The Wonder of Your Company

It is no small gift from God to be counted one among His saints. And it is no small thing to enjoy the pleasure of the saints' company, the joy of their friendship.

Those who love us with the love of Christ bear with our infirmities, rejoice with us when rejoicing is hard, speak difficult truths to us in love, overlook offenses, graciously forgive offenses, cheer us on when we've grown weary and want to give up.

Sometimes I look at the company God has given me to keep, and I'm in awe. They are wiser and more loving. More forgiving. More gracious. They're big-hearted while I'm small-minded. They stand up straight, arms and hands wide open, while I cower, arms crossed and hands tight-fisted. They give grace by the tons, while I'm tempted to offer it in spoonfuls.

It's like running with a group of seasoned athletes, and I'm the amateur in the middle. But these friends don't leave me behind. They patiently let me run with them, even though I'm always stumbling and catching my breath, and I push myself because of their kindness, and I exercise those places in my soul that are too easily neglected. I remember their examples, when they didn't return evil for evil, when they gave to their hurt, when they rejoiced with me in the midst of their own heartbreak, and God uses them to sharpen me.

They are truly holier than I am.

"We are all of us at times bad and laughable, but there are still also among us now and then truth, greatness, even holiness. The merest hint of true holiness we are quick to suspect as counterfeit, and we condemn what we like to call a 'holier than thou' attitude. But years ago a teacher pointed out that the person I was condemning was in fact holier than I--and it certainly didn't take much."
~Elisabeth Elliot

In our socialist mindset, we're tempted to think that Christians are equally holy,  equally sanctified. But we're not. And those around us who are more like Christ than we are should not move us to doubt or envy, but rather, they should move us to wonder. To wonder at God's grace and His work in them, and to wonder at the ways they bear with us and encourage us, and to wonder at the truth that God is working in us, too.

C. S. Lewis said this of his friends:

"In a perfect friendship...each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all of the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others."

The glorious truth is that God has set us among our "betters." What a gift it is to learn from them, to run this race with them. What a gift it is to know the wonder of their company.

With love,
Trisha

Lord, Thy Will Be Done...But Here Are My Suggestions

You pray that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven, and yet when it seems contrary to your will or interest you struggle or fret against it. You profess to have committed your souls to His keeping, and to leave your eternal concerns in His hands, and yet cannot commit things infinitely less valuable unto Him. How contradictory are these things!

You profess to be led by the Spirit, but this practice shows you follow the perverse counsels of your own spirits. O, then, regret no more, dispute no more, but lie down meekly at your Father's feet, and say in all cases and at all times, "The will of the Lord be done."
~John Flavel
The Mystery of Providence, p. 218

Worship With All Your Might

"What you do in public worship do with all your might.  Shake off that slothful, indifferent, lukewarm temper, which is so odious to God....Think it not enough to present your bodies before the Lord....The worship of the body is but the carcass of worship; it is soul worship that is the soul of worship.  Those that draw near with their lips only shall find God far enough from them; not only lips, and mouth, and tongue, but mind, and heart, and affections; not only knee, and hand, and eye, but heart, and conscience, and memory, must be pressed to attend upon God in public worship.  David says, not only "my flesh longs for Thee," but " my soul thirsts for Thee."   Then will the Lord draw near, when our whole man waits on Him; then will the Lord be found, when we seek Him with our whole heart."

~David Clarkson, The Works of David Clarkson