This is from the book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself.” The disciple must say to himself the same words Peter said of Christ when he denied him: “I know not this man,” Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is: “He leads the way, keep close to him.”
And when it was day, the magistrates sent the serjeants, saying, Let those men go. Acts 16:35 (KJV)
This is from the book Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray
Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down! This was what Jesus ever said to the disciples who were thinking of being great in the kingdom, and of sitting on His right hand and His left. Seek not, ask not for exaltation; that is God’s work. Look to it that you abase and humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man but that of servant; that is your work; let that be your one purpose and prayer. God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. He that humbleth himself–that must be our one care–shall be exalted; that is God’s care; by His mighty power and in His great love He will do it.
And there was great joy in that city. Acts 8:8 (KJV)
Turn it as thou wilt, thou must give thyself to suffer what is appointed thee. But if we did that, God would bear us up at all times in all our sorrows and troubles and God would lay His shoulder under our burdens, and help us to bear them. For if, with a cheerful courage, we submitted ourselves to God, no suffering would be unbearable.
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. Job 1:1 (KJV)
Jennifer Van Allen www.theprodigalpig.com www.faithincounseling.org
Prodigal: Me, too. I am glad we could talk though.
This is from the book Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray
Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus. Ask your friends. Ask the world. And begin to praise God that there is opened up to you in Jesus a heavenly humility of which you have hardly known, and through which a heavenly blessedness you possible have never yet tasted can come in to you.
Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. John 9:28 (KJV)
Prodigal: He would argue with a fence post, then pull up the post and argue with the hole.
Me: Lord have mercy, let’s pray for him then.
This is from the book No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton
A selfish love seldom respects the rights of the beloved to be an autonomous person. Far from respecting the true being of another and granting his personality room to grow and expand in its own original way, this love seeks to keep him in subjection to ourselves. It insists that he conform himself to us, and it works in every possible way to make him do so. A selfish love withers and dies unless it is sustained by the attention of the beloved. When we love thus, our friends exist only in order that we may love them. In loving them we seek to make pets of them, to keep them tame. Such love fears nothing more than the escape of the beloved. It requires his subjection because that is necessary for the nourishment of our own affections.
Selfish love often appears to be unselfish, because it is willing to make any concession to the beloved in order to keep him prisoner. But it is supreme selfishness to buy what is best in a person, his liberty, his integrity, his own autonomous dignity as a person, at the price of far lesser goods. Such selfishness is all the more abominable when it takes a complacent pleasure in its concessions, deluded that they are all acts of selfless charity.
A love, therefore, that is selfless, that honestly seeks the truth, does not make unlimited concessions to the beloved.
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Matthew 13:12 (KJV)
Me: As we start today, don’t forget. Don’t pray for a light load, pray for a strong back.
Prodigal: Yes, Lord help me!
This is from E.B. Pusey
This, then, is of faith, that everything, the very least, or what seems to us great, every change of the seasons, everything which touches us in mind, body, or estate, whether brought about through this outward senseless nature, or by the will of man, good or bad, is overruled to each of us by the all-holy and all-loving will of God. Whatever befalls us, however it befalls us, we must receive as the will of God. If it befalls us through man’s negligence, or ill-will, or anger, still it is, in every the least circumstance, to us the will of God. For if the least thing could happen to us without God’s permission, it would be something out of God’s control. God’s providence or His love would not be what they are. Almighty God Himself would not be the same God; not the God whom we believe, adore, and love.
Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. Psalm 71:18 (KJV)
On June 21, 2011, a maple tree fell on the van I was driving during a thunderstorm. It landed on the roof directly above my head and then rolled forward to plunge through the windshield, landing on my chest and pinning me in my seat.
In those first moments after the impact, I didn’t know I was hurt. I could hear my twelve-year old son keening in terror in the front seat beside me while my thirteen-year-old daughter shouted our names over and over again from the back seat. There was thunder and lightning and howling winds, and all I could do was pray, “God, please get my kids out of here.”
For some reason, I couldn’t turn my head to look at them, but they didn’t seem to be hurt. I could see my son out of the corner of my eye, wild-eye and pale, and I could hear his sister moving around in the back seat. “Climb out the window,” I told her. “Run to the nearest house and call 911 and then stay here. Stay inside, out of the storm. Do you understand?”
“But I don’t want to leave you guys!”
“We’re not hurt, honey. We’re just stuck.”
“But…you’re all bloody, Mom.”
“God, please help us. Save my kids,” I prayed. We were on a lonely country road with only a few houses, and no one was likely to drive by any time soon. My cell phone was lodged somewhere under the crushed dashboard. We were on our own.
Suddenly, a man spoke up from somewhere off to my left, amid the tree branches and wet leaves. “I’m here to help you, ma’am,” he said.
“Get my kids out. Please.”
He got to the passenger side in seconds and peered through the window at my boy. “I’m going to get your son out of here,” he told me. “I need you to lean his seat back, and then I’ll pull him out the backseat window.”
My daughter told me later that the stranger didn’t seem to notice when she grabbed his shoulder to steady herself as she climbed out the window. While she was doing that, I was struggling to move my hand those few inches to the seat release knob, which was located within reach of the driver in my minivan. I could see my fingers wrap around it, but they didn’t seem to want to obey and turn it.
My son’s hand closed over mine with a gentle squeeze. “I got this, Mommy,” he said, suddenly calm. I watched him go back and slowly disappear, inch by inch, until he was gone.
The stranger came back to my window. “It’s your turn, Ma’am,” he said. “I’m gonna drag you out the same way I got your son out.”
“No,” I said. “Get my kids out of here. Get them out of the storm. Pease.” I knew it was crazy to trust a complete stranger with my children, but there was something about him that just felt safe, even if I couldn’t see his face. “What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Daniel Barnes. I’ll take care of them.”
I was alone then, although it was only a matter of minutes before the fire department showed up. It took nearly forty minutes for them to cut the tree apart and get me out of the vehicle. My neck was broken, along with other injuries that left the emergency room doctor shaking his head in disbelief–especially when he looked my children over and confirmed that they were basically unharmed.
It wasn’t until several days later that I was able to read the accident report and get a phone number for the man listed as the first witness on the scene. His name was David, not Daniel, but assumed I had just heard him wrong that night. I dialed the number with shaking hands and when he answered, I thanked him for pulling my kids out of the wreckage.
“But I didn’t do that,” he told me. “Your kids were already out when I got there.”
“Where was the other guy?”
“There was no other guy.” David explained that he had actually seen the accident take place. He had passed my van going the opposite direction and glanced up in his rearview mirror just in time to see the tree fall. It had taken him a few minutes to go around the curve and find a place to turn around and come back to help us, and my kids were standing on the side of the road with their arms wrapped around each other by the time he arrived.
The fallen tree completely blocked the road. No other cars could have come or gone.
It’s a small town with only a few hundred residents, most of whom are related to each other. Everyone knows everyone else. There are few strangers in that tiny town, and no one there has ever heard of Daniel Barnes.
My son doesn’t remember being lifted out through the back window. My daughter never saw the man’s face. My only impression of him was of wet, dark hair and a narrow face. A calm voice.
People who weren’t there that night tell me that my memory is garbled because of my injuries. They say I’ve confused the names “David” and Daniel.” They can’t explain, however, just exactly who got my kids out of the van that night. No one seems to know who rescued them.
But I know who he was.
He was the answer to my prayer.
Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge. Job 9:15 (KJV)
