12.31.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:31 am by PlayerWon
I found my friend Joanna’s blog of the definitions of ‘detangle’, ‘untangle’, and ‘tangle’ to be rather interesting. Entangled… I think this image is a rather appropriate one for life, the analogy for which would be an entangled ball of string.
One of the definitions of untangle is “To straighten out (something puzzling or complicated); clarify or resolve”. This is but one aspect of untangling. The aim is to straighten something out, but to do so is not merely as easy as pulling on the string to make it taut. A section of the string does, indeed, become straight - the section at the tips of your fingers. However, with the freeing and straightening of a short section comes a tightening of the rest of the tangled lump… the “confused, intertwined mass”. So it is with life if we simply tug at things without care and planning, without accounting for the future. Actions taken to resolve problems that are done in these hasty tugs lead to undesired ramifications. The immediate front of the problems we face may be straightened out, but the core of the problem remains and confusion tightens its hold on it.
Each pull of the string affects the entangled ball in some way. At most points knots are tightened. At some the overall is loosened and begins to lend itself to unraveling. We must always consider the consequences in the long run, all the fine details of our actions and not make hasty, haphazard decisions in despair and panic.
Permalink
12.27.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:41 pm by PlayerWon
from My Utmost for His Highest
As I had been reading various other things for devos in the past weeks I have some catching up to do in this daily devotional.
I said I was inarticulate. December 15’s piece from the book speaks with whole relevance to me.
——————-
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle to get expression sentimentally, then there will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say lazily–”I am not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow what I say,” the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God’s Truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.
Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefitsost is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.
——————-
While typing this up I noticed how ironic it was… that again I was to simply copying something hehe… I’ve realized for a year that it’s important we be able to articulate exactly God teaches me and how He works in my life. I’m an intuitive learner and things come naturally to me, I know things implicitly. Through this blog itself I hope to be more explicit and expressive as a benefit to both myself and the reader.
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:41 am by PlayerWon
Was typing this up for a friend while on MSN… thought I may as well post it seeing as how its typed already… another poem I read from Passion and Purity. So many things in this book… oy… I may as well just type up the whole book heh.
Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,–
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot’s wife cast back a faithless look,
Unready to forego what I forsook;
This say I, having counted up the cost,
This, though I be the feeblest of God’s host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you over-much;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him, if I love not you.
– Christina Rossetti
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:22 am by PlayerWon
Let this goodbye of ours, this last goodbye,
Be still and splendid like a forest tree…
Let there be one grand look within our eyes
Built of the wonderment of the past years,
Too vast a thing of beauty to be lost
In quivering lips and burning floods of tears.
– Alice Meynell
Quivering lips =p I so called it eh guys. It’s harsh a poetic cliche imagery for longing and romance.
Note: comments are in fact enabled (ehemm victor)
Permalink
12.26.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:20 am by PlayerWon
I think it’s sad that the world has degraded nowadays in so many ways. One of which is the appreciation for and ability to write poetry. People seem in general to have been more… articulate… and more well-spoken decades ago than now. It would be cool if I could write old english fluently… and, well, better still if I could write poetry. In the book, Elizabeth Elliot recounts a poem Jim had written…
O Lord, against this bosom blast
of coiled and seething feelings,
Batt’ring passions, ebbing yearnings,
oozing ache of inner man,
Raise Thou the flinty walls of stuff of
which Thy Son was made.
Yea, build in me the buttressed
bastions of faith
That shall resist the undersucking flow
of soulish tide,
And make me to endure this late attack,
I pray, in Jesus’ name.
Not that that poem is a masterpiece… but I wish I could write like that.
In terms of something that jumped out at me in the reading of Passion and Purity, I read the following description of waiting, an excerpt including an excerpt pulled from S. D. Gordon’s Quiet Talks on Prayer.
”
Steadfastness, that is holding on;
patience, that is holding back;
expectancy, that is holding the face up;
obedience, that is holding one’s self in readiness to go or do;
listening, that is holding quiet and still so as to hear.
How long, Lord, must I wait?
Never mind, child. Trust Me.
”
so I shall.
Permalink
12.24.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:59 pm by PlayerWon
Jesus You alone shall be
My first love, my first love,
The secret place and highest praise
Shall be yours, shall be yours
To Your throne i’ll bring devotion
May it be the sweetest sound
Lord this heart is reaching for You now
So I’ll set my sights upon You
Set my life upon Your praise
Never looking to another way
You alone will be my passion
Jesus You will be my song
You will find me longing after You
Day and night I lift my eyes
To seek You to seek you
Hungry for a glimpse of You
In glory in glory
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:37 pm by PlayerWon
I started to read Passion and Purity, by Elizabeth Elliot, today. A book Lloyd and I gave Debbie for her baptism over a year ago. Debs told me she had been reading it and told me how good a book it was, offering to lend it to me for the two weeks she’ll be away in Hong Kong. It is, indeed, a good book. Apparently the author is the hero of Joshua Harris, the author of the I Kissed Dating Goodbye series many are familiar with. The first five chapters begins to touch on many questions and aspects of relationships and focus on God, to be frank nothing new for me. It is building up the context under which her struggles later appear. The book uses her past experience with an engaged relationship with Jim Elliot, who died in a missions trip, to convey her thoughts and learning experiences. A very readable book with messages I can relate to. It’s a book written from a woman’s account, but noted by Billy Graham to be “definitely for men, too”.
There were many hymns and poems and Bible verses interspersed with the writing. The last bit I read I find particularly interesting:
“One morning I was reading the story of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. The disciples could find only five loaves of bread and two fishes. “Let me have them,” said Jesus. He asked for all. He took them, said the blessing, and broke them before He gave them out. I rememebered what a chapel speaker, Ruth Stull of Peru, had said: ‘If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad.’ ”
Permalink
12.21.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:16 pm by PlayerWon
=]
I’m finally back home in Richmond. It’s good to be back. It was sad leaving but I am no longer sad. It has been a great term and I am content to cherish all the experiences I’ve had. I’m thankful for all the wonderful relationships I’ve built. Although many of these friendships began little more than a month ago, as Alison concisely puts it, our “friendship holds strong because God is at the foundation of it”. God had blessed CCF so richly. The welcoming attitude, considerate care, firm knowledge of God’s Word of the fellowship has been a huge encouragement. I thank them for their bold leadership.
Living far from BC I learned to be a friend through prayer. Although I’ve been busy and unable to keep up with every back home I’ve been praying for them. Prayer is one of the greatest expressions of love. I’ve also learned to be still more patient in the grander scheme of things with God’s will and God’s time. God’s timing sometimes seems so incredibly odd. But I can see through the thickness what, at least some, of the reasons for His timing are.
I’ve also realized that with all the blessings we receive in our community it is easy to get stuck in our comfort zone. We become content with our current situation and our friends and look no further, being wrapped up in all the surrounding excitement. However, we are to ceaselessly pour ourselves out to, not just the close group but, all friends and strangers. I pray that God would give us that vision and burden, to be born always at the forefront of our mind and not at the back.
I stride forward now with not sadness of having ended this first term and friends of university but with happiness and strength developed from the experiences and friendships.
Permalink
12.18.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:23 am by PlayerWon
I wish I could be articulate…
Permalink
12.14.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:07 pm by PlayerWon
I’m trading my sorrows
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord
I’m trading my sicknessI’m trading my pain
I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord
And we’re singing
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord, Amen
I am pressed but not crushed,
Persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I am blessed beyond the curse
For His promise will endure
That His joy is gonna be my strength
Though the sorrow may last for the night
His joy comes in the morning
Father God, i’m trading in my sorrows. I lay them at your feet. I do this for your joy. May i always remember how great you are, how rich you are, ho w majestic and indescribably awesome you are. Father may i be able to look beyond the mediocre and turn, instead, my eyes to you.
I think this song fits very well with the theme I was going with yesterday. Stop saying “no no no” with groans and groans. Trade in your sorrows. Open yourself to God’s ready embrace and joy. Sing “yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord”. It is for Him, not for me.
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
To see you high and lifted up,
Shining in the light of your glory,
Lord, pour out your power and love
As we sing holy holy holy…
———————————————-
I will praise you, Lord my God
Even in my brokeness I will praise you Lord
I will praise you, Lord my God
Even in my desperation I will praise you Lord
And I can´t understand
All that you allow
I just can´t see the reason
but my life is in your hands
and through I cannot see you
I choose to trust you
Even when my hearts is torn
I will trust you Lord
Even when I feel deserted
I will trust you Lord
Even in the darkest valley
I will trust you Lord
and when it seems all hope is gone
yet I will praise you Lord
I will trust you Lord my God
Even in my loneliness
I will trust you Lord
And I will not forget
that you hung on a cross
Lord you bled and died for me
and if I have to suffer
I know that you´ve been there
and I know that you´re here now
——
I thank God for music. How rich and poignant it is and how blessed we are to be able to enjoy it and have it move us.
Permalink
Powered by FireStats