Those of you who know me, know that I’m always carrying 3 or 4 books in my bag. Right now one of those books is called The Great Physician by G. Campbell Morgan. I came across this paragraph this week:
“As to His universal recognitions we may say that He always approached the human soul in the same way. As to varied methods, we may say that He never approached two human souls in the same way. Such a paradoxical statement is of value, because it at once compels a little close attention. Nevertheless its meaning is surely self-evident. When our Lord approached a human being, there were great facts common to humanity, forever present to His mind; whereas it is equally true that the infinite variety of human needs was so recognized that He never employed the same exact method twice over.”
Oh what a great Saviour who serves us! One who intimately knows the human experience and who intimately knows OUR experiences. In what ways have you seen Christ approach your needs lately?
Chew on this from G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
I was talking with Ben Shenkin after aboveground: last sunday night about the exercise we did where we tried to ascertain what our values are; Ben made a good point and I asked him if he would write our blog for this week, so here are Ben’s thoughts:
“I was asked to further probe this idea of putting what is most important first. I have been frequently considering recently what it means to have everything in line. I think the exercise Ken had our group go through was a start. While making a list of your values and essentially your priorities is beneficial, it opens the possibility of compartmentalizing your life. It’s important to understand your limited amount of time and your wise division of that time, but God SHOULD NOT be just another line on your list of things to do. I would rather suggest that you embark on the journey towards God permeating every aspect of your life. Let God’s grace fill your lips in everything you say and everything you do. Please don’t make it just a Sunday thing from 6-9pm. God surely does not set aside certain hours for us, how dare we put Him into a time slot. I hope this blesses you.”
Thanks Ben for sharing this and for challenging me in my own thinking!
Several years ago a friend of mine was seeking some advice regarding financial issues he and his family were going through. Some would say his first problem is that he was asking me advice, his second problem was definitely asking me for financial advice. As I thought through my own experiences and any Scriptures that came to mind the best thing I could come up with to tell him was that God always provides. But that just sounded so cliche, then I got it! How could I tell him the same truth but make it more emphatic? I looked at him and told him “God has never not provided for my needs.” Yes, that’s right I used the dreaded double negative. But there was something about the double negative that clicked for him, he told me he had never thought of it that way. He then began to think back on his life and realized that though he and his family often worried, God had never not provided for their needs. There’s something about looking at a classic truth from the other direction that helps us to grab it in a new way. This is what I want to share with you this week. God has never not provided. Think back on your life, have you ever not had your needs met? Not your wants, your needs. I’d be willing to venture a guess that each of you have some need right now that you’re wondering how it will be met. Where am I going to go to school next year? Where am I going to work this summer? Will I ever meet that special someone? What am I going to do after I graduate? What am I going to do with the car that is sitting in an auto cocoon in my front yard? As Jesus is teaching the crowds on the Mount of Olives he tells them “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” (Mt. 6.26-27) Friends, God has never not provided. If you have a need, ask the God who provides.
Read this from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together:
The prayer of the morning will determine the day. Wasted time, which we are ashamed of, temptations that beset us, weakness and listlessness in our work, disorder and indiscipline in our thinking and our relations with other people very frequently have their cause in neglect of the morning prayer. The organization and distribution of our time will be better for having been rooted in prayer. The temptations which the working day brings with it be overcome by this break-through to God. Decisions which our work demands will be simpler and easier when they are made, not in the fear of men, but solely in the presence of God.
Emmy and I found ourselves standing in a frustrated line of people as we all learned that Al Italia had canceled our flight to Rome this past December. Instead of the direct flight to Rome we were hoping for, we were put on KLM to Amsterdam, with a 7 hour lay-over. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have looked for something to do in Amsterdam, like tour Anne Frank’s house, or spend a few hours in the Van Gough Museum. But I didn’t know about these things; all I knew about was the Red Light District. So, I said to Emmy, “Let’s check it out!” thinking that it can’t be that bad at 1:00 in the afternoon. It can be, and it was. As we walked through block after block, smelling what we smelled, and seeing what we saw (hoping each block would be the end of it), we became less and less disgusted with what we saw (and smelled), and more and more filled with compassion. I began to reflect on what Jesus would possibly be thinking as he walked the streets of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. And I thought of the religious leaders bringing to him the woman caught in adultery (did you ever think it was strange they didn’t bring the man too?)(John 8.1-11). I thought of the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and poured perfume on them while Jesus asked Simon the priest: “do you see this woman?” (Luke 7.36-50).
It’s easy to judge. It’s hard to love. It’s one thing to look across the street. It’s another thing to walk across the street and actually see someone. See them for who they are: an image bearer of GOD.
Lovers are absorbed in each other. They stare at each other and they talk about their love for each other. C.S. Lewis said that friendships have to be about more than each other (The Four Loves). Friends stare at something else, something in common. Friends talk about something else, they talk about what they both have in common. It’s their common interest(s) that drives their friendship further. A friendship has to be about something: “Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers” (The Four Loves).
It seems to me that lovers can be going nowhere and be pretty happy. Where are you going? Is anyone going with you?
The first FBCG Student Missions Application is
in! Hooray for Tyler LeVan!
