Praise the Lord for this Fantastic
Friday. It looks fabulous and brilliant. The sunrise this morning
was stunning. I am just getting gathered and focused on our upcoming
Mission Trip to India. We will flying Monday Evening. Praise
the Lord for dear friends and brothers and fellow servants of Jesus who care
for my transportation to the Airports and pick me up on my return
flights. I have been so blessed along the way and all the way.
Sunita and smiley Asha returned back to Washington, DC yesterday after being
away in Israel and In Armenia. Sunita shared that the Lord of the little
lambs showered His love, affection, and blessings on Asha, from people of
different languages, cultures, and backgrounds, both young and old. Praise
the Lord for His unfailing favor.
I
was examining some of the fruit trees the other day. I noticed with great
delight that a baby robin just had flown from her nest and was about the great
adventure of life. It was so tender, so gentle, unadulterated from the
stain of the world.
Alice finished her School yesterday and is now ready for summer. We
walked in the "city center" yesterday evening, just meeting and
greeting people along the way who are celebrating summer blessings.
The Iconic Hotel of the town hosts a Live Band once a week on the
Hotel promises. People come, celebrate, and dance. Families
gather around the Ice cream bar, catching up with one another.
Alice
and I are going down to Washington, DC today. Alice will be staying with
Sunita, caring for Gabe, Addie and Asha for several days. I will be
coming back home tomorrow and will be joining for worship Sunday morning.
Thank you all for praying fervently for our mission trip. We are
trusting the Lord for His and amazing grace and tender mercies. This will
be my last blog before I go (as my editor will be out of town). I will
start posting the blog once again after I return from India in the later part
of July. Thank you for loving, sharing caring, and investing in
the Eternal City.
"Jesus,
our only joy be thou,
As
thou our prize wilt be;
Jesus,
be thou our glory now,
And
thru eternity."
One
of the things I enjoy so much about my grandchildren is their natural
exuberance and enthusiasm for life. Somehow we lose that as we grow
older. The cares of this world, the routine of life, and the concerns we
carry put out the fire. That’s why we need to come to the fire every day to get
rekindled. We invite the Holy Spirit into our lives every day to renew
and ignite the fire in us again, because we don't want to go dragging ourselves
through life; we want to be victorious over it with a new enthusiasm for the
things of God and for life itself.
Paul experienced and lived in Christ propelled by the power and zeal of the Holy Spirit. He was full of enthusiasm because he knew that the the Risen Lord and Savior enabled him to live joyfully. He said, “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? . . .Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39). Paul was not distracted by anything, because he was consumed by a holy passion.
The
Psalmist wrote, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me
with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11). We have life in Christ, because of Christ, and in
Christ alone. All that we adore, all that we desire, all that we delight
in is and can be found in Christ alone who is the Way the Truth and the
Life. The Lord reminds us to Seek First His Kingdom and His
righteousness. The Adversary, the enemy, has a mission to distract us
from the One gives us life, the One who goes before us every moment of lives
beckoning us to love Him and serve Him.
In
her book, A Practical Guide to Prayer, Dorothy Haskins tells about a
noted concert violinist who was asked about the secret of her mastery of the
instrument. She said, “There are many things that used to demand my time.
When I went to my room after breakfast, I made my bed, straightened the
room, dusted, and did whatever seemed necessary. When I finished my work,
I turned to my violin practice. That system prevented me from
accomplishing what I should on the violin. So I reversed things. I
deliberately planned to neglect everything else until my practice period was
complete. And that program of planned neglect is the secret to my
success.”
I like the idea of planned neglect. Often we are seduced by the trivial. She had a purpose, and she put that purpose first and deliberately neglected other things. She was a violinist and she never forgot it. She was a violinist first, and everything else came after that. so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. Often we crowd tour lives with so many good things that we have no time to seek the best things.
Jan Fallon writes something similar as she tries to emulate C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters. She has the chief demon say to his nephew, “My dear Wormwood, At last you have shown some ability at success. Your last report indicated you have perhaps understood, finally, what I have meant by distraction. Now, your patient is falling into bed not with eternal questions, but with anxiety about what her cohorts think of her. These are not the questions of ‘What is my purpose’ and ‘Does God really exist’ which invade her silence. In fact, her desire to define herself by the thoughts of others is not a question at all. It is a sentence. She has doomed herself to vacillation. Now, instead of becoming more solid, more truly human in its sacredness, she becomes more fluid and undefined, as water dilutes a luscious myrrh, violating its original aroma. This is a very worthy distraction, an unending supply of quandary. Since the human will live forever one way or the other, her quest for other’s approval could last a lifetime! You have moved on from the destruction of belongings, which have fleeting moments of concern, to the construction of personal image built upon the presupposed critique of others.”
Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) wrote about distractions when he said: “There is hardly ever a complete silence in our soul. God is whispering to us well nigh incessantly. Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the soul, or sink low, then we hear these whisperings of God. He is always whispering to us, only we do not always hear because of the noise, hurry, and distraction which life causes as it rushes on.”
Summer is a wonderful season to be passionate about Life in Jesus, about our purpose and Mission in and through Him from being fractured to being focused, and from wandering to living life on purpose.
I like the idea of planned neglect. Often we are seduced by the trivial. She had a purpose, and she put that purpose first and deliberately neglected other things. She was a violinist and she never forgot it. She was a violinist first, and everything else came after that. so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. Often we crowd tour lives with so many good things that we have no time to seek the best things.
Jan Fallon writes something similar as she tries to emulate C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters. She has the chief demon say to his nephew, “My dear Wormwood, At last you have shown some ability at success. Your last report indicated you have perhaps understood, finally, what I have meant by distraction. Now, your patient is falling into bed not with eternal questions, but with anxiety about what her cohorts think of her. These are not the questions of ‘What is my purpose’ and ‘Does God really exist’ which invade her silence. In fact, her desire to define herself by the thoughts of others is not a question at all. It is a sentence. She has doomed herself to vacillation. Now, instead of becoming more solid, more truly human in its sacredness, she becomes more fluid and undefined, as water dilutes a luscious myrrh, violating its original aroma. This is a very worthy distraction, an unending supply of quandary. Since the human will live forever one way or the other, her quest for other’s approval could last a lifetime! You have moved on from the destruction of belongings, which have fleeting moments of concern, to the construction of personal image built upon the presupposed critique of others.”
Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) wrote about distractions when he said: “There is hardly ever a complete silence in our soul. God is whispering to us well nigh incessantly. Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the soul, or sink low, then we hear these whisperings of God. He is always whispering to us, only we do not always hear because of the noise, hurry, and distraction which life causes as it rushes on.”
Summer is a wonderful season to be passionate about Life in Jesus, about our purpose and Mission in and through Him from being fractured to being focused, and from wandering to living life on purpose.
In
Christ the Lord of all nations.
