Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The Word Defunct Applies Here

I'm sure this will come as somewhat of a surprise to both of you who read my bi-monthly musings, but I have decided to hang up my hobby of writing for therapy because it has turned into just the opposite. It's too stressful, what with being one of the few souls I know without a home computer, let alone an ipod. This is just not the time, I suppose...

Not only are most of my thoughs completely not cogent or humorous at the moment, they are decidedly blah and not fit for consumption on a mass scale. "This too shall pass" always applies, but until then...

Many of you are wondering what the heck hole I have crawled under when I plan on emerging. I guess I am still digesting this year, and that has come at the expense of many friends here and abroad. You know who you are and I miss you. Thank you for your patience.

Oswald Chambers:
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith— faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to "walk by faith" ( 2 Corinthians 5:7 )...

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith that says, "I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" ( Job 13:15 ).

Still chewing on this one...Until next time, my friends - peace.