“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” (Jeremiah 12:5)
...The immediate residue...was a great soberness that came over me, a sudden shame and distaste for all the worthless kinds of joking I do, the petty things that seem so hard to forgive. The Lord’s words in Jeremiah are a heads-up to get more serious about life, to prepare myself for the days ahead. We prepare by living up to what we already know—the simple, garden-variety obediences of forgiving and generosity and being patient and saying no to ungodly passions.
I commented to a mature Christian friend of mine that he was brave for Christ. He told me that he looks at it this way: If we truly believe and embrace the fact that we are called to even die for Christ, then the little acts that fall short of dying are not such a big deal.
And like Jesus said, if we cannot be trusted with small things, who will trust us with the real riches (Luke 16:11)—such as the privilege of persecution for His name? And if we do not stand firm in our faith in a day of relative ease, how will we stand at all when the fiery testing comes (Isaiah 7:9)?
The signs all around us are worrisome. I wonder what kind of world my grandson will grow up in. I hope he will be ready to run with horses.
Andree Seu
...The immediate residue...was a great soberness that came over me, a sudden shame and distaste for all the worthless kinds of joking I do, the petty things that seem so hard to forgive. The Lord’s words in Jeremiah are a heads-up to get more serious about life, to prepare myself for the days ahead. We prepare by living up to what we already know—the simple, garden-variety obediences of forgiving and generosity and being patient and saying no to ungodly passions.
I commented to a mature Christian friend of mine that he was brave for Christ. He told me that he looks at it this way: If we truly believe and embrace the fact that we are called to even die for Christ, then the little acts that fall short of dying are not such a big deal.
And like Jesus said, if we cannot be trusted with small things, who will trust us with the real riches (Luke 16:11)—such as the privilege of persecution for His name? And if we do not stand firm in our faith in a day of relative ease, how will we stand at all when the fiery testing comes (Isaiah 7:9)?
The signs all around us are worrisome. I wonder what kind of world my grandson will grow up in. I hope he will be ready to run with horses.
Andree Seu
