Quote of the Day

"Between dawn and dark there is time enough for the collisions of distractedness and selfishness in our dealing with our fellow-creatures, in the lives of our own homes; time enough to meet or evade the demands of homely faithfulness in our several work, time enough to confront the sturdy rebellion of passions and besetting sins against our spiritual nature; time enough to win or to lose heaven in." (Henry Wilder Foote)

Planted in a Wilderness

Spiritual Lessons 

Refuse to let it go

This cup for me to drink

Though filled with sorrow's silt

Convinced He knows my need

Though hard to wait in hope

It can be harder still

In calm to wait for hope

Accept a silent will

Though a vacant place

Because He's taken all

I'm filled with nothing less

And ready when He calls

Planted in a wilderness

I chose to say goodbye

He is my inheritance

I'd rather have Him mine

Last night I gave up a dream I've held onto for almost a year and a half. When I told Jesus I wanted Him to have all of me, I meant it. And He has taken me at my own word. And He has taken over every part of my life.

I hold no expectations. I have been planted in an uncharted wilderness. I could shrink from it...but to simply and cheerfully take it from Him is much sweeter. If we are to count it all joy when given tribulation, how could I respond less when taken to a little wasteland of unknowns? My wilderness cannot even be labeled “tribulation”. He is my everything and that is joy!

To cry and complain would be to claim that I have no caring Father who directs my life. My life holds no compromise and my heart is totally His. What a beautiful place to be. He has given me peace through acceptance. I don't need to be promised health or marriage or any dreams come true. All I need is Him. Every part of me is captivated by Christ...and yet there is such liberty and security in this.

I wish I could shout it from the roof-tops! I wish I could convey the sweetness of being totally taken over by Christ. There is pain when heart strings are severed – but it's worth it. You know the glowing joy you see in newly weds? That's how I feel.

I've been denied so much, separated from my desires, given trial after trial, shut doors everywhere I turn.....and then when left crying I looked up and there was Jesus. I have Someone who loves me without selfish motivation. He denies what would sully His best plan for me...I am being protected and cherished...set apart for a purpose. Suddenly I see myself as He sees me – a treasure. How could anyone not be thrilled and head over heels in love with such a One as Jesus?

Suddenly it doesn't matter where He takes me, if I ever heal, if my future man comes in the next twenty years, if I am left alone in my convictions, or if all my ambitious fall away.

I have Jesus.

“When you wish, and by every means, endeavor, to be well, and yet remain ill – then say, 'Thy will be done.' When you undertake something, and your undertaking does not succeed, say, 'Thy will be done'. When you do good to others, and they repay you with evil, say, 'Thy will be done'. ...Do not become irritated when anything is not done in accordance with your will, but learn to submit in everything to the Will of the Heavenly Father.” - Father John (Joy and Strength, 203)  

Quote of the Day 

"Peace of heart lies in perfect resignation to the will of God.  What you need is true simplicity, a certain calmness of spirit which comes from entire surrender to all that God wills...the trouble you feel about so many things comes from your not accepting everything which may happen to you, with sufficient resignation to God.  Put all things, then, in His hands, and offer them beforehand to Him in your heart, as a sacrifice.  From the moment when you cease to want things to be according to your own judgement, and accept unconditionally whatever He sends, you will be free from all your uneasy retrospects and anxieties about your own concerns."  Fenelon (Joy and Strength, 202)

Spiritual Lessons 

In Quiet Submission to Simply Be

I was having a hard time Sunday. Just being honest. :) Hard times do come and sometimes we choose to struggle with them.

I went out in our pasture that evening and walked through the long grass sprinkled with white daisies. I reached the very end of it and sat down and looked up at the hills still lit by the setting sun. And I cried.

I know my health plays a huge part in how I feel. Our physical is attached to our spiritual. Our spirit, soul and body are linked and they do affect each other. Another part is the circumstances I am surround with, and the attitudes of others in my life. My heart hurt and felt heavy.

Christ came and sat right there in front of me and listened. I could feel Him smiling and He asked me “Have I ever failed you in this? Have I ever led you astray?”

I thought back on His past faithfulness. And I said through my tears, “No, you have never failed me.”

He laughed and said “Then why are you crying?”

I laughed, even while I cried. It was kind of silly. So I shared all that was on my heart. He didn't condemn me. He understood where I was better than I did. 

I asked, "Is it weak to feel this way? Is it wrong?"

You know what He shared with me? No, it wasn't wrong. But it was weak to feel the way I was feeling. But it was a human, natural thing that He doesn't condemn, but a prone and weak place to be.

I had been “afraid” to tell Jesus how I felt because I thought He might take "this" away because He would know it was too much of a temptation... As if He didn't already know! 

Had He ever done anything to prove Himself untrustworthy? No! Did I really want to entrust my heart with myself? No thinking twice on that. Why hesitate to let a perfect, all-knowing, God orchestrate my life?  If He chose to take "this" away it would be for the best.  

To be able to allow Him to provide for me, and to do so without anxiety, and to silently give Him glory by simply being is my great desire. A child's heart that trusts her Father's providence is sweetly care-free. His yoke is light when I hold no expectations to where He will be guiding and don't pull in one direction or the other. My responsibility is to simply be. These temptations are opportunities to do just that. Do I know what He will do next? No idea. Do I trust that it will be good? Yes, I do, with all my heart. In quiet submission I will simply be.

“I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we meet them, that constitutes our comfort; and that this may be undisturbed, if we seek for and cherish quiet submission, whatever may be the privations allotted us.” ~ Elizabeth T. King (Joy and Strength, 176)

Quote of the Day

"Take the last transient swell of petty impatience, or of unkind criticism; things which to the unawakened conscience look so small and to the awakened conscience so large.  There is not one that need have taken place.  Had I been walking that moment with God, abiding that moment in Christ, drawing that moment on the sanctifying Spirit's power, I should not have lost temper, I should not have thought unkindly; -- not only should I not have looked impatience, or indulge in needless severity in words.  The occasion for the very feeling would have been as if it were not, because neutralized in Jesus Christ.  And if that might have been true for the last five minutes, why should it not be for the next five, for the present minute?  "I can do all things," I have resources for all circumstances, "in Him, that stregthened me".  ~ Handly C.G. Mule, Joy and Strength, 157 

Quote of the Day

"Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am." (Isaiah 58:9)

"He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry. That has comforted me often, more than any promise of answer; it includes answers, and a great deal more besides; it tells us what He is towards us, and that is more than what He will do. And the 'cry' is not long, connected, thoughtful prayers, a cry is just an unworded dart upwards of the heart, and at that 'voice' He will be very gracious." (F. R. Havergal)
(From the book "Joy and Strength" P. 152)

Quote of the Day

"Whatever the particular call is, the particular sacrifice God asks you to make, the particular cross He wishes you to embrace, whatever the particular path He wants you to tread, will you rise up, and say in your heart, 'Yes, Lord, I accept it; I submit, I yield, I pledge myself to walk in that path, and to follow that Voice, and to trust Thee, with the consequences'? Oh! but you say, ' I don't know what He will want next.' No, we none of us know that, but we know we shall be safe in His hands."
By Catherine Booth (In the book Joy and Strength P.44)

Quote of the Day

"The one misery of man is self-will, the one secret of blessedness is the conquest over our own wills. To yield them up to God is rest and peace. What disturbs us in this world is not 'trouble', but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates, and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things."

(By Alexander Maclaren) Taken from the book Joy and Strength 

Quote of the Day

"Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee." (Psalms 143:8)

"The minds that are alive to every word from God, give constant opportunity for His divine interference with a suggestion that may altar the courses of their lives; and, like the ships that turn when the steersman's hand but touches the helm, God can steer them through the worst dangers by the faintest breath of feeling, or the lightest touch of thought."
(By Richard H. Hutton)
[Taken from the book Joy and Strength P. 145]

Quote of the Day

"Make allowance for infirmities of the flesh, which are purely physical. To be fatigued, body and soul, is not sin; to be in 'heaviness' is not sin. Christian life is not a feeling; it is a principle: when your hearts will not fly, let them go, and if they 'will neither fly nor go,' be sorry for them and patient with them, and take them to Christ, as you would carry your little lame child to a tender-hearted, skilful surgeon. Does the surgeon, in such a case, upbraid the child for being lame?" Elizabeth Prentiss

(Taken from Joy and Strength P. 137)

Quote of the Day

"If we are so led by the Spirit, where we go, and what we do, is of comparatively little moment; we may be forced by the circumstances of our life into surroundings that seem full of peril, but if God sent us there, such surroundings can do us no harm, though they may dull our feeling of happiness. Only let us remember that if, by God's mercy, we are free agents, and can choose our own way of life, then it is simple mockery to talk of aspirations for the higher life, if we deliberately indulge our lower nature, by living in an atmosphere of worldliness, or by doing something which is, perhaps, quite innocent for others, but consciously works us harm." By George H. Wilkinson (Taken from Joy and Strength P. 130)

Quote of the Day

"The surest method of arriving at a knowledge of God's eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. God's will does not come to us in the whole, but in fragments, and generally in small fragments. It is our business to piece it together, and to live it into one orderly vocation." 
(By F.W. Faber in the book Joy and Strength P.128)

Quote of the Day

"What is it thou wouldst have done, that He cannot do if He think fit? And if He think it not fit, if thou art one of His children, thou wilt think with Him; thou wilt reverence His wisdom, and rest satisfied with His will. This is believing indeed; the rolling all our desires and burdens over upon an almighty God; and where this is, it cannot choose but establish the heart in the midst of troubles, and give it a calm within in the midst of the greatest storms." -Robert Leighton-
(Taken from the book "Joy and Strength"- Page 120)

Quote of the Day

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles." Isaiah 40:31 

"Is there no way of escape for us when in trouble or distress? Must we just plod wearily through it all, and look for no relief? I rejoice to answer that there is a glorious way of escape for every one of us, if we will but mount up on wings, and fly away from it all to God. All creatures that have wings can escape from every snare that is set for them, if only they will fly high enough; and the soul that uses its wings can always find a sure 'way to escape' from all that can hurt or trouble it. What then are these wings? Their secret is contained in the words 'They that wait upon the Lord.' The soul that waits upon the Lord is the soul that is entirely surrendered to Him, ant hat trusts Him perfectly. Therefore we might name our wings the wings of Surrender and of Trust. If we will only surrender ourselves utterly to the Lord, and will trust Him perfectly, we shall find our souls 'mounting up with wings as eagles' to the 'heavenly places' in Christ Jesus, where earthly annoyances or sorrows have no power to disturb us." (By Hannah Whitall Smith - Joy and Strength P. 117)

Quote of the Day

"It is sometimes a small matter that hindereth and hideth grace from us; at least if anything can be called small, and not rather a weighty matter, which obstructeth so great a good. And, if thou remove this, be it great or small, and perfectly overcome it, thou wilt have thy desire. For immediately, as soon as thou givest thyself to God from thy whole heart, and seekest neither this nor that, according to thine own pleasure or will, but settlest thyself wholly in Him, thou shalt find thyself united and at peace; for nothing can afford so sweet a relish, nothing be so delightful, as the good pleasure of the Divine Will." 
(By Thomas A. Kempis in the book Joy and Strength P.115)

Quote of the Day

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.  Selah.  Psalm 46:1-3

Selah oh my Soul

God is my refuge

Sing oh my soul

God never leaves you

Roar on mighty sea

I refuse to fear

Shake mountains shake

His voice I can hear

Oh sing a glad song

Whatever the cost

Praise His sweet name

Whatever my loss

Whatever You sing

Whatever You will

I will accept

I will sing still

T.L.H.

It is not of God's severity that He requires much from man; it is of His great kindness that He will have the soul to open herself wider, to be able to receive much, that He may bestow much upon her.  Let no one think that it is hard to attain thereunto.  Although it sound hard, and is hard at first, as when one has reached this state, no life can be easier, or sweeter, or fuller of pleasures; for God is right diligent to be with us at all seasons, and to teach us, that He may bring us to Himself, when we are like to go astray.  None of us ever desired anything more ardently than God desires to bring men to the knowledge of Himself.  

-- J. Tauler Joy and Strength, 112