to comfort, in quiet

yesterday, a day devoted to prayer and fasting, was hard. splitting sinus headache, callouts at work, cranky customers, half-day for the highschoolers, an awful inherited shift, frustrations and irritations on the right and the left.

today, a day with no great spiritual significance, smooth sailing all around.



this afternoon i thought on job 23, amos 9, and ps. 139, and the ever-present presence of the Lord, whether for blessing or cursing. i love the old hymn (and its clever adaption by the mars hillbillies), "i bind unto myself today."
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in the hearts of all that love me,
Christ be with me this day.


Christ to comfort me.
Christ in quiet.
may my emotions never lead me astray from the sight of the unchanging, merciful Savior.
"

forget not His benefits

John Piper, and now Jonathan Edwards and a slew of Puritans. Topic: meditation. My status: generally failure. Repentance and prayer. Generally more failure.
John Piper preached,

Suppose you are feeling unworthy and unacceptable to God and generally a failure and having little motivation to rise above the sense of despondency. Now, you have lots of knowledge in your head of Christ's great deeds of old. And if someone says to you, "But don't you know that you are justified by faith and God looks on you in Christ as you cast yourself on him for mercy?" you might say, "Yes, I know that in my head, but it isn't having any effect on my feelings."

Indeed. And then Piper tears that idea down as lazy and passive and demonstrates what true "head knowledge" of the Gospel is and does. I've felt intimidated, not really sure where to begin, as if I were dipping my toe into a deep, deep sea.

Last week at work, this kept popping into my head: "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not His benefits." I wrote it all over the place, on my write-off sheet, on the dry-erase boards, on the hoagie paper, napkins, receipts, everything. I couldn't get the phrase out of my head.

So last night I went and found the Psalm it comes from--One Hundred Three. I don't know that I have ever been so encouraged in all my life of God's presence and work in my life.

arrows in the hands of a warrior

I am listening to Mommy speak.

This is no small feat, as she has been dead for over a decade.

I do not fail to recognize God's blessing in this. First, that I live in a time period where we have the technology to record human voices. Not only that, but we can store them and even change the format to keep up with evolving technology, to the extent that over fifteen years after the recording was made, I am listening to my mom from my iPod. Second, that I even have recordings. I have four "sermonettes" from women's retreats and workshops that she taught. This is an uncommon blessing. Most people are never recorded speaking.

I even get a shoutout in one of them. Well, she refers to me by name, at any rate--calls me, "Jenny, the sloppy one." Thanks, Mom.


One "sermontte" is called "Arrows in the Hands of a Warrior." It's about being a mom. It's from a woman's retreat. This is the artwork for the retreat. Guess who painted it!

What fascinates me is that as she speaks, I recognize thoughts and philosophies that I thought originated in my own little mind--but she says them almost word-for-word and even mentions on how she intentionally fostered and planted those philosophies. (Philosophies is the wrong word, really, but I can't think of a better one.) I miss her.

the work with little fervor wrought

And today I generally goofed off. For a good deed, I fixed the podcast... which has been broken for two weeks without my noticing it, generally leading me to believe that it shall be fixed for another two weeks before anyone else notices that. It's the goofing off bit that worries me. I'm quite good at it. I watched a movie (which I never do except when I do) and fixed the podcast (okay, so that one is a good excuse--it took a long time) and organized my iTunes library and downloaded some D. A. Carson lectures and played with some graphics in Corel and talked to Robbie and is it ten o'clock already?

I have not served Thee as I ought--
Oh, the duties left undone!
The work with little fervor wrought,
The battles lost or scarcely won...
(Lord, give the zeal and give the might
For Thee to toil, for Thee to fight!)

I saw someone on Facebook today quote somebody famous (at least I assume he's famous), saying, "God doesn't call people who are qualified. He calls people who are willing and then He qualifies them." 

I'm so glad that's a false statement. I'm so thankful for Romans 8!! Thank God it's all of grace, because I'm willing in the truest sense of the term about oh, maybe three seconds a year? A decade? Thank God that He makes me willing, or as Jonathan Edwards said, tomorrow I would commit the most wicked sins I could conceive of. Like Spurgeon, I take great comfort and delight in one phrase--all of grace.