoe shop for me to look for a pair of flats, and I asked if she needed any shoes. No, she got a new pair of walking shoes when she was out with Jeanne. So off we went to look for a plate rack for re-organizing one of my kitchen cabinets. I had commented to her that if she saw something she'd like to get, just let me know. Her first thought was getting something for our Dad for his upcoming birthday (91!), but we didn't see anything at Bed, Bath & Beyond for him.

Then her eye caught sight of a Fidget Spinner as we were leaving. She had seen one that we had gotten for our Elijah when he was visiting a couple of months ago, and she wanted one herself. But, alas, these were smaller and didn't light up. She really would like to have one like Elijah's that lights up. So we were on the look-out the rest of our shopping trip.

I've seen them practically every place I've been the last several months, but there were none to be found in the stores where we were stopping. When it was time to admit defeat and go home, she just said, "That's okay. Would you get me one for my birthday?" My heart was pricked. The only thing she wanted on this shopping trip was a Fidget Spinner with lights. I remembered that we got Elijah's at Walmart, so her spirits rose again as we headed there on our way home. Up and down the toy aisles we went. There they are! But they don't have lights. Maybe they have some near the check outs. Let's go see. Oh, yes! And they have lights, and her favorite color blue! So ended a happy shopping day for her. Satisfied. Content. Thank you, Father God, for your faithful love and provision.

Just a Fidget Spinner with lights is all Dorothy wanted. How different than the gal I saw this week wearing a t-shirt that said, "Enough is Never Enough." Yes, my sister is simple-minded, but I think she is probably more content with what she has than most of us are. So we came home with her Fidget Spinner with lights and my two pairs of shoes. And I felt so extravagant.

Contentment ~ So Not a Flash in a Good Mood

Years and years ago (has it been 28 years ago already?!) when we first arrived in Venezuela for the beginning of a temporary transfer with My Beloved's job, I wrote a letter to a friend back home and poured out my heart about how much I missed my family and friends back home, especially friends for my two little girls, and that I couldn't speak the language (should have taken Spanish in high school and college instead of French), and that I couldn't count the money and, therefore, often got cheated, and how difficult it was to make friends, and on and on I lamented. She wrote back to say that it seemed like I was discontent. The nerve of her! I wanted sympathy, not admonition. So, I didn't ever write her again.

But she was right. I was discontent, but I believed with good reason. Whenever we're asked how long we lived there, My Beloved says two years; I say too long. I would not want to do those years over, but they were some of the most defining of my life. I began to see myself as I was, and I didn't like what I was seeing--self-focused and put out about disagreeable people and situations. But God, in His graciousness and faithfulness, used the pressures I faced during those years to change my heart in many ways. I still struggle with contentment, still am happier when having things go my way, but I've learned to wait things out a little longer without so much inner churning.

I think I'll probably be struggling with contentment until I reach heaven's shores. A book that recently has been helpful is Jeremiah Burroughs book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. Sharing a little nugget from from it today. 

Contentment is not merely one act, a flash in a good mood. You find many men and women, who, if they are in a good mood, are very quiet. But this will not hold. It is not a constant course. It is not the constant tenor of their spirits to be holy and gracious under affliction.

Now I say that contentment is a quiet frame of spirit and by that I mean that you should find men and women in a good mood, not only in this or that time, but as the constant tenor and temper of their hearts. A Christian who, in the constant tenor and temper of his heart, can carry himself quietly with constancy, has learned this lesson of contentment.

~ Jeremiah Burroughs in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

All to God's Glory

We awoke this morning to a Narnia landscape! 

The trees were draped in white. It was beautiful! 

I went out to the back porch and just looked and listened. 

The sky was deep, clear blue.

And the morning sun was shining on nearly ten inches of snow from the winter storm. 

All was quiet except for happy birds singing and praising God. 

They loved it, too!

 We threw seed out for them and watched from the kitchen window.

There's been so much snow that we've been feeding them on the porch 

and throwing seeds under the bushes for them.

 

Cute little birds tracks on the porch.

Mr. Cardinal took a moment to thank us.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

~ Psalm 19:1 ~

There is no work which God has made 

in which so much of the glory of God appears 

as in a man who lives quietly in the midst of adversity.

~ Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Contentment ~ That Even Proportion

The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances. That is why many godly men who are in a low position live more sweet and comfortable lives than those who are richer.

~Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Painting ~ Young Mother Sewing, Mary Cassatt 1844-1926
Wiki Commons  public domain

Complaining—Communicating a Troubled Heart

My Beloved and I are at that age now when we read the obituaries each day. It’s all too often that someone we’ve known has passed on. It’s good to see that many people are now living into their 90s, some even beyond that. The years are longer and so are the eulogies. From what I read and hear, some of those folks would have been a joy to know. But I often wonder when someone makes a comment that they never heard him or her complain. I often wonder--why not?

  

Perhaps they mean the type of complaining that the Jews did in biblical history when they rebelled again and again against God. Or maybe it’s the complaining we’re admonished against in Philippians 2:14, which is more often translated as grumbling, which could be grumbling against God, against our family or friends, or at the sales clerk. Complaining or grumbling is often linked with disputing in scripture. And, of course, the scribes and Pharisees complained about Jesus and disputed with him.

But what about the man after God’s own heart—King David. He wrote in Psalm 142:1-2—“I cry aloud with my voice to the LORD; I make supplication with my voice to the LORD. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare my trouble before Him.” And there are other such Psalms that speak of a very troubled, complaining heart. Most of us have complaints. It is well that we take them to God.

But how are we to “encourage the fainthearted” (1 Thess.:1:4) if they don’t 'complain'? How are we to know they are troubled or about to give up or are depressed and everything is sad? Why are they not ‘complaining’ to us? Do they feel like they won’t be heard? Do they feel like they would be viewed as unspiritual or as a burden? What would we think of them? How can we bear someone's burdens if they don’t ‘complain’ about them?

Lest you think I’m condoning complaining about not getting our own way, or not having what we want, or shaking our fist at God, I’m not in the least. Perhaps I’m taking issue with the word ‘complain.’ Perhaps there are those who are angels among us. And I do believe there could be…and they don’t complain. My point is that we need to hear and bear one another's burdens. We need to share our own burdens with those who love us and not be stoic with one another.  We are instruments in the hands of the Redeemer to encourage one another, to help one another see God and His ways in our trouble, and to help the disposition of the heart become calm and contented.

I’ve been reading The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs (1559-1646). I think he agrees.

“Though a Christian ought to be quiet under God’s correcting hand, he may without any breach to Christian contentment complain to God. As one of the Ancients says, though not with a tumultuous clamour and shrieking out in a confused passion, yet in a still, quiet, submissive way, he may unbosom his heart to God. Likewise he may communicate his sad condition to his Christian friends, showing them how God has dealt with him and how heavy the affliction is upon him, that they may speak a word in season to his weary soul.”

We urge you, brethren,
admonish the unruly,
encourage the fainthearted,
help the weak,
be patient with everyone.
(1 Thessalonians 5:14)

Painting~By the Way, Daniel Ridgeway Knigh
Wiki Commons public domain

Contentment

Christian contentment is that 

sweet, 

inward, 

quiet, 

gracious frame of spirit 

that freely submits to and delights in 

God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

Jeremiah Burroughs in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Portrait of a Eurasian Girl Against a Chinese River Landscape--George Chinnery 1774-1852
Wiki Commons public domain