Me: Well, we will see, sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it is no.
This is from the book No Man Is An Island by Thomas Merton
Those who abandon everything in order to seek God know well that He is the God of the poor. It is the same thing to say that He is the God of the poor and that He is a jealous God–to say that He is a jealous God and a God of infinite mercy. There are not two Gods, one jealous, Whom we must fear, and one merciful, in Whom we must place our hope. Our hope does not consist in pitting one of these gods against the other, bribing one to pacify the other. The Lord of all justice is jealous of His prerogative as the Father of mercy, and the supreme expression of His justice is to forgive those whom no one else would ever have forgiven.
That is why He is, above all, the God of those who can hope where there is no hope. The penitent thief who died with Christ was able to see God where the doctors of the law had just proved impossible Jesus’s claim to divinity.
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:21 (KJV)
Me: I have a thought that we can hold on to today.
Prodigal: I am ready to listen.
Me: The Lord has defended you in battles you don’t even know about.
This is from Julia Tinkey
There’s something about a hospital in the dead of night that is different from anything else–muted sighs and stirrings, the light from the nurse’s station at the end of the floor.
I sat by Mother’s bed, watching. There wasn’t much else I could do. Jean Hudson, the night nurse, was in and out, checking Mother’s pulse and blood pressure.
In fact, as the minutes crawled past, I grew more and more sensitive to the impulse that had made me leave my husband and our three children asleep and drive to the hospital at midnight. We’d known for six weeks that Mother was dying. Ever since surgery had revealed inoperable cancer, I’d spent part of each day at her side. This night I had to be with her.
It was true, the last few days she’d been failing rapidly, in much pain, drifting in and out of a coma. Several times the doctor had been on the verge of telling her that further treatment was useless–but we all hesitated. All her life Mother had been such an active person, teaching at the high school, running the farm, doing office work for dad’s pulpwood business, raising five children, and cheerfully taking on jobs at church. To be able to fight now, however vainly, we felt was important to her.
She still had not moved nor opened her eyes since I arrived. I repeated again the prayer I had said so often in that room. It was that Mother not have to go with drugs numbing that close harmony of mind to mind and heart to heart we had always had in our family. As I had done daily the past six weeks, I prayed that Mother–who had served God so faithfully these seventy years—be allowed to come to Him in dignity and acceptance and peace.
“Julia!” Mother stirred on the bed, “Are you there, Julia?”
I assured her that I was, and she asked me to come closer. She wanted to apologize, she said, for having been so difficult (which of course she hadn’t).
Her eyes opened; they looked straight into mine. “The doctor told me. And, Julia, it’s all right. I’ve left it up to God. I’m in God’s hands now, and it is so wonderful.”
As she was saying this, she seemed bathed in light. As I stared at her, the mysterious radiance enveloped me as well; I felt as if I were drowning in the love and joy on her face.
I realized that she was smiling and I smiled back–but I could not express this awareness enough through smiles; it seemed that my body must burst with the fullness of that instant.
The instant stretched into minutes and the minutes into almost an hour as we looked at each other, exposed and filled with the living presence of God. I felt that Mother was seeing a world beyond the physical one, and that I was almost there with her.
I said to her, “Do you mean, Mother, that you see God?” and she answered, “Yes, Julia, face to face, and it is so important that everyone know. Tell Murray, Carol, Miriam, George,” naming my brothers and sisters. “It’s so wonderful!”
She seemed so alert, so like her former self that in frustration I almost shouted at her. “What’s so wonderful? Tell me!”
“Millions and millions of people,” she began slowly. “So many millions….and all on different levels. There’s light….light everywhere….so much light!”
Her eyes seemed so full of love and they never left mine. Her voice remained strong as she continued. “Things get between us and God. Tell them all not to let things separate them from God. I’ve been so concerned with my own little problems and desires. Tell them, Julia–the glory of the Lord–it is wonderful!”
They were the last words that Mother spoke. Her eyes closed, but the smile did not fade.
Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Galatians 1:20 (KJV)
If content and thankfulness, if the patient bearing of evil, be duties to God, they are the duties of everyday, and in every circumstance of our life. If we are to follow Christ, it must be in our common way of spending every day.
They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Isaiah 42:17 (KJV)
And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the LORD of hosts. Malachi 1:9 (KJV)
All of this world will soon have passed away. But God will remain, and thou, whatever thou hast become, good or bad. Thy deeds now are the seed-corn of eternity. Each single act, in each several day, good or bad, is a portion of that seed. Each day adds some line, making thee more or less like Him, more or less capable of His love.
And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. Isaiah 49:5 (KJV)
Clearly the wicked do not know that you are everywhere. But you are not bound within the limits of any place. You alone are always present, even to those who set themselves apart from you. Let them then turn back and look for you. They will find that you have not deserted your creatures as they have deserted their Creator. Let them turn back, and they will find you in their hearts, in the hearts of all who confess to you and throw themselves upon your mercy, in the hearts of all who have left the hard path and come to weep upon your breast. Gently wipe away their tears. They weep the more, but now their tears of joy, because it is not some man of flesh and blood but you, O Lord, their Maker, who remakes them and consoles them.
The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;Â 2 John 1:1 KJV
Me: Let me share this before you take another step.
This is from The Great House of God by Max Lucado
There are certain mountains only God can climb. The names of these mountains? You’ll see them as you look from the window of the chapel in the Great House of God. “Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.” A trio of peaks mantled by the clouds. Admire them, applaud them, but don’t climb them.
It’s not that you aren’t welcome to try, it’s just that you aren’t able. The pronoun is thine, not mine, thine is the kingdom, not mine is the kingdom. If the word Savior is in your job description, it’s because you put it there. Your role is to help the world, not save it. Mount Messiah is one mountain you weren’t made to climb.
Nor is Mount Self-Sufficient. You aren’t able to run the world, nor are you able to sustain it. Some of you think you can. You are self-made. You don’t bow your knees, you just roll up your sleeves and put in another twelve hour day…which may be enough when it comes to making a living or building a business. But when you face your own grave or your own guilt, your power will not do the trick.
You were not made to run a kingdom, nor are you expected to be all-powerful. And you certainly can’t handle all the glory. Mount Applause is the most seductive of the three peaks. The higher you climb the more people applaud, but the thinner the air becomes. More than one person has stood at the top and shouted, “Mine is the glory!” only to lose their balance and fall.
“Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” What protection this final phrase affords. As you confess that God is in charge, you admit that you aren’t. As you proclaim that God has power, you admit that you don’t . And as you give God all the applause, there is none left to dizzy your brain.
Let’s let the lady on the slope teach us a lesson: There are certain mountains we weren’t meant to climb. Stay below where you were made to be, so you won’t end up exposing yourself to trouble.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Ephesians 5:20 (KJV)
Consider for a moment the challenge of becoming an intercessor. The needs for intercessory prayer are staggering. Frank C. Laubach says, “All the following people need to be floodlighted with prayers: the President of the United States and Congress (especially Senate ), the Prime Minister and Parliament of England, Russia’s Premier and leaders, China’s leaders, delegates at every peace conference, Japanese, Germans, church members and the clergy of Christians and Jews, the missionaries, motion picture leaders, radio broadcasters, all kinds of slaves and oppressed peoples. We must pray for illiterates, for all teachers, mothers and fathers, for understanding between capital and labor, for human brotherhood, for cooperatives, for the enlargement of people’s minds to world vision, for children adn youth for wholesome literature, for victims of liquor, drugs and vices of all kinds, for educators and better education. We must pray for hatred to vanish and love to rule the world; we must pray for more prayer, for it is the world’s mightiest healing force.” Laubach’s list seems long, but even this is incomplete. Intercessors never lack needs to occupy prayer lists. Always flowing from the intercessor’s heart is prayer for someone, prayer that says, “I love you.”
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. Mark 8:11 (KJV)
Prodigal: We’re starting on the short row. Just hang in there.
Me: All things can be done with Christ.
This is from I. Penington
O that thou couldst dwell in the knowledge and sense of this! Even, that the Lord beholds thy sufferings with an eye of pity; and is able, not only to uphold thee under them, but also to do thee good by them. Therefore, grieve not at thy lot, be not discontented, look not out at the hardness of thy condition; but, when the storm and matters of vexation are sharp, look up to Him who can give meekness and patience, can lift up thy head over all, and cause thy life to grow, and be a gainer by all. If the Lord God help thee proportionably to thy condition of affliction and distress, thou wilt have no cause to complain, but to bless His name.
And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown: Numbers 16:2 (KJV)
