van Dyke: time

April 7, 2009

Meditation:
    Love is patient...
    -- 1 Corinthians 13:4a (NIV)

Quotation:
        Time is
    Too Slow for those who Wait,
    Too Swift for those who Fear,
    Too Long for those who Grieve,
    Too Short for those who Rejoice;
        But for those who Love,
            Time is not.
    ... Henry van Dyke (1852-1933), The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, C. Scribner's Sons, 1920, p. 259 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may never begrudge time to one in need.

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Carlyle: illusion and reality

April 6, 2009
    Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564

Meditation:
    Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
    -- Proverbs 9:8 (NIV)

Quotation:
    Sweep away the illusion of Time; glance, if thou have eyes, from the near moving-cause to the far-distant Mover. The stroke that came transmitted through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and sent flying? Oh, could I transport thee direct from the Beginnings to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy heart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder! Then sawest thou that this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star, through every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a present God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish.
    ... Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Sartor Resartus, 2nd ed., Philadelphia: Munroe & Co., 1837, p. 267 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I witness Your hand in the universe.

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Williams: effective sending

April 5, 2009
    Palm Sunday

Meditation:
    [Jesus:] "When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say."
    -- Luke 12:11,12 (NIV)

Quotation:
    No man ever did, nor ever shall, truly go forth to convert the nations, nor to prophesy in the present state of witnesses against Antichrist, but by the gracious inspiration and instigation of the Holy Spirit of God... I prejudice not an external test and call, which was at first and shall be again in force at the resurrection of the churches, ... but in the present state of things I cannot but be humbly bold to say that I know no other true sender but the most Holy Spirit. And when He sends, His messengers will go, His prophets will prophesy, though all the world should forbid them.
    ... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), The Hireling Ministry [1652], pp. 3-4 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know the touch of Your Spirit.

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Owen: objecting to rebirth

April 4, 2009

Meditation:
    Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
    -- John 1:12,13 (NIV)

Quotation:
    Let them pretend what they please, the true reason why any despise the new birth is because they hate a new life. He that cannot endure to live to God will as little endure to hear of being born of God.
    ... John Owen (1616-1683), Pneumatologia: Or, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, III.1 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You love and protect the new man from sin.

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MacDonald: the most perfect faith

April 3, 2009

Meditation:
    If you make the Most High your dwelling--even the LORD, who is my refuge--then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
    -- Psalm 91:9,10 (NIV)

Quotation:
    The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home.” Such a faith will not lead to presumption. The man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another, that God is not mocked; that He is not a man that He should repent; that tears and entreaties will not work on Him to the breach of one of His laws; that for God to give a man because he asked for it that which was not in harmony with His laws of truth and right, would be to damn him—to cast him into the outer darkness.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Child in the Midst,” Unspoken Sermons, Series One [1867] (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    You have taught me to desire Your will.

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Pascal: two kinds of men

April 2, 2009

Meditation:
    When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
    On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
    -- Mark 2:16,17 (NIV)

Quotation:
    There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.
    ... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées [1660] (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    You have shown my my unrighteousness, Lord.

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Maurice: children

April 1, 2009
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872

Meditation:
    As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
    -- Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV)

Quotation:
    We do not cease to be children because we are disobedient children.
    ... Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), The Kingdom of Christ, New York: D. Appleton, 1843, pp. 266-267. (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have not deserved to be Your child.

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