A Dozen Ways to Make Yourself Miserable

Count your troubles, name them one by one—at the breakfast table, 

if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Worry every day about something. 

Don’t let yourself get out of practice. 

It won’t add a cubit to your stature, but it might burn a few calories.

 Pity yourself. 

If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.

 Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon. 

After all, you’ve got a life to live.

 Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year 

and where they’re going. 

Try to do them at least one better 

even if you have to take out another loan to do it.

Stay away from absolutes. 

It’s what’s right for you that matters. 

Be your own person, and don’t allow yourself to get hung up 

on what others expect of you.

 Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people’s. 

You have your life to live, they have theirs.

 Don’t fall into any compassion traps—

the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. 

If you get too involved in other people’s troubles, you may neglect your own.

Don’t let Bible reading and prayer get in the way 

of what’s really relevant—things like TV and newspapers. 

Invisible things are eternal. 

You want to stick with the visible ones—they’re where it’s at now.

 Be right, and be sure to let folks know it. 

If you catch yourself in the wrong, don’t breathe it to a soul.

 Review daily the names of people who have hurt, wronged, or insulted you. Keep those lists up-to-date, and think of ways to get even without being thought of as unreasonable, uncivilized, or unchristian.

 Never forgive a wrong. 

Clutch it forever, and you’ll never be unemployed. 

Resentment is a full-time job.

 

 

----- Elisabeth Elliot -----

What is Enlightenment?

           This is an excerpt from the final section of one of Mike's final papers analyzing the Enlightenment period, and specifically Immanuel Kant's ideas in his paper "What is Enlightenment?" As I was editing the paper (one of my many helper-completer tasks :) I found it very...well...enlightening and so I thought I would share it.

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Enlightenment is, “man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in one’s own mind without another’s guidance.”                                                                            --- Immanuel Kant ----

....Cornelius Van Til, in reference to Kant’s supposed autonomy, says that "The very idea of Kant’s Copernican revolution was that the autonomous mind itself must assume the responsibility for making all factual differentiation and logical validation. To such a mind the God of Christianity cannot speak. Such a mind will hear no voice but its own. It is itself the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world. It is itself the sun; how can it receive light from without?"

             God never intended for man to be autonomous. Even from the beginning man was always to be dependent upon God’s revelation, both general as well as special. The Christian belief that God created the universe and all things suggests that there is a distinction between man and God and the realm of knowledge. God’s knowing is authoritative as well as exhaustive. It then follows that if man is to know anything it is that he is “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” (Prov 22:17-21). Christian philosophers do well to compare their theology to their philosophy in order to see that there would be no contradiction in its basic presuppositions.
            Often philosophers assume neutrality in teaching that human reason is an objective standard, free of prejudice. Christians are often told to lay aside their religious commitments in order to think objectively so that they might find truth. This also goes contrary to Christian philosophy; for if Christianity wishes to hold that God is indeed the Creator as well as the Sustainer of all things, it then follows that neutrality is impossible and that everything in creation, including all facts, must be related to Him in some way and express the meaning which He has infused in all of creation.  It is as Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not an inch in the entire domain of...human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not proclaim ‘Mine.’”....

  
                            What then is true enlightenment? 
True enlightenment is not man coming to the understanding of the nature of reality through his own autonomous reasoning; instead, the Scriptures speak of light as a person. Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). Being enlightened is more the matter of one’s disposition toward Christ (Matt 6:22-23); one must receive the Light in order to be enlightened. The Scriptures refer to Christ as “the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9). They also speak of “all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge” as residing in Christ (Col 2:3). It is clear then that if one is to know the true nature of reality he must first submit himself to God, who knows all things. This is true enlightenment; anything else is darkness.

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"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock."                                                      --- C. S. Lewis ---

Daniel & the Valley of Vision

Today's Word of Life QT in Daniel 4 reminded me again of the great paradoxes we find in the scripture as well as the blaring differences we find between the thinking of the world and the way God desires us to think. I went back to this prayer i found and was reminded of those things.

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee
in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold
thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley."

~ The Valley of Vision

The Silence of Heaven

     "I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of God as His quietness. When men have raged untruths in His name, when they have used the assumed authority of the Son of God to put to death His real children, when they have with calloused heart twisted the Scriptures into fables and lies, when they have explained the order of His creation in unfounded theories while boasting the support of rational science, when they, using powers He grants them, claim universal autonomy and independence, He, this great silent God, says nothing! His tolerance and love for His creatures is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law, He waits for men to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to His still, small voice of the Spirit. Now, after so long a time of restrained voice, bearing in Almighty meekness the blasphemies of His self destroying creatures, now, how shall it break upon the ears, the consciousness, hearts, and minds of reprobate men, the voice of One so long silent?
      "It shall thunder with the force of offended righteousness; rage with lightning bolts upon the seared consciences; roar as the long-crouched lion upon dallying prey; leap upon, better, destroy, and utterly consume the vain reasonings of proud humankind; ring as the battle shout of a strong, triumphant, victory-tasting warrior; strike terror and gravity to souls, more forcefully than tortured screams in the dead of night!
      "O God, what shall be the first tones of Your voice again on earth? And what their effect? Wonder and fear, denizens of dust, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with battle-cry, with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet blast of God Himself made more terrible, if that could be, by the long suffering of His silence."

---- Jim Elliot, November 29, 1949, in The Journals of Jim Elliot ----

In the meantime, Heaven is silent.

      "Yes, but it is not the silence of callous indifference or helpless weakness; it is the silence of a great sabbatic rest, the silence of a peace which is absolute and profound - a silence which is the public pledge and proof that the way is open for the guiltiest of mankind to draw near to God."

---- Sir Robert Anderson ----

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him"

---- 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 ----

(As quoted by Elizabeth Elliot, in Secure in the Everlasting Arms, Pgs.28-30)

Why does God not show himself?

"You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" 

--- Yehweh (Exodus 33:20) ---

'Why does God not show himself?' -

'Are you worthy?' - 

'Yes.' - 

'You are very presumptuous, and thus unworthy.' -

'No.' -

'Then you are just unworthy.' 

--- Blaise Pascal ---

"There once lived a people who believed that no man could see God and live. These were the wisest people on earth, not from themselves, but because God chose them...

It is God's mercy and kindness and love, as well as our sin, that hide his face from us."

--- Peter Kreeft ---

"Therefore, having been justfied by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him" ...

"Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

--- Romans 5:1,9, Hebrews 4:16 ---

(*Pascal and Kreeft quoted from Peter Kreeft's book, Chritianity for Modern Pagans, p. 253-54)

Joy

"Although joy is something which manifests itself visibly, at the bottom it is spiritual as to its source and nature. That is why, apart from God, 

'even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness' (Prov 14:13). 

It is true that the people of God in every age have known in their hearts the joy of the Lord; but all their rejoicings have been tempered by a somber note, as they faced the uncertainties and problems inevitably present in human life this side of the Kingdom. 

At the coming of the King all this will be changed: He will come to 

 'comfort all that mourn...to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness' (Isa 61:2-3)."

---Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom, pg. 220---

The Shekinah Glory and Palm Sunday

she·ki·nah/SHəKHēˈnä/  to reside, to dwell

This "visible manifestation of the Divine Presence" had resided with the nation of Israel since the day in which they were called out of Egypt. It was the pillar of fire by night; the cloud of smoke that guided them by day. He who was their protection, their glory, their God, had set them apart by His dwelling presence and their unique relationship with Him. But in the sad days when the kingdom of Israel rejected the very God who resided among them His shekinah glory departed from them.
   

Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. When  the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the LORD'S house, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them...The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city. 
--- Eze 10:18-19; 11:23 ---

As a nation they were scattered,                               
                                  at the mercy of the Gentile captors,
                                  stripped of their past glory,
                                  without a true relationship with their God.

This is the state in which Israel remained to that day, 500 years later, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, humbly seated on the colt of a donkey. That day He, the incarnate Shekinah glory, returned to the city following the same course through which the glory had departed (and the same path through which He will come again - Eze 43:1-12). His presence there was an offer of Himself to restore His glory among them, an offer to redeem the kingdom which was lost, an offer to once again be their God, an offer to reside with them as their Messianic King. Their shouts of  "hosanna" could be misinterpreted for their acceptance of this offer but insight into their hearts (and their shouts of  "crucify Him" only days later) show that little had changed since the day when they had rejected Him and their nation had crumbled.

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

'You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;

You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;

For the heart of this people has become dull,

With their ears they scarcely hear,

And they have closed their eyes,

Otherwise they would see with their eyes,

Hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart and return, 

And I would heal them.'

--- Matt 13:14-15 ---

   

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 
 --- John 1:11 ---

When {Jesus} approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it.  
--- Luke 19:41 ---