August 2007 Archives

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Today's been hard, well it started last nite, I slept about two hours all told and except for that two hours have now been awake around 36 hours. And the rivers of tears have rolled on, and today have seemed a river and a half. My eyes are so swollen plus lack of sleep I can't open them properly.

Have been thinking about truth. Its the one thing that never changes. An old truth is as true today as it was thousands of years before. A fact doesn't suddenly become only half a fact. Yet there are many questions that accompany my rivers that will never have an answer. Sometimes I can feel literally in hell in my body, and feel under God's most tender care He so fills me. I know at those times I need nothing more than that. No one or nothing could improve on that inner peace, the song that seems to set your heart aglow with love for the creator. But we all have shifting days. Days that seemed one way yesterday may not seem the same today. You wonder how you can believe any of it is good, when the rivers of tears are all there is, and every minute just to be alive feels torturous. And yet, truth never changes. But it does seem to become foggy or blurred, in the midst of anguish in which pops up doubts and fears and all kinds of longings, that the day or two before, when you felt filled by God, those tears and doubts and fears and longings were a million miles away. King David used to be in most anguish of spirit when he felt God was distant from him. And sometimes I read Psalm 22 and how Davids sorrow at the time was for a short while, but The Man of Sorrows sorrows were unto death. And I know that's my lot barring a miracle. And I know that sorrow to some degree. Where not a moment at times is lived without feeling pierced, and bruised, where the longing for relief is your souls desire. And you almost feel with the pain and inner tumult that you too are sweating blood, because of of the pain that comes from your soul. And yet the truth never changes. But how to make the truth permanent and fully cognizant and a reality in the depths of anguish and confusion, is something I'm nowhere near. And I know I can't:

Job 23: 6Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.

I've had multiple people say to me in recent months that I am more alive than many believers with much fewer burdens, and yet, sometimes part of me feels dead, and I mourn that loss. Sometimes if someone says they miss me if for some reason I'm gone, I say, I miss me too sometimes. As I don't know this person, who can feel so grief stricken, I never knew grief like this existed. And after living thru nitemare after nitemare since the year dot, they were one set of griefs, but this is quite something else. I miss the eternal optimist who could always make a joke out of a bad situation, who would laugh as others wept for her, and yes, sometimes I see shadows of the same person, but the streams of emotions forever pouring in different directions, in an instant the laughter can turn to weeping and visa versa, and the echoes of the soul feels storm tossed on the ever alternating streams of emotions, and the person that you were once, seems a distant memory. God says we are new creations in Him. Put off the old and put on the new. Yet at times the new can be so painful.

"I'd rather die with grace than live with blame,
Far better to die with love, than live with shame." Roger Drake

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Filed under Blagging for England, Crazy Calvinist, affliction by on . 2 Comments#

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Duty well performed lifts a Christian higher towards heaven, and sets a Christian a step nearer to a blessed eternity. [Thomas Watson]

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Solomon got more hurt by his wealth, than he got good by his wisdom. [Thomas Brooks]

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Filed under A Puritan at Heart by on . Comment#

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We can never sin but there will be two witnesses present to observe and register it, our own selves, and God Himself. [Ralph Venning]

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Filed under The Puritan Way by on . Comment#

We can now understand what are the fruits of repentance; viz., offices of piety towards God, and love towards men, general holiness and purity of life. In short, the more a man studies to conform his life to the standard of the divine law, the surer signs he gives of his repentance. Accordingly, the Spirit, in exhorting us to repentance, brings before us at one time each separate precept of the law; at another the duties of the second table; although there are also passages in which, after condemning impurity in its fountain in the heart, he afterwards descends to external marks, by which repentance is proved to be sincere. A portraiture of this I will shortly set before the eye of the reader when I come to describe the Christian life, (infra, chapter 6) I will not here collect the passages from the prophets in which they deride the frivolous observances of those who labor to appease God with ceremonies, and show that they are mere mockery; or those in which they show that outward integrity of conduct is not the chief part of repentance, seeing that God looks at the heart. Any one moderately versant in Scripture will understand by himself, without being reminded by others, that when he has to do with God, nothing is gained without beginning with the internal affections of the heart. There is a passage of Joel which will avail not a little for the understanding of others: “Rend your heart, and not your garments,” (Joel 2:13.) Both are also briefly expressed by James in these words: “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded,” (James 4:8.) Here, indeed, the accessory is set down first; but the source and principle is afterwards pointed out, — viz., that hidden defilements must be wiped away, and an altar erected to God in the very heart. There are, moreover, certain external exercises which we employ in private as remedies to humble us and tame our flesh, and in public, to testify our repentance. These have their origin in that revenge of which Paul speaks, (2 Corinthians 7:2,) for when the mind is distressed, it naturally expresses itself in sackcloth, groans, and tears, shuns ornament and every kind of show, and abandons all delights. Then he who feels how great an evil the rebellion of the flesh is, tries every means of curbing it. Besides, he who considers aright how grievous a thing it is to have offended the justice of God, cannot rest until, in his humility, he have given glory to God. [John Calvin]

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If a man do really look to God in a day of trouble and fear, as to the Lord of Hosts, (i.e.) one that governs all the creatures, and all their actions; at whose beck and command all the Armies of Heaven and Earth are, and then can rely upon the care and love of this God, as a child in danger of trouble reposes on, and commits himself with greatest confidence to the care and protection of his Father: O what peace, what rest must necessarily follow upon this! Who would be afraid to pass through the midst of armed troops and regiments, whilst he knows that the General of that Army is his own Father? The more power this filial fear of God obtains in our hearts, the less will you dread the power of the creature.When the dictator ruled at Rome, then all other officers ceased; and so in a great measure will all other fears when the fear of God is Dictator in the heart. [John Flavel]

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Filed under A Puritan at Heart by on . Comment#

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Trust to that God only who is unchangeable. ‘Cease ye from man,’ Isa 2:22; leave trusting to the reed, but trust to the Rock of ages. He that is by faith engarrisoned in God, is safe in all changes; he is like a boat that is tied to an immoveable rock. He that trusts in God, trusts in that which cannot fail him; he is unchangeable. ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ Heb 13:3. Health may leave us, riches, friends may leave us, but, says God, I will not leave thee; my power shall support thee; my Spirit shall sanctify thee; my mercy shall save thee; I will never leave thee. Oh trust in this unchangeable God! God is jealous of two things; of our love, and of our trust. He is jealous of our love, lest we love the creature more than him, therefore he makes it prove bitter; and of our trust, lest we should place more confidence in it than in him, therefore he makes it prove unfaithful. Outward comforts are given us as food by the way to refresh us, not as crutches to lean on. If we make the creature an idol, what we make our trust God will make our shame. Oh trust in the immortal God! Like Noah’s dove, we have no footing for our souls, till we get into the ark of God’s unchangeableness. Psa 125:5. ‘They that trust in the Lord shall be like mount Sion, which cannot be removed.’ [Thomas Watson]

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Filed under Thomas Watson by on . Comment#

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Confession is an act of mortification, it is as it were the vomit of the soul; it breeds a dislike of the sweetest morsels when they are cast up in loathsome ejections; sin is sweet in commission, but bitter in the remembrance. God’s children find that their hatred is never more keen and exasperated against sin than in confessing. [Thomas Manton]

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Filed under A Puritan at Heart by on . Comment#

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It is hard to have the heart low when comfort is high. God sees humility to be better for us than joy.  It is better to want comfort, and be humble, than to have it and be proud . [Thomas Watson]

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Filed under Thomas Watson by on . Comment#

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That is the principle that distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God has spoken to us and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak of themselves, but as organs of the Holy Spirit uttered only that which they had been commissioned from heaven to declare. All those who wish to profit from the Scriptures must first accept this as a settled priniciple, that the Law and the prophets are not teachings handed on at the pleasure of men or produced by men's minds as their source, but are dictated by the Holy Spirit. [John Calvin]

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Filed under A Puritan at Heart by on . Comment#

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