No one who deserves confidence ever solicits it.
John Churton Collins
Monday, August 24, 2009
"Value Equal To Effort"
That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
"On The Shoulders of Giants"
If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.
Issac Newton
Issac Newton
"Praying Out Loud Because The Battle Is Fierce"
The main thing I have to say about speaking out loud to God is that I need to do it, somehow.
Partly it’s as basic as being able to disentangle my prayers from the stream of random thoughts in my mind: When you pray out loud you know you’ve prayed. Also, prayer that percolates up to the lips, even if in barely a whisper, packs a force that stands a fighting chance against the screaming banshees of desire and mutiny. I pray out loud because the battle in me is fierce and so prayer must be fierce.
Andree Seu
Partly it’s as basic as being able to disentangle my prayers from the stream of random thoughts in my mind: When you pray out loud you know you’ve prayed. Also, prayer that percolates up to the lips, even if in barely a whisper, packs a force that stands a fighting chance against the screaming banshees of desire and mutiny. I pray out loud because the battle in me is fierce and so prayer must be fierce.
Andree Seu
"He Awaits Our Choice To Worship"
...we are in Christ and now it’s a whole new ballgame—life on the spiritual plane. God has ordained that we secure His resources by our praise. He awaits our choice to worship—rather than to whine, complain, or give up—as an entry point for His presence and kingdom power.
He tells the “barren one,” the person in pain and affliction, to sing. The command “to sing in the face of such a state would be a cruel act, were it not for the power of song. Isaiah’s word is to deal with the barrenness through worship, to enthrone God in song in order to release His ... provision” (NKJV commentary on Isaiah 54:1).
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise!” (Psalm 100:4).
Andree Seu
He tells the “barren one,” the person in pain and affliction, to sing. The command “to sing in the face of such a state would be a cruel act, were it not for the power of song. Isaiah’s word is to deal with the barrenness through worship, to enthrone God in song in order to release His ... provision” (NKJV commentary on Isaiah 54:1).
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise!” (Psalm 100:4).
Andree Seu
"Little Doorways Into Grand Pavillions"
The Psalmist says, “Oh, how I love your law!” (Psalm 119:97). Now I know why. The best-kept secret in town is that God’s commands are little doorways into grand pavilions of many rooms.
Put on “a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit” (Isaiah 61:3). “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud” (Isaiah 54:1). “Finally, my brothers, rejoice n the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you” (Philippians 3:1).
I don’t know how God can stand it sometimes. He stocks his Word with escape hatches from depression and temptation, and we skim them and say, “What lovely poetry.” Poetry schmoetry—these are our deliverance. The commands are counselors; they are like a dentist’s instruments laid out neatly to hand him on an as-needed basis.
Andree Seu
Put on “a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit” (Isaiah 61:3). “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud” (Isaiah 54:1). “Finally, my brothers, rejoice n the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you” (Philippians 3:1).
I don’t know how God can stand it sometimes. He stocks his Word with escape hatches from depression and temptation, and we skim them and say, “What lovely poetry.” Poetry schmoetry—these are our deliverance. The commands are counselors; they are like a dentist’s instruments laid out neatly to hand him on an as-needed basis.
Andree Seu
"Whose Opinion Carries Weight?"
...We all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men 'after our own heart.' Only they really know our mind and only they judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we really dread. The little pockets of early Christians survived because they cared exclusively for the love of 'the brethren' and stopped their ears to the opinion of the Pagan society around them. But a circle of criminals, cranks, or perverts survives in just the same way; by becoming deaf to the opinion of the outer world, by discounting it as the chatter of outsiders who 'don't understand,' of the 'conventional,' the 'bourgeois,' the 'Establishment,' of prigs, prudes, and humbugs.
CS Lewis
The Four Loves pp114
CS Lewis
The Four Loves pp114
"One Approach For Preventing Crime"
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen."
George Savile, Maqrquess de Halifax
George Savile, Maqrquess de Halifax
"All Who Are Cured, Are Cured By Him"
There is a sense in which no doctor ever heals. The doctors themselves would be the first to admit this. The magic is not in the medicine but in the patient’s body – in the vis medicatrix naturae, the recuperative or self-corrective energy of Nature. What the treatment does is to stimulate Natural functions or to remove what hinders them. We speak for convenience of the doctor, or the dressing, healing a cut. But in another sense every cut heals itself; no cut can be healed in a corpse. That same mysterious force which we call gravitational when it steers the planets and biochemical when it heals a live body, is the efficient cause of all recoveries...All who are cured are cured by Him, not merely in the sense that His providence provides them with medical assistance and wholesome environments, but also in the sense that their very tissues are repaired by the far-descended energy which, flowing from Him, energies the whole system of Nature.”
C.S. Lewis
Miracles pp.145
C.S. Lewis
Miracles pp.145
"Getting Ahead Of Ourselves"
Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.
Stewart B. Johnson
Stewart B. Johnson
"Feed My Sheep. Not Experiment On My Rats"
Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question "What on earth is he up to now?" will intrude. It lays one's devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, "I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.
CS Lewis
Letters To Malcom
CS Lewis
Letters To Malcom
"Getting To Know You. Getting To Know All About You."
Adversity introduces a man to himself
Anonymous
Anonymous
"Gobbling Poison"
...spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison"
CS Lewis
"Equality"
CS Lewis
"Equality"
"Overthinking A Goal"
Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield
Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield
"What's She Going To Cost Him?"
It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman - glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made. Apparently the world is made that way. If Esau really got the pottage in return for his birthright, then Esau was a lucky exception."
CS Lewis
First and Second Things
CS Lewis
First and Second Things
"Go In"
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrive, stop thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
"Fruitless Trees In Late Autumn"
A hoary head should enclose a mind with wisdom, not lasciviousness. (“Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life”—Proverbs 16:31). God has ordained each age of man to have its peculiar beauty, just as celestial bodies differ in glory from terrestrial bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40). The youthful charms are fleeting (Proverbs 31:30), but the ripened counsel of maturity is a pearl of great price (Titus 2:2-8)...The anecdote in Mark 11 is a split one, the fig tree narrative interrupted by the recounting of Jesus’ visit to the temple, in which the expectation of finding his Father’s house to be a “house of prayer” is dashed by the spectacle of hustlers. Jesus overturns their tables—and later curses the fig tree. Jesus is not polite sometimes.White hair on a fool is false advertisement, like “waterless clouds” (Jude 1:12)...Let me flee the temptation to debase myself before youth, thinking to ingratiate myself with them. Children want to find godliness in the aged, whether they admit it or not. Even if a person does laugh at an unseemly joke in the moment, he thinks less of you afterward.Lord, since I have to get old anyway, please begin preparing me now, so that I will not be like “fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted” (Jude 1:12).
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"Monty's Prayer"
Good morning, Lord. it’s me Monty. Thank you for this wonderful day! Thank you for letting me live it for you. Stretch my wings and take me to where you want me to be. Take my eyes and show me what you want me to see. Take my heart and show me how to care. Take all of my skills and training and let it all be to your glory. For all I have ALL I HAVE, is but a gift from Thee. Take all of my life, my breath, my soul and let it be consecrated unto Thee.
Andree Seu's World Magazine Blog
User Name:montyfisherwoof
Andree Seu's World Magazine Blog
User Name:montyfisherwoof
"Practical Advice"
I picked up a little pamphlet from the rack in the foyer of a church I was visiting titled “Squeezing Prayer into a Busy Life.” I could imagine various possible directions for the six pages that would follow. The writer could tell us that if we really loved God we would find time to pray. He could tell us that he himself loves praying more than football. He could tell us that if we don’t pray a lot, maybe we ought to examine ourselves to see if we’re really even Christians at all!
This particular writer, Jim Auer, takes a different tack. He gently invites us to consider that the problem of time management might mask a few deeper blocks to prayer that we’re unaware of, which he then proceeds to deal with helpfully. At one point he comes up with the idea of using any of the day’s small happenings as grist for the mill of prayer. Example:
“Prayer Over Empty Beer Cans Discarded on the Sidewalk: ‘Lord, please be with whoever left these cans. If they drank from sorrow, heal their hurt. If they drank to escape, help them to face their difficulty. . . .”
I like that...Sometimes we spiritual slackers can be helped immensely by a concrete suggestion or two.
Andree Seu
This particular writer, Jim Auer, takes a different tack. He gently invites us to consider that the problem of time management might mask a few deeper blocks to prayer that we’re unaware of, which he then proceeds to deal with helpfully. At one point he comes up with the idea of using any of the day’s small happenings as grist for the mill of prayer. Example:
“Prayer Over Empty Beer Cans Discarded on the Sidewalk: ‘Lord, please be with whoever left these cans. If they drank from sorrow, heal their hurt. If they drank to escape, help them to face their difficulty. . . .”
I like that...Sometimes we spiritual slackers can be helped immensely by a concrete suggestion or two.
Andree Seu
"When A Beloved Utters The Devil's Suggestions"
As so often, Our Lord's own words are both far fiercer and far more tolerable than those of the theologians. He says nothing about guarding against earthly loves for fear we might be hurt; He says something that cracks like a whip about trampling them all under foot the moment they hold us back from following Him. "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife... and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke XIV, 26).--
--But how are we to understand the word hate? That Love Himself should be commanding what we ordinarily mean by hared--commanding us to cherish resentment, to gloat over another's misery, to delight in injuring him--is almost a contradiction in terms. I think Our Lord, in the sense here intended, "hated" St. Peter when he said, "Get thee behind me." To hate is to reject, to set one's face against, to make no concession to, the Beloved when the Beloved utters, however sweetly and however pitiably, the suggestions of the Devil. A man, said Jesus, who tries to serve two masters, will "hate" the one and "love the other. It is not, surely, mere feelings of aversion and liking that are here in question. He will adhere to, consent to, work for, the one and not for the other... So, in the last resort, we must turn down or disqualify our nearest and dearest when they come between us and our obedience to God. Heaven knows , it will seem to them sufficiently like hatred...it is too late, when the crisis comes, to begin telling a wife or husband or mother or friend, that your love all along had a secret reservation--"under God" or "so far as a higher Love permits."
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves
pp 171-172
--But how are we to understand the word hate? That Love Himself should be commanding what we ordinarily mean by hared--commanding us to cherish resentment, to gloat over another's misery, to delight in injuring him--is almost a contradiction in terms. I think Our Lord, in the sense here intended, "hated" St. Peter when he said, "Get thee behind me." To hate is to reject, to set one's face against, to make no concession to, the Beloved when the Beloved utters, however sweetly and however pitiably, the suggestions of the Devil. A man, said Jesus, who tries to serve two masters, will "hate" the one and "love the other. It is not, surely, mere feelings of aversion and liking that are here in question. He will adhere to, consent to, work for, the one and not for the other... So, in the last resort, we must turn down or disqualify our nearest and dearest when they come between us and our obedience to God. Heaven knows , it will seem to them sufficiently like hatred...it is too late, when the crisis comes, to begin telling a wife or husband or mother or friend, that your love all along had a secret reservation--"under God" or "so far as a higher Love permits."
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves
pp 171-172
"Do You Think Sin Barren, You Fool!"
(An allegory of aging sin)
After that John was always going to the wood. He did not always have his pleasure of her in the body, though it often ended that way: sometimes he would talk to her about himself , telling her lies about his courage and his cleverness. All that he told her she remembered, so that on other days she could tell it over to him again. Sometimes, even, he would go with her through the wood looking for the sea and the Island, but not often. Meanwhile the year went on and the leaves began the fall in the wood and the skies were more often gray: until now, as I dreamed, John had slept in the wood and he woke up in the wood. The sun was low and a blustering wind was stripping the leaves from the branches. The girl was still there and the appearance of her was hateful to John: and he saw that she knew this and the more she knew it, the more she stared at him, smiling. He looked round and saw how small the wood was after all - a beggarly strip of trees between the road and a field that he knew well. Nowhere in sight was there anything that he liked at all.
'I shall not come back here," said John. 'What I wanted was not here. It wasn't you I wanted , you know.' 'Wasn't it?' said the brown girl 'Then be off. But you must take your family with you.'
With that she put up her hands to her mouth and called. Instantly from behind every tree there slipped out a brown girl: each of them was just like herself:the little wood was full of them.
'What are these?'
'Our daughters,' said she. 'Did you not know you were a father? Did you think I was barren, you fool? And now, children,' she added, turning to the mob,' go with your father.'
C.S.Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress
V Ichabod
After that John was always going to the wood. He did not always have his pleasure of her in the body, though it often ended that way: sometimes he would talk to her about himself , telling her lies about his courage and his cleverness. All that he told her she remembered, so that on other days she could tell it over to him again. Sometimes, even, he would go with her through the wood looking for the sea and the Island, but not often. Meanwhile the year went on and the leaves began the fall in the wood and the skies were more often gray: until now, as I dreamed, John had slept in the wood and he woke up in the wood. The sun was low and a blustering wind was stripping the leaves from the branches. The girl was still there and the appearance of her was hateful to John: and he saw that she knew this and the more she knew it, the more she stared at him, smiling. He looked round and saw how small the wood was after all - a beggarly strip of trees between the road and a field that he knew well. Nowhere in sight was there anything that he liked at all.
'I shall not come back here," said John. 'What I wanted was not here. It wasn't you I wanted , you know.' 'Wasn't it?' said the brown girl 'Then be off. But you must take your family with you.'
With that she put up her hands to her mouth and called. Instantly from behind every tree there slipped out a brown girl: each of them was just like herself:the little wood was full of them.
'What are these?'
'Our daughters,' said she. 'Did you not know you were a father? Did you think I was barren, you fool? And now, children,' she added, turning to the mob,' go with your father.'
C.S.Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress
V Ichabod
"No Guarantee"
People don't realize that doing what is right is no guarantee against misfortune.
William McFee
William McFee
"Enjoy The Chase. Then Be Content"
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
"This Moments Obedience"
All the real action in the Christian life takes place on the cellular level of this moment’s obedience to this moment’s call.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"Here. Take My Self-Worth"
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
"Aiding The Enemy"
The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
Aesop
Aesop
"Enjoying The Better Things"
To really enjoy the better things in life, one must first have experienced the things they are better than.
Oscar Holmolka
Oscar Holmolka
"Our Passions"
It is with our passions as it is with fire and water; they are good servants but bad masters"
Sir Roger L' Estrange
Sir Roger L' Estrange
"The Wise Man Knows"
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
"True Progress Better Than Longevity"
Now I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.
CS Lewis
CS Lewis
"World Peace: A By-Product
It is impossible... not to inquire what our own civilization has been putting first for the last thirty years.
And the answer is plain. It has been putting itself first. To preserve civilization has been the great aim; the collapse of civilization, the great bugbear. Peace, a high standard of life, hygiene, transport, science and amusement - all these, which are what we usually mean by civilization, have been our ends. It will be replied that our concern for civilization is very natural and very necessary at a time when civilization is so imperiled. But how if the shoe is on the other foot? - how if civilization has been imperiled precisely by the fact that we have all made civilization our summum bonum? Perhaps it can't be preserved in that way. Perhaps civilization will never be safe until we care for something else more than we care for it... But while they cared for other things more than for civilization - and they cared at different times for all sorts of things, for the will of God, for glory, for personal honour, for doctrinal purity, for justice - was civilization often in serious danger of disappearing?
CS Lewis
And the answer is plain. It has been putting itself first. To preserve civilization has been the great aim; the collapse of civilization, the great bugbear. Peace, a high standard of life, hygiene, transport, science and amusement - all these, which are what we usually mean by civilization, have been our ends. It will be replied that our concern for civilization is very natural and very necessary at a time when civilization is so imperiled. But how if the shoe is on the other foot? - how if civilization has been imperiled precisely by the fact that we have all made civilization our summum bonum? Perhaps it can't be preserved in that way. Perhaps civilization will never be safe until we care for something else more than we care for it... But while they cared for other things more than for civilization - and they cared at different times for all sorts of things, for the will of God, for glory, for personal honour, for doctrinal purity, for justice - was civilization often in serious danger of disappearing?
CS Lewis
"Prefer The Great"
It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman - glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand rediscovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made.
CS Lewis
CS Lewis
"Looking Beyond Ourselves"
We should, I believe, distrust states of mind which turn our attention upon ourselves. Even at our sins we should look no longer than is necessary to know and to repent them; and our virtues or progress (if any) are certainly dangerous objects of contemplation. When the sun is vertically above a man he casts no shadow: similarly when we have come to the Divine meridian our spiritual shadow (that is, our consciousness of self) will vanish. One will thus in a sense be almost nothing: a room to be filled by God and our blessed fellow creatures, who in their turn are rooms we help to fill.
CS Lewis
CS Lewis
"The Universe Is Relational"
The most profound thing we know about the universe is that it is relational. Before anything existed, there was relationship. One day God, for His own reasons, wanted to share the throbbing, pulsating joy of it beyond the frontiers of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so created us. And He made us to be like Him. For better, when there is someone near. For worse, when there is not.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"With All Your Mind"
Love the Lord with all your mind" is delightful. It gives me permission to fire connections, to put Bible verses together with experience and observations, and to run with it.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"The Best Kept Secret"
God's commands turn out to be doorways to intimacy with Him. And the best kept secret about obedience in the face of a hard temptation is that there is a blessing waiting on the other side. Satan doesn't want us to know that. He would prefer the usual succumb-and-repent routine.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
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