Who can compare?

Yesterday was a wonderful day. . .so wonderful that I’ve had a hard time deciding which was the REAL highlight of my day: reuniting with some of our church family from South Carolina, hearing RC Sproul and Mark Dever speak, or noticing some lilies of the valley (our wedding flowers) blooming out my window!!

Jeremy and I have been married 12 years and I’ve tried growing these flowers before, and it has just never worked. We’ve lived seven different places, and this location is, by far, the worst location of those seven, when it comes to nature (we are in the city in a tiny apartment). But outside my little kitchen window I can see a mass of these beautiful flowers, just growing wild on a CLIFF pushing through wild ivy and other stuff!  It feels like a special gift straight from the God who made me and knew I would see it as a personal gift from HIM (Matthew 6:25-34).  RC Sproul and other great men spoke to over 7,000 people today, BUT God, HIMSELF speaks straight to me. . . how can that compare???  My heart worships more humbly tonight.

Not Quite Done with Thanksgiving

Although it is well past Thanksgiving Day, my heart is convicted of the need to meditate more on thankfulness.  Too often I find myself focused on the immediacy of life: the work, the need, the hardship, the disappointment, the busyness…and not focused on the accompanying blessings: the love, the care, the strength, the faithfulness, the comfort, the presence, and the provision of God (whether from Him directly, through providence, or though the ways He moves the hearts of His people).Today, God brought Psalm 23 to my remembrance. 

Whether or not your thoughts are still on Thanksgiving, may your heart be blessed by the way Issac Watts has poetically expressed the message of this well-loved psalm.  I highly recommend reading it aloud–and then choosing one thought to meditate on with thankfulness!

 My Shepherd will supply my need,
Jehovah is his name;
In pastures fresh he makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wand’ring spirit back
When I forsake his ways;
And leads me, for his mercy’s sake,
In paths of truth and grace.
When I walk through the shades of death,
Thy presence is my stay;
A word of thy supporting breath,
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.
The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days:
O may thy house be mine abode,
And all my work be praise!
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.

The Grand Canyo

In May I traveled with my family to the Grand Canyon. It was awesome!  It is truly breath taking!  As you stand there at the rim and look at the magnificent colors and the absolute vastness of this “Natural Wonder,” you can not help but think of the Creator. 

This amazing canyon is there for all to see and to declare His greatness.  I was content to just stand and look and think.  (I don’t stand still very often!)  I was grateful that my thoughts were of our amazing God, and even more thrilled to hear my children declare His wonders.

In his book The Joy of Fearing God, Jerry Bridges explains that acknowledging God in creation is one way to increase our fear of the Lord.   Bridges gives Isaiah 40:12-31 as an example of an Old Testament passage that “especially emphasizes the greatness of God and is thus designed to stimulate our fear of Him.”  This passage contains a number of questions and figures of speech describing God’s immense greatness in creation and history.

The point that Isaiah makes is that even though creation (including the Grand Canyon) is great, nothing compares to the greatness of God.  As we think about the truth Scripture teaches about creation, we should grow in our fear and awe of Him.  

Enjoy creation this summer.  Even if you don’t go to the Grand Canyon, be amazed by blooming flowers, powerful rain storms, and cute lightning bugs!!

First Fruits of Heaven

The older I get, the more I notice that life’s changes and uncertainties increase with every passing year.  Now whether they actually increase, or simply seem to (because I don’t have the rest or stamina I used to have???), the result is the same:  I continually face the daily/hourly/moment-to-moment challenge of glorifying God in times of change and uncertainty…and even in the fear which too often accompanies such seasons.

And so, I have recently been thinking about contentment.  This evening, as I began reading chapter 11 of The Art of Divine Contentment by the Puritan Thomas Watson, he immediately brought to my attention a most wonderful and encouraging insight, quite worthy of further meditation.  In the excerpt below, I’ve emphasized the thoughts which stood out so strongly to my heart.

A contented Christian carries heaven about [with] him: for, what is heaven, but that sweet repose and full contentment that the soul shall have in God?  In contentment there are the first fruits of heaven. 
There are two things in a contented spirit, which make it like heaven.
(1.) God is there; something of God is to be seen in that heart. A discontented Christian is like a rough tempestuous sea; when the water is rough you can see nothing there; but when it is smooth and serene, then you may behold your face in the water. (Pr. 27:19)
When the heart rageth through discontent, it is like a rough sea, you can see nothing there, unless passion and murmuring; there is nothing of God, nothing of heaven in that heart: but by virtue of contentment, it is like the sea when it is smooth and calm, there is a face shining there; you may see something of Christ in that heart, a representation of all the graces.
(2.) Rest is there. O what a Sabbath is kept in a contented heart! What a heaven! A contented Christian is like Noah in the ark; though the ark were tossed with waves, Noah could sit and sing in the ark. The soul that is gotten into the ark of contentment, sits quiet, and sails above all the waves of trouble; he can sing in this spiritual ark; the wheels of the chariot move, but the axle-tree stirs not; the circumference of the heavens is carried about the earth, but the earth moves not out of its center. When we meet with motion and change in the creatures round about us, a contented spirit is not stirred nor moved out of its center.
The sails of a mill move with the wind, but the mill itself stands still, an emblem of contentment; when our outward estate moves with the wind of providence, yet the heart is settled through holy contentment; and when others are like quicksilver, shaking and trembling through disquiet, the contented spirit can say, as David, “O God my heart is fixed:” (Ps. 57:7) What is this but a piece of heaven?

While Watson’s thoughts have both excited and encouraged my heart, they have also added a wonderful implication to 1 Timothy 6:6–“Now godliness with contentment is great gain.”