Are you too easily pleased? C S Lewis

 

                                                Are You Too Easily Pleased?

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing...I submit that this notion is no-part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of rewards and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased."

     -- C S Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

(He wants to do so much more for us!)

The Art of Being Wise - Abraham Lincoln

 "A man's wisdom gives him patience. It is his glory to overlook an offense" (Proverbs 19:2).

I read once that the art of being wise is the the art of knowing what to overlook -- part of what this verse teaches us!

To overlook someone's offenses allows us to drop our pretentions and defenses (in my case usually pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness) and just humbly drop the burden and move on.

And we can choose to do that!

Abraham Lincoln chose to overlook an important offense -- he was wise.  Once his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, called him "a damned fool." Lincoln didn't retaliate in any way. He didn't relieve Stanton of duty, didn't come back with an angry retort, didn't replace him, argue in any way. Didn't try to make Stanton look bad.

Lincoln simply responded, "Mr. Stanton is very smart. He is usually right, and I usually agree with him. And he usually means what he says. So I must be a damned fool."

By being neither offensive or defensive, Lincoln killed the story! If he had responded others would have gotten involved, the press would hear about it and promote it and the fight would continue ad nauseum. (It certainly would have made the history books! Sort of like what would happen today!). Think about it -- have you ever heard this story before? No, I just dug it out of an old journal...by responding as he did, Lincoln killed the story forever! He was wise....

By the way, their friendship survived this challenge and apparently when Lincoln was fatally shot, Stanton was the one who announced, "Now he belongs to the ages," indicating he understood Lincoln's greatness.

Overlooking offenses give us joyous freedom!

Remember, "Love covers a multitude of sins." And "love is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs..." And we are told repeatedly that God Himself keeps no records of our wrongs!

We should always keep the big picture in mind -- petty offenses have no effect on God's big picture. They are meaningless.

Prayer for today: "As You have been to me, loving Father, help me to be to others today."

A well is not a stream.....

The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," the woman said, "You have nothing to draw and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
                                            ----John 4:9-14


Jesus offered the woman "living water."

What did that mean? In Jewish speech the phrase "living water" meant water that was flowing, not water that was stagnant, as in a cistern or a well.

Fresh, flowing water would always be preferred over
well water.

So the woman He was speaking to naturally thought of a stream.

She seems skeptical. Here was a man who thought he could produce better, finer water than did her ancestor Jacob.

After all, had Jacob known of a stream he certainly would not have taken the trouble to dig a well, probably a hundred feet deep.

He goes on to talk about living water that cures thirst forever. Not only that, it becomes a spring inside us that wells up continually.

No one as ever seen a well of water spring up. Only the water in a spring springs up.

The water in a well just lies there.

So Jesus is not talking about a well at all.

The woman had come to a well. Jesus has invited her to a spring.

Now He adds that if she allows Him to place this spring in her, the spring will never cease but will continue to bubble and bubble on forever.

Perhaps you want to build a house on a piece of property on which there is a well. But you don't want the well -- you will have city water.

You will just ask the bulldozers to push some dirt into the well and the well will be gone forever.

This won't work with a spring on your property. (Of course, you probably wouldn't want to stop up a lovely spring of fresh water, but if you did you would find it a much more difficult task.)

You could push a large pile of dirt over the spring and it might appear to have stopped the flow. But by morning, the stream will be there again, simply by pushing its way through the ground.

A well can be covered. A spring seeps through anything you may place over it.

That's what Jesus is talking about. He is promising to place a spring within the life of anyone who will come to Him.

His spring will be eternal, free, joyous, and self-dependent.

But He is also warning us that we will never be able to stop it - we can't bulldoze anything over it to stop its flow!

We might try -- I know I have.

Sometimes His Presence in my life has seemed inconvenient and maybe intrusive - certainly He seemed to interfere with my plans.

So I tried to "put a plug on it" and go my own way.

But, like the stream the builder tried to cover up with dirt, my life became muddy water.

Obviously, muddy water did not come from the stream itself -- the stream water was clean and pure -- it was because I pushed dirt into the water source that it produced filthy, not fresh and clean, water!

So I came back to the Source of the Living Water, to Jesus, and asked Him to clean me up again - to remove the dirt and grime and let His lovely sparkling water flow freely again!

It took some work, but He did it!

And if I mess up again, He'll certainly clean me up again. I'm confident of that.

Being confident of this, that He who began

a good work in you will carry it on to completion

until the day of Christ Jesus.  

Philippians 1:6

Thoughts of an old Monk

I'm reading a great book: "On Loving God" by Bernard of Clairvaux, written about 900 years ago.

We often think of these ancient saints as rigid and austere.
And we are often wrong. He is loving and joyous in his writing
and displays those attitudes in simple, yet dignified, language.

He also wrote a favorite hymn: "Jesus, the Very Thought of  Thee."

Here are some of the lines:

   "Jesus, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast.
   But sweeter, still, Thy face to see and in Thy presence rest.

   O hope of every contrite heart, O joy of all the meek
   To those who fall how kind Thou art, how good to all who seek!

    But what of those who find? Ah, this no pen or tongue can show
   -the love of Jesus, what it is, none but His loved ones know!"

Sort of reminds me of a more modern hymn, "And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own....and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known!"

These words are from "In the Garden,"  a favorite of my father's, written about 100 years ago by Charles Austin Miles.

My Dad's favorite line was: "He speaks and the sound of His voice is so sweet, the bird hush their singing!"  (My favorite line, too!)

So wouldn't it be glorious to meet these two men someday and
"Jesus talk" with them!  Maybe we will!

What I Missed at Christmas

                                                         What I Missed at Christmas

It feels so strange. Christmas only a few weeks away, but it feels like it was months ago!

Now I remember what I missed this year!

I never heard the Hallelujah Chorus! I never heard any of The Messiah!

Feels like I missed the best part of the season!

Our ancestors were right to celebrate both comings of Christ at Christmas -- not only His appearance in disguise as a baby born at Bethlehem,  but also His victorious return in the future to reign in power and glory as King of Kings!

I am focusing on the Hallelujah Chorus right now - I have the words playing on my phone and also Alexa to give a sort of stereo affect -- Sing with me --

"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ!

And He shall reign forever and ever!

King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

And He shall reign forever and ever!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

Now I feel like we've truly celebrated Christmas....but nothing like we will in the future when we see it all happen with our own blessed eyes! 

Hallelujah!