From A Severe Mercy
"Lewis replied...Of course He must often seem to us to be playing fast and loose with us. The adult must seem to mislead the child, and the Master the dog. They misread the signs. Their ignorance and their wishes twist everything. You are so sure you know what the promise promised! And the danger is that when what He means by 'wind' appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be--as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind" (191).
Lord, I am sure that I am so guilty of this, and I don't even realize it. Please help me hold loosely the ideas of what I think I want and need and how those desires will be met. Help me see things more and more as You see them so that I am not crucifying what I have for so long anticipated.
"It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes by, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear...that eternity exists and is our home" (203).
I always wear a watch. I shower in it and sleep in it. Right now it's a black and gold (painted) Casio. Before it was the infamous pink Casio that I wore for some of college and all of Guatemala. Feeling like there's never enough time to get everything done is stressful. I have to remind myself that it all gets done somehow, and if it doesn't, it was never that important. However, what if I worshiped God when I felt this way, instead of being stressed? That the constraints of time remind me that I am created for eternity with Him. We all are. Oh, and how He longs for us to recognize this and come to Him! Lord, thank You for the seemingly timeless or timefree moments that You give us sometimes. Those conversations where we are lost in the moment, and we aren't aware that hours have passed. Help me be at peace with the longing for eternity.
"Lewis had said something like this before, in his first letter...'I sometimes wonder whether bereavement is not, at bottom, the easiest and least perilous of the ways in wh. men lose the happiness of youthful love. For I believe that it must always be lost in some way; every merely natural love has to be crucified before it can achieve resurrection and the happy old couples have come through a difficult death and re-birth. But far more have missed the re-birth'" (211).
I have been crucified with Christ so that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. We have to partake in Jesus's death so that we can partake in His resurrection. Lord, I pray for the re-birth, the beauty from ashes. You promise that there is more than this momentary suffering, this light momentary affliction. Refocus me to the things not seen but unseen, not temporal but eternal.
"That death [Davy's death], so full of suffering for us both, suffering that still overwhelmed my life, was yet a severe mercy. A mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love" (211)
Van was jealous of God, that He had become Davy's first love. If he was honest with himself, she was his first love, instead of God. In her death, Van was more able to seek God first.
Lord, I am sure that I am so guilty of this, and I don't even realize it. Please help me hold loosely the ideas of what I think I want and need and how those desires will be met. Help me see things more and more as You see them so that I am not crucifying what I have for so long anticipated.
"It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes by, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear...that eternity exists and is our home" (203).
I always wear a watch. I shower in it and sleep in it. Right now it's a black and gold (painted) Casio. Before it was the infamous pink Casio that I wore for some of college and all of Guatemala. Feeling like there's never enough time to get everything done is stressful. I have to remind myself that it all gets done somehow, and if it doesn't, it was never that important. However, what if I worshiped God when I felt this way, instead of being stressed? That the constraints of time remind me that I am created for eternity with Him. We all are. Oh, and how He longs for us to recognize this and come to Him! Lord, thank You for the seemingly timeless or timefree moments that You give us sometimes. Those conversations where we are lost in the moment, and we aren't aware that hours have passed. Help me be at peace with the longing for eternity.
"Lewis had said something like this before, in his first letter...'I sometimes wonder whether bereavement is not, at bottom, the easiest and least perilous of the ways in wh. men lose the happiness of youthful love. For I believe that it must always be lost in some way; every merely natural love has to be crucified before it can achieve resurrection and the happy old couples have come through a difficult death and re-birth. But far more have missed the re-birth'" (211).
I have been crucified with Christ so that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. We have to partake in Jesus's death so that we can partake in His resurrection. Lord, I pray for the re-birth, the beauty from ashes. You promise that there is more than this momentary suffering, this light momentary affliction. Refocus me to the things not seen but unseen, not temporal but eternal.
"That death [Davy's death], so full of suffering for us both, suffering that still overwhelmed my life, was yet a severe mercy. A mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love" (211)
Van was jealous of God, that He had become Davy's first love. If he was honest with himself, she was his first love, instead of God. In her death, Van was more able to seek God first.
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