The Sylvr Pen

It was a dirty little four-letter word I declared a no-no in my grade-school classroom: “Can’t.”

Key word of laziness or discouragement, I felt. It only hampered their young spirits.

I knew, because I’d uttered it too often myself, growing up, facing various challenges. Yet with the necessary push, I’d ended up accomplishing. I even came eventually to believe I could do almost anything, with enough time and determination.

Smug little me! Did God ever have to make life difficult, for me to finally admit the truth: I CAN’T!!

Put the emphasis on “I.”

I can’t — do anything my Creator doesn’t enable me to do.

Even my innate talents aren’t my doing. I didn’t form in myself any inherent abilities, even to see, walk, talk, or learn anything.

More importantly, beyond the natural achievements, ANY kind of SPIRITUAL ENDEAVOR AT ALL has to be HIS WORKING (John 15:5).

That’s the life-long lesson God’s kept teaching me — mostly in the classrooms of Hard Knox U!

Evidently I need lots of review, because He keeps sending me back there!

Yet, how each revisit sooner or later leaves me blessed!

For when I come to the end of my self and admit, “God, I can’t do this. You’ll have to do this in me,” that’s when I get to see my little human shell accomplishing amazing things I know without doubt are not my doings, but God in me, “who works in [me] both to will and to do according to His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13)

His power is perfected in weakness (2 Cr 12:9), not in smug, self-sufficient strength. It’s through Him, who strengthens me, that “I can do all things” (Phl 4:13).

So once He shook me into awareness of this truth, my life verse became “When I am weak, then I am strong!” (2 Cr 12:10). (Maybe I should say, “when I know I am weak…”?)

That’s the realization each of us must reach:

I. Can’t. Do. This. But if it’s Your will, You can do it in me.

Yes, my whole life changed — took on new power I’d never known — after shedding the old philosophy of “you-can-do-anything-(yourself)-if-you-try,” “you-are-the-little-engine-that-could” — once it lay dead as a doornail, rusted and bent, just as I lay rusted and bent inside, near ready to hide behind the sofa, curled in fetal position, go into a catatonic state, and never come out.

Some people don’t need to end up so desperately wrecked to see that “Apart from [Christ] you can do nothing” good or right. Some people may understand from early on their own weakness and constant need for God’s Spirit working in and through them.

Knowing His strength in my weakness could have staved off one of big-D depression’s main causes, “perceived helplessness.” Realizing where amazing strength and power come from makes us, not helpless, but “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power” (Col 1:11), able to surmount incredible difficulties.

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“I am the vine, you [are] the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” -John 15:5

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Thanking Him this morning for these gifts:

~Flowers all about me now, outdoors and in, to savor in sight and smell. (Each time I catch a glimpse, passing by them, I feel my heart lift!)

~New birdsongs outside my window, added to the feathered chorus.

~Senses of seeing, hearing, scenting; of touch and taste (my maternal grandmother had no taste-bud function).

~Ability to walk, talk, use my hands, my brain, to appreciate and love.

~Lessons in life that have shown me how much I need Him at work in my life, and yes, actions.

~His power working within me, enabling me to do what “I can’t.”

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{In some future post, how “Work out your own salvation…” and “It is God Who works in you…” (Phil 2:12,13) fit together.}

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Word-Filled Wednesday

“‘I see…’

…said the blind lady, to her deaf husband.”

I used to say that, joking — little thinking that someday I’d have a husband who wore a hearing aid or else had me repeat everything he wanted to hear, sometimes twice,  and that I’d get a diagnosis of a degenerative eye condition and prognosis of future deteriorating vision, moving unstoppably toward blindness.

Well, it hasn’t happened yet, the blindness, and I’m amazed at how slowly this whole lose-your-vision thing is going so far. I never could see all that great, though what’s going on now can’t be corrected with glasses. I just take nutrition that’s supposed to be good for eyes, and people are praying (and prayer is powerful), and I can still see almost as well as last year. The only change it’s brought that I really don’t like much is losing mobility. I can’t just hop behind the driver’s seat and take off for any-old-where anymore.

But this whole experience has made me consider what really matters. I always thought the prospect of blindness would be the worst ability loss in the world. But instead I’ve just found myself rejoicing at the fact of the hymn, which is true for me: “I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.”

God opened my spiritual eyes one day, and the reality of God’s kingdom burst on my (inner) sight. I would never trade that for my physical vision. And as my physical eyesight slowly deteriorates, God just keeps increasing my spiritual perception. That’s a great trade-off, in my view.

Jesus answered and said to him,

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again,

he cannot see the kingdom of God.” –John 3:3

Free-writing for 5 minutes on the prompt “See,”

for

Five Minute Friday

 (PS – I still say that, “‘I see,’ said the blind lady, to her deaf husband,” and still laugh. God has a sense of humor and it’s one of His gifts He passes on to us. 🙂

Still moments in early evening, time of rejoicing in Him before dinner, reading Brother Lawrence. Words on the pages steer my mind to “high thoughts of God.”

I hold them gently in my head, fragile things that they are, as I go to the kitchen, gather the parts of a simple supper, and consider how the brother made each small kitchen task an offering, a means of worship, to honor Him. And as I lay out fresh-washed leaves of lettuce, I wonder how this tiny act could do that.

Ah, the lettuce is a lovely gift, beautiful in greenness, crisp in freshness, straight from the garden bed. Let us be aware of that. So I spread their emerald ruffles in a bright-white bowl to better show their varied colors, their damp sparkle left from washing.

And all through dinner mental thanks return to Him easy, for every satisfying bite of food.

But after that comes mind drift. Internet distraction, from good blog posts that glorify God to ads about safeguarding body health. No evil there. Yet without my noticing, something is stealing my focus.

Then we read to one another, lovely together enjoyment, tame and fun. And off the track goes my wandering mind, following whatever path the story takes, like dog on leash!

We read some Proverbs, I read some positive posts on writing by others. And sleepy, I shuffle off to bed.  It’s all moral, upright, positive. But my focus has slipped from “high thoughts” of Himself.

So by this morning’s rising, my poor mind is oh-so-tied-up to the ground!

“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love…” The hymn laments, and I with it — for the straying it confesses needn’t mean running amok in sordid sin. It can simply be my distractible mind’s so-easy wandering, off from the God I love.

Alas! What to do!

What I do at first now is fret and focus on failure. On my own performance.

More bad: Focus on self, not God!

Shift the focus… Sing the song. Its next words plead with the Savior, “Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.”

I sing it. I call on Him. He hears.

And then I do my part and turn my mind back on His track.

How? By the words I choose to read:

Psalms of praise…

Thanks recorded yesterday…

My listing of Reasons to Praise the Lord, counting toward 10,000… {See Below}

Adding more.

And here I am, again returned, back on Brother Lawrence’s track, on my track of serenity, too.

I skim his book again for a moment, and read his own difficulty with a meandering mind — and how he repeatedly remedied it:

“When sometimes he had not thought of God for a good while, he did not disquiet himself for it; but, after having acknowledged his wretchedness to God, he returned to Him with so much greater trust in Him, as he had found himself wretched through forgetting Him.”

Why did he/I feel wretched through forgetting Him? Isn’t that evidence of a grace gift God bestows on a heart, His “deep calling unto [our] deep,” His heart moving our hearts to desire Him, and to feel the empty agitation the mind-wandering takes us off to?

I’d like instant mental constancy. But mind-and-heart training doesn’t happen that way. Not even for Brother Lawrence! (smile)

…..

10,000 REASONS TO GIVE HIM PRAISE, from Psalm 92

Counting, here, from #230

(in my journal, from #782)

• 231 – Because “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to Your (His) name.“
• 232 – Because He is the Most High
• 233 – Because it is good to declare His lovingkindness in the morning and His faithfulness every night.
• 234 – Because the LORD makes His people glad through His work.
• 235 – Because His people will triumph in the works of His hands
• 236 – Because His works are so very great
• 237 – Because His thoughts are so very deep.
• 238 – Because He is on high forevermore
• 239 – Because His enemies will perish and all the workers of iniquity will be scattered
• 240 – Because on the other hand the strength of His own will be anointed with fresh oil, and be like the strong horns of a wild ox
• 241 – Because those who are planted in His house shall flourish in His courts
• 242 – Because the LORD is upright, our rock, with no unrighteousness in Him.

*****

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Word-Filled Wednesday at the Internet Cafe

Thought-Provoking Thursdays

Reluctantly, he enlisted, young man without great prospects. It seemed the only answer to the economic difficulties of the family, of the time. And so off he marched with the others and fought in the horrendous war, endured its hardships, witnessed its appalling evils and grisly horrors.

Seized, taken prisoner, threatened with hanging for suspected spying… eventually he gained release. Seriously injured, he was returned home and nursed back to a certain amount of health. But always, always he carried the wounds, always bore the chronic pain. And limped, and dropped things, clumsy, an embarrassment to himself.

It could be a lot of veterans.

But, as each, he was unique and individual, important to someone. Important to me,  perhaps to you.

His name was Nicholas Herman. Known more widely as Brother Lawrence, or “Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.” All this was a part of his story. Nearly 400 years ago. A part we seldom read. I had to google a lot of sources to gather the bits and pieces that tell this much of the tale.

But many have read his little book, all down through the centuries. And even to this day it makes profound impact on people’s minds, and sometimes even their lives.

Why? Because of what his daily life exhibited: a constant state of peace, joy, patience, long-suffering… But you may know what all that is: the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 4:22-23). And that is why we read about him. Because we (some of us) long, so wistful, for our own lives to exhibit that fruit. At least I do. And typically we struggle with repeated frustration when we aim toward that end.

Look at the top of this blog page. There it is in the heading, my desire, that aim.

And so I try to see how he “did” it. But maybe we (I) emphasize too hard the doings, the human accomplishing. What we may need to learn from his example is acceptance more than achievement, yielding more than wielding, dying more than doing.

That’s what’s hard about it: its very simplicity. It’s simple in the Spirit. But a constant losing battle in the flesh. (Read Romans 7:15-25 and smile — or weep, then rejoice.)

One info source called him a soldier first on the physical battlefield, then on the spiritual one. So, to the latter, are we all called. But it seems so hard to “get it.” That’s why I’m examining more closely the themes, patterns, details I can gather about this man and his eventual approach to life.

One gem of insight I’ve gained already is that idea of “eventual.”

On first reading The Practice…, maybe I didn’t go far enough. At the beginning it seemed he just decided to think of God all the time, and presto! he’d “arrived”!

Now learning more of his biography, and reading through his conversations and letters repeatedly, I’m seeing his evident success at Christ-living came from long-term endeavor. It didn’t happen overnight. It involved repeated veering his drifting mind back to thoughts of God, over days, months, many years.

What I hope to do, something like weekly, perhaps sometimes more often to show complete pictures, is pass on either a key phrase/sentence that stands out in his book, or a pattern I see in his message, his life, considering whichever in light of scripture. I hope you’ll tune in and add your own insights and responses as we go along. Till next time…

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Related post: How Brother Lawrence Saw the Trees

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To start, two thoughts, clinging from yesterday, almost “asides” in a sermon, but items of great rejoicing to me:

~In Eternity, there will be no clocks, wristwatches, or calendars! Think of it! (wow!)

– – -What a venture it might be to spend an entire day like that, just rejoicing in the Lord… But then, come to think of it, after early by-the-clock church worship, yesterday flowed almost that way. – – –

~ (Also from the sermon) Christian joy pictured as a gallon of goodness, of bountiful blessing, poured into an eight-ounce glass, leaving us overflowing, “messy with joy“!

Thanking Him for these wonders just named.

Also thanking Him this morning, in this fragment of time,

~for the rainbow of flowers in bloom about me now:

~the rosy red of rhododendron

~the orange of remaining poppies

~the yellow of buttercup drifts in fields

~the camouflaged green blossoms that hide in snow-on-the-mountains

~the indigo-blue of lobelia

~the lavender of blossomed chives (whose tiny separated flowerets I love to sprinkle on salads and little tea sandwiches)

~the red-violet of iris, 

~and for eyes that still can see them all and discern the different shades.

*****

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Hear it Sunday, Use it Monday

Multitudes on Monday