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More holiness give me, more strivings within. More patience in suffering, more sorrow for sin. More faith in my Savior, more sense of His care. More joy in His service, more purpose in prayer. More gratitude give me, more trust in the Lord. More zeal for His glory, more hope in His Word. More tears for His sorrows, more pain at His grief. More meekness in trial, more praise for relief. More purity give me, more strength to o’ercome, More freedom from earth-stains, more longings for home. More fit for the kingdom, more useful I’d be, More blessèd and holy, more, Savior, like Thee. |
I was reading The Parable of The Rich man and Lazarus today in Luke 16 and how Lazarus was in utter poverty during his life, yet had his eternal reward. Its easy when under severe affliction to lose sight of the real blessing any of us have, as with an eye on Heaven, we still have to get thruogh this life here, and often its hard to believe that affliction of this severity can come from the hand of the loving God. Yet someone said to me today, when I was talking to them of feeling loss, that they know no one else being prepared as much as I am for Heaven, as I have nothing left here to hold me. And later on was reading in James 2 too, how God chose the poor to be rich in faith. (Calvin's commentary on these relevant verses will be at Reformers Corner tomorrow and the next day.) And sometimes it seems longing for Heaven so much when there seems nothing at all here to see as good, becomes an added affliction. Cos you can't just get up and go there now. And yet sometimes you long for release so much, that nowhere else BUT Heaven seems tolerable. And yet, if not for this illness I don't think my faith would have ever become a real, true, living faith, and theres' very little like feeling you have one foot in the grave so often for making you fix your eyes on and put the other foot moving towards Heaven. And yes, lifes empty hard and like Lazarus, ridden with sores, that at times threaten to fester up to boiling point, but same as any other believer, no matter how it seems at any given time, no matter how afflicted and beaten down by life, the greater good is still mine. When every bone in my body screams out against being here in this condition, the Greater Good, (our Lord) keeps me. And sometimes you feel like an unruly horse being broken in, and not wanting to be broke, you buck and kick against it, yet God has been long suffering and patient in however much I've kicked against circumstances, and can I imagine getting through this, with hope of nothing better laying ahead? That would seem unthinkable and would be more than unbearable. So its hard to see the good sometimes, especially when we know what we feel, and it goes against all reason to believe anything different. But faith ain't by sight.
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"Reason should direct and appetite obey. " Cicero |
