THOUGHTS

March 21, 2020

"Honey, I've shrunk the world!"

It is a small world after all.  When we boil it all down, we are all in the same hot water, either afflicted or in avoidance mode.  I thank the Lord and pray for the men in our family watching over the PG&E grid, watching over the city water, and first responders fireman and sheriff.  

Yet, as Amy Carmichael reminds us in isolation, it's the little things that sometimes disproportionately irritate us.  She says, "The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves.  The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings you are ashamed of minding one scrap."

Here's another excerpt from Colonel Brengle from his book, "The Way of Holiness," on how to be safe.

"Again, we should be holy to be safe.  Sin in the heart is more dangerous than gunpowder in the cellar.  Before Peter got the blessing of a clean heart and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he yielded to the sinful nature within, and cursed and swore, and denied Jesus.  Before David got this experience, he too fell into awful sin, and nearly lost his soul."

"Remember that holiness is nothing more nor less than perfect love, for God and man, in a clean heart.  If we love God with all our hearts we shall gladly keep all His commandments, and do all His will as He makes it known to us.  And if we love our fellow-men as we love ourselves, we shall not knowlingly do any wrong to them.  So we see that this holy love is the surest possible safeguard against all kinds of sin, either against God or man, and we cannot count oureselves safe unless we have it.   Without it, Peter and David fell; but with it, Joseph and Daniel resisted the temptations of kings' courts, and the three Hebre children and the fire-baptized Stephen and Paul gladly faced death rather than deny their Lord."