"Follow your passions. Life is too short to spend it doing things that
you despise, that you don’t love. I say, when you wake up in the
morning, what are you thinking about? What are you passionate about?
What makes you feel alive? I think God gives us passions as a direction
that he wants us to go. You will be happier and you’ll do a better job
if you love what you’re doing." U.S. Senator Ted Cruz
More here.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Friday, July 26, 2013
Death may approach
Death may approach, I shall not flee, for daily I have trained to be
Alive to Christ and dead to sin. Death cannot end what Christ begins.
No longer warmed by Satan's fires, yet burned by unreformed desires.
Spirit of God, attend our flesh. Fountain of life, our souls refresh.
Whether at risk to life or limb ever our hope is found in Him.
As Jesus suffered, so shall we, but not beyond His wise decree.
Take up His yoke where freedom reigns. In love He chastens those he trains.
Joy has its root, and grace its key in patience and humility.
Many the saints who fell before. Grief for our loss is fresh and sore.
Though death may hold them for a day, Jesus has conquered: so shall they.
Hallelujah! Christ arose bearing the wounds He gladly chose;
emblems of pain transformed by grace, sins cancelled out, joy in their place.
by New Scottish Hymns
Alive to Christ and dead to sin. Death cannot end what Christ begins.
No longer warmed by Satan's fires, yet burned by unreformed desires.
Spirit of God, attend our flesh. Fountain of life, our souls refresh.
Whether at risk to life or limb ever our hope is found in Him.
As Jesus suffered, so shall we, but not beyond His wise decree.
Take up His yoke where freedom reigns. In love He chastens those he trains.
Joy has its root, and grace its key in patience and humility.
Many the saints who fell before. Grief for our loss is fresh and sore.
Though death may hold them for a day, Jesus has conquered: so shall they.
Hallelujah! Christ arose bearing the wounds He gladly chose;
emblems of pain transformed by grace, sins cancelled out, joy in their place.
by New Scottish Hymns
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Hero - an ordinary man willing to do the mission God put in front of him
I'm currently reading Eric Metaxas' book Amazing Grace, a biography on William Wilberforce. Oh my word. This book is good.
Below are a couple excerpts:
And thus, history: three men, each named William, each twenty-seven years old, talking at the base of an ancient oak tree on a hill in May: one prime minister, one prime-minister-to-be, and one who would stand from that moment forward at the center of something so big and beyond any single man that a tree whose life had begun several centuries earlier, and would continue for nearly two more, was the humble creature chosen to bear mute witness to the conversation. (ch 9)
Wilberforce did not yet know that he lived on a planet that was, in Luther's famous phrase, "with devils filled" - that he was part of a rearguard action well behind enemy lines. (ch 10)
The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, on angstrom wide. Wilberforce was quite right that a flame had been kindled and would not go out until it had done its work, but he had no idea that it would be twenty tortuous years in the burning before its work was done. And if the "work" in question was not the abolition of the slave trade but the abolition of slavery itself, the flame would continue burning for another forty-five years. (ch 10)
Below are a couple excerpts:
And thus, history: three men, each named William, each twenty-seven years old, talking at the base of an ancient oak tree on a hill in May: one prime minister, one prime-minister-to-be, and one who would stand from that moment forward at the center of something so big and beyond any single man that a tree whose life had begun several centuries earlier, and would continue for nearly two more, was the humble creature chosen to bear mute witness to the conversation. (ch 9)
Wilberforce did not yet know that he lived on a planet that was, in Luther's famous phrase, "with devils filled" - that he was part of a rearguard action well behind enemy lines. (ch 10)
The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, on angstrom wide. Wilberforce was quite right that a flame had been kindled and would not go out until it had done its work, but he had no idea that it would be twenty tortuous years in the burning before its work was done. And if the "work" in question was not the abolition of the slave trade but the abolition of slavery itself, the flame would continue burning for another forty-five years. (ch 10)
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
the funny thing about God
He doesn't let up.
He keeps pressing on us to open up to Him the areas of our lives that we don't want to.
He keeps pushing on the areas we're afraid to look at or admit we have.
He keeps putting us in places or keeping us in places that keep us uncomfortable.
And all this is for Him.
So we can be more like Him.
For only in that are we truly happy.
And comfortable.
And unafraid.
He keeps pressing on us to open up to Him the areas of our lives that we don't want to.
He keeps pushing on the areas we're afraid to look at or admit we have.
He keeps putting us in places or keeping us in places that keep us uncomfortable.
And all this is for Him.
So we can be more like Him.
For only in that are we truly happy.
And comfortable.
And unafraid.
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