Barth: My kindness shall not depart

Saturday, June 17, 2017
    Commemoration of Samuel & Henrietta Barnett, Social Reformers, 1913 & 1936
Meditation:
    “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
    —Isaiah 54:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Only one thing is quite certain: [the successful man in worldly affairs] too has his time and not more than his time. One day others will come who will do the same things better. And some day he will have been completely forgotten—even if he should have built the pyramids or the St. Gotthard tunnel or invented atomic fission. And one thing is even more certain: whether the achievement of a man’s life is great or small, significant or insignificant—he will one day stand before his eternal judge, and everything that he has done and performed will be no more than a mole hill, and then he will have nothing better to do than hope for something he has not earned: not for a crown, but quite simply for gracious judgment which he has not deserved. That is the only thing that will count then, achievement or not. “My kindness shall not depart from you.” By this man lives. By this alone can he live.
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), Call for God, NY: Harper & Row, 1967, p. 16 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 54:10; Ps. 46:1-2; 121; Isa. 51:6-7; Matt. 24:35; 2 Pet. 3:10-13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my hope is in You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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