GOD ALONE MATTERS
I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious. To stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and to give oneself again to God, what more could a man ask? Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth. I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap, in mercy, He shall give me a host of children that I may lead through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose fingers’ ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, smell His garments, and smile into my Lover’s eyes, ah, then, not stars, nor children, shall matter-only Himself.
– Jim Elliot in
“The Journals of Jim Elliot;” entry of January 16, 1951
OBEDIENCE OF A HIGHER ORDER
[Thomas More] was a friend of the king. … But why did a man so utterly absorbed in his society, at one particular point disastrously part company with it? How indeed was it possible-unless there was some sudden aberration? But that explanation won’t do, because he continued to the end to make familiar and confident use of society’s weapons, tact, favor, and, above all, the
letter of the law. For More … the answer to this question would be perfectly simple (though again not easy); the English Kingdom, his immediate society, was subservient to the larger society of the Church of Christ, founded by Christ, extending over Past and Future, ruled from Heaven. There are still some for whom that is perfectly simple …
-Robert Bolt in his preface to
“A Man for All Seasons”
A CORPORATE BURDEN
Mieczyslaw Malinski writes: “It’s easiest to see the cross on Jesus’s shoulders. It’s a bit harder with our neighbor’s cross. Most difficult of all is seeing our own cross.” And sometimes even more difficult is to see it on the shoulders of a congregation, especially our own congregation. Yet crossbearing is for the body of Christ, as well as the individual.
– Katie Funk Wiebe in
“The Christian Leader ” (Feb. 1995)
WRONG ROLE MODEL
A minister friend of mine was concerned when two of his three sons began to stutter. He made an appointment for them to see a speech therapist (who was also a psychologist), and later had a conference himself.
That psychologist literally cursed me,” the minister said. “He told me I was responsible for that speech defect, and that I was ruining my boys’ lives.” ‘When did you last take your family on a vacation?’ ” he asked me.
“Well, it had been a long, long time. I was too busy to take time with my family. I remember I used to say that the Devil never takes a vacation, so why should I?-And I never stopped to think that the Devil wasn’t to be my example.”
-Joe Bayly in
“Out of My Mind”
NOTHING TRIVIAL AT THE EDGE OF ANOTHER WORLD
If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.
– William Law in
“Christian Perfection,”
a contemporary paraphrase by Marvin D. Hinten
WE CAN’T GIVE WHAT’S NOT OURS
If we don’t accept Jesus in one another, we will not be able to give Him to others.
-Mother Teresa in
“Daily Readings with Mother Teresa”
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