To The Soul Who Cannot and Will Not Be Comforted

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To the Distressed soul who thinks the comforts of the promises do not belong to them. A battle this blog ower is all too familar with.

The objections the distressed comfortless soul may make: First objection: “Yes,” says the soul, “those comforts are there and they are wonderful but only for those who have a right to them. They are not for me. Since I do not belong among these fortunate ones, I have no right to them, and they are of no use to me.”

Second objection: The soul uses this objection to reinforce the first one,- that is, these comforts do not exert any power on the soul and produce no fruit. “I cannot” says the assailed soul, “apply any of these comforts to myself. Even though it is true that there are these comforts you described, they are not intended for me because they do not help me”

To this we answer: First that the soul does not have sufficient grounds for what it says for and against itself, since it cannot prove it. Second, the souls judgment counts less here, since it is involved in this struggle, it cannot offer a correct judgement about itself. It is like a sick person who during his sickness cannot follow his own ideas. Thirdly we have already proved with several powerful, godly and sensitive arguments that this souls share in God’s grace, that it is a child of God., and that it has a right to all God’s comforts and promises. I ask now, would not the soul gladly enjoy God’s comfort? In other words, does not the soul strive with all diligence and strength to be precisely that which it says it is not? The soul answers yes to this question. And that answer is precisely the proof of God’s grace in the soul if it feels an unfeigned and heartfelt desire for the grace and goodness that it thinks and says it is lacking. And that cannot be the case unless a person has true knowledge of himself and his failures, as well as of grace and its necessity. Such knowledge a person receives only through God’s special grace.
–Johannes Hoornbeeck

This is a battle that great man of the Reformation, Martin Luther was all too familiar with. Casmannus wrote of Luther on this:

In 1527, the holy man Luther felt the heat of these trials so strongly, that he, ill in body and soul from them lay in bed, and later he himself testified that he would rather be imprisoned in the darkest dungeon his whole life than endure that pain again for one hour.”

If you know someone in such soul torments  do not do as the ignorant and ill-learned do and make matters a whole lot worse and increase their torment by mishandling the affliction  as I have had done over a long time, by those I was once closest to. If we cannot help, then let us refrain from harming.

Meditation on Eph 3:14-19

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O Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all the family in heaven and on earth is named, I pray that according to the riches of your glory you will grant that I may be strengthened with power by your Spirit in the inward man and that Christ may dwell in my heart by faith in order that being rooted and grounded in love I may know with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and that, acknowledging the love Christ that is beyond all knowledge, I may be filled with the fullness of God.
—Jean Taffin

Meditation

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O God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all glory, grant me the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that I may know you. Let the eyes of my understanding be enlightened so that I may know the hope of your calling, the riches of the glory of your inheritance for the saints, and the exceeding greatness of your power to us who believe—all of which you wrought in Christ when raising from the dead and setting him at your right hand in the heavenly realms.
—Meditation of Jean Taffin on Eph 1:17-20

The Poor Can have the Real Abundance of riches

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Remember that the ungodly with their abundance are poor, while we in our poverty are rich even when our faith is still weak. Their desires are as insatiable as fire; the more wood that is heaped on it, the bigger it becomes. WE however, find peace and contentment in the providence of God, the God who never forsakes those who trust in him. In the days of Elijah there were many who had more food than the widow of Zarephath, to whom the prophet was sent. But she alone enjoyed the Lord’s favour in that the oil in her jug and the flour in her jar never failed; she had more than the richest people in the land. Whoever has a spring near his home has more water than those whose tank is filled to overflowing but is always leaking.
—Jean Taffin