Hudson Taylor once wrote, "How incomprehensible is the love of God! His ways are indeed past finding out.

How many of His providences are like the cloud between the Israelites and the Egyptians - if looked on without faith, it is a cloud of darkness; but if viewed according to the privilege of the Lord's people, it is no longer darkness, but light and safety.

May this be your experience; may you feel that the Hand which inflicts the wound supplies the balm, and that He who has emptied your heart has filled the void with Himself."

“The Halls of Highest Human Happiness”

A few months ago my mother said something that bothered me, and I’ve wondered about it ever since. She said that even though she knew my father extremely well before they married, the man he was then and the person he became were drastically different. My father went through several life altering circumstances and became a very different person over the 23 years they were married. The changes were all gloriously positive ones, and my parents truly delighted in each other more every year. Even though I had heard my father say many times, 

You don’t just marry a person’s past and present, you marry their future as well,

I must admit my immediate reaction to my mother’s words was the eloquent and profound, “Yikes!” 

Of course, I really shouldn’t have been surprised. The process of sanctification is, by its very definition, a process. 

The incredible truth is that as we behold the glory of the Lord we “are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).

 It would be a sad thing indeed if we never changed! Doesn’t it only make sense that you’ll love a person more each year because the Altogether Lovely One is changing them to be like Himself?

However, this posed the question, 

How can I know someone completely if they are always changing, which ideally, they would be? How do I know if I’ll be compatible with the person they become?

My conclusion was that even though I don’t know the future of a person, the Lord does. If He’s my matchmaker, then I really don’t need to be concerned. I also thought that if you could know the driving passion and soul of a person, then you’d really have a grasp of who they were and who they’d become. My father changed, but the reason why he changed was always the same; namely, he wanted to please the Lord. If he was convinced from Scripture that there were better ways to please Him, then he’d change in a heartbeat! His driving motivation never wavered. 

These thoughts were very vague and the only times I tried expressing them I failed miserably. Then, a few days ago, I came across this quote by Peter Marshall. It is one of the best descriptions of marriage I’ve ever read. I was blown away! This was exactly what I was trying to say and why my parents’ marriage was one of the best examples of Christ and His Church I’ve ever seen! Peter Marshall called marriage “the halls of highest human happiness” and wrote the following concerning it. 

The perfect marriage must be a perfect blend of the spiritual, the physical, the social, and the intellectual. We are souls living in bodies. Therefore, when we really fall in love, it isn’t just a physical attraction. If it’s just that, it won’t last. 

Ideally, it’s also a spiritual attraction. God has opened our eyes and let us see into someone’s soul. We have fallen in love with the inner person, the person who’s going to live forever. 

That’s why God is the greatest asset to romance. He thought it up in the first place. Include Him in every part of your marriage, and He will lift it above the level of the mundane to something rare and beautiful and lasting.

.best.

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

-George MacDonald

.waiting.

...waiting...

Humans don't like to wait. A baby is appalled at the concept of waiting to eat, and we don't seem to get any better as we grow older. To wait on the Lord is a concept often mentioned in Scripture, and in my opinion, it's the only way to live vibrantly. But how do we practically wait on Him?

Whatever waiting on the Lord looks like, it most certainly is NOT passive. I've been thinking about this concept for a while and will write more later, but I heard this song yesterday and found it thought provoking. I'm usually not a fan of songs like this, but the lyrics resonated with me. I hope you enjoy it.

While I'm Waiting by John Waller

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it’s not easy, no
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait

And I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

I will serve You while I’m waiting
I will worship while I’m waiting on You, Lord

.peace.

In a world of chaos and confusion, how do we find peace? The Prince of Peace came and said He left us His peace, but how do we practically enjoy it?

The answer is found in Isaiah 26:3:

You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.

Not only is He the most wonderful person to ever think about, but when we do think about Him, He gives us peace that passes all understanding! What an incredible Lord!

.life.

President Abraham Lincoln once said:

These communities, (the thirteen colonies,) by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the world of men,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are born equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentleman, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the race of men then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the furthest posterity. They created a beacon to guide their children, and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

Wise statesman as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established those great self-evident truths that when, in the distant future, some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

time

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8