From Francis de Sales–about how much God loves you:
God’s heart so abounds in love and his good is so great and infinite that all men may possess it while no one man thereby possesses less of it. This infinite goodness can never be exhausted, even though it fill the spirits of the universe. (Treatise on the Love of God, 10.14)
God pours his love in no less measure into one soul, even though he loves an infinity of others along with it, than if he loved that soul alone. (ibid.)
“The God of Hope” hopes for us, even for us. (Amy Carmichael)
I guess it’s obvious if you look at my “Category Cloud”–scroll down the sidebar on the right–that Amy Carmichael is indeed a present and favorite author of mine. She has been consistently present in my life for many years. When I pause to consider why, the reason is simply because reading her has always fostered great hope in me. She helps me to be a witness to hope. And so I quote her often in my blog in the hopes that she will also foster hope in you.
Rom 15:13 says: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Amy begins her reflections on this verse first by looking at some other verses in Scripture, verses that seem contradictory and surprising: In Lk 22.28, Jesus says: You are those who have continued with me in my trials. Yet, just a few hours later, he says: Could you not watch with me one hour? And then (Mt 26.56): Then all the disciples forsook him and fled.
Another set of conflicting verses: In Jn 17.6, Jesus says to His Father: They have kept Your word. Yet we know differently–as is so evident in Lk 22.24, describing their activity right after the institution of the Eucharist (!) (but who am I to judge?!): A dispute arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.
And so Amy wonders: How could Jesus say: They have kept Your word.
How could He say it? What does it mean to us? Just this: Our Lord of Love, our blessed Lord Jesus, looks upon us with such loving eyes that He sees us as we are in our deepest, lowliest, holiest moments, in those hours when, like John, we lean upon His bosom, and He speaks to us, and we all but see His face.
He knows, as no one else can know, how far we fall. “Not as though I had already attained”–He knows that; but “I press on”–He knows that, too.
The love of the Father has the same golden quality of hope. “The God of Hope” hopes for us, even for us. He never loses hope. He accepted the word of His beloved Son: “They have kept [intently observed] Thy word”, in spite of times when they had seemed most grievously to disregard it–when for example at our Lord’s own table they strove about the dreadful matter of pre-eminence. The God of Hope saw what they wished to be, what they yet would be. And He looks at us like that. Is there not something in this that touches us to the quick? How grieve a love like that? And is there not encouragement, too, for the strengthening of our souls?
(Edges of His Ways, p. 145)
Let us, in the middle of any difficult situations we may be, choose to put our trust not in the quality of our faith, but in God’s desire to deal bountifully with us.
The verse, “How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me for ever?” in yesterday’s meditation by Amy Carmichael caught my heart, so I decided to do a little scripture study on the psalm from which it comes, Ps. 113. I remember distinctly a time quite a few years ago when I was going through a very dark time in prayer. Not only did God seem distant, I couldn’t even find Him. I was on retreat at a Trappistine abbey, and I remember a prayer time there when I cried out to the Lord with very similar words to David’s: “Lord, have You forgotten me?” I did not hear an answer, but, needless to say, there was grace to keep persevering in prayer.
Psalm 13 is short, only six verses. The first four express the psalmist’s distress, both in his relationship with God, but also with the enemy. These are verses that we all have, or will pray, someday. But what struck me the most yesterday as I was pondering the psalm, were the last two verses:
But I have trusted in thy steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Anyone can pray the first four verses, but it takes faith, hope, and a great confidence in the Lord to pray those last two. Listen to Derek Kidner’s comments on these two verses:
The I of verse 5 is emphatic (as in NEB, etc.: ‘But for my part, I . . .’), and so, to a lesser degree, is thy steadfast love. However great the pressure, the choice is still his to make, not the enemy’s; and God’s covenant remains. So the psalmist entrusts himself to this pledged love, and turns his attention not to the quality of his faith but to its object and its outcome, which he has every intention of enjoying. The basic idea of the word translated dealt bountifully is completeness, which NEB interprets attractively as ‘granted all my desire’. But RSV can hardly be bettered, since it leaves room for God’s giving to exceed man’s asking. As for the past tense in which it is put, this springs evidently from David’s certainty that he will have such a song to offer, when he looks back at the whole way he has been led. (emphasis added)
Let us, in the middle of any difficult situations we may be, choose to put our trust not in the quality of our faith, but in His desire to deal bountifully with us.
If you feel like Jesus may pass you by, have hope–He is coming to you.
The title of this post comes from a meditation by Amy Carmichael on Ps 107.29-30: He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. I have to say that my first thought after reading Then they were glad because they had quiet, were: “This verse must mean a lot to parents of toddlers and teenagers!” Amy’s reflection was other–and deeper–than mine 🙂
“Then they were glad because they had quiet;” the words were music to me. Then in reading the different stories of the Lord calming the sea, I found this: “He came to them . . . and meant to pass by them” [Mk 6.48]. The more literal the translation the more startling it is. As I pondered the matter I saw that this “age-long minute” was part of the spiritual preparation of these men for a life that at that time was unimagined by them–a life of dauntless faith and witness in the absence of any manifestation of the power of the Lord; and it must be the same today. Such minutes must be in our lives, unless our training is to be unlike that of ever saint and warrior who ever lived. Our “minute” may seem endless–“How long wilt Thou forget me,” cried David out of the depths of his–but perhaps looking back we shall in such an experience a great and shining opportunity. Words are spoken then that are spoken at no other time . . . We have a chance to prove our glorious God, to prove that His joy is strength and that His peace passeth all understanding, and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.
And the “minute” always ends in one way, there is no other ending recorded anywhere: “But immediately he spoke to them, and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; have no fear” . . . and the wind ceased” [Mk 6.50].
“Then they were glad because they had quiet; and he brought them to their desired haven.”
(Edges of His Ways, pp. 143-44)
If you feel that you are in “an age-long minute”, have hope–He is coming to you and will bring you to your desired haven.
Find that little speck of good in every person–including yourself.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov wrote this:
Know this: You should judge every person by his merits. Even someone who seems to be completely wicked, you must search and find that little speck of good, for in that place, he is not wicked. By this you will raise him up, and help him return to G-d. And you must also do this for yourself, finding your own good points, one after the other, and raising yourself up. This is how melodies are made, note after note.
The gospel today (about the Good Samaritan) brought the picture below to mind. It can be found on the cover of Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis’ commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel. (See Books tab above.) 
This is how the back of the book describes this picture:
The book’s cover portrays Christ as the Good Samaritan in an illumination taken from the mid sixth-century Syrian Codex Rossanensis. The fire of God’s mercy, poured out without reserve by the Father into the Heart of his incarnate Word, impels the Son’s eager gaze earthwards. Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, the living ‘image of the invisible God’ in whom ‘the whole fullness of divinity dwells bodily’ (Colossians 1:15, 2:9), bends down his sun-like nimbus—the very splendor of his glory, inscribed with the cross of his suffering—in a full ninety-degree angle, to show the perfection of His descent among us. The eternal Lord of the ages thus moves into position to nurse with divine tenderness the green body of decaying humanity, prostrate with festering wounds: ‘Through the tender mercy of our God, the Dawn from on high has visited us, to give knowledge of salvation to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death’ (Luke 2:78f). For his part, the dazzling angel has found a new mode of praise: to stand by his Master, marveling and ministering as he holds the gold bowl of grace and compassion, awestruck at the depth of the Word’s condescension. What even angelic hands cannot touch unveiled, that Christ lavishes with open gesture upon the flesh and soul of his beloved brother, sin-wounded man.
Sometimes I just sit and meditate on how I am that green man lying in the road and try to imagine Christ standing over me pouring out His mercy–that even the angels cannot touch–upon me. Peguy says: “It was because a man lay on the road that a Samaritan picked him up. It is because we lay on the road that Christ picks us up . . .
This is a powerful Easter poem by Luci Shaw. I know it’s not the Easter season, but I think it’s at times like these–as we’re moving into the physically darker seasons of fall and winter, and sometimes simultaneously darker emotional seasons for some of us–that we need to remember that we are always an Easter people.
Open
John 20:19, 26Doubt padlocked one door and
Memory put her back to the other.
Still the damp draught seeped in, though
Fear chinked all the cracks and
Blindness boarded up the window.
In the darkness that was left
Defeat crouched, shivering,
In his cold corner.Then Jesus came
(all the doors being shut)
and stood among them.Luci Shaw
I find it comforting to know that Mary is always there as a mother for us to turn to:
And in moments of weariness, raise your eyes to Mary, the Virgin who, forgetting herself, set out ‘with haste’ for the hills to reach her elderly cousin Elizabeth who was in need of help and assistance. Let her be the inspiration of your daily dedication to duty; let her suggest to you the right words and opportune gestures at the bedside of the sick; let her comfort you in misunderstandings and failures, helping you always keep a smile on your face and a hope in your heart. (John Paul II, Rome 1979)
Which reminds me of another wonderful quote, this time from Bernard:
O you, whoever you are, who feel that in the tidal wave of this world you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales than treading on dry land, if you do not want to founder in the tempest, do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star. When the wind of temptation blows up within you, when you strike upon the rock of temptation, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. Whether you are being tossed about by the waves of pride or ambition or slander or jealousy, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. When rage or greed or fleshly desires are battering the skiff of your soul, gaze up at Mary. When the immensity of your sins weighs you down and you are bewildered by the loathsomeness of your conscience, when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favor of her prayer. Following her, you will never go astray. Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end.
“Have you ever looked back over a month and felt more than a little disheartened over the failures and mistakes–the blots on the page you had meant to keep so white?” (Amy Carmichael)
Another gem from Amy Carmichael–she’s always such a witness to hope for me:
Isaiah 52.12 The God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Have you ever looked back over a month and felt more than a little disheartened over the failures and mistakes–the blots on the page you had meant to keep so white?
There is a most beautiful and tender meaning in the words “rear guard” which again and again has comforted me. It may be new to some of you. It means to gather. The Revised Version margin has, to gather you up. An army as it goes forth into new territory needs a Vanguard to protect the van [Note: a van is the foremost or front division of an army], and a Rearguard to protect the rear, so our glorious God use us these two words in speaking of His loving work to us-ward. The Lord will go before us. Our Vanguard is the Lord. And the Lord God of Israel will be our Rearguard–following after, not only to defend us, should the enemy attack in the rear, as he often does, but to gather us up if we flag and are wary because of the way. And if He gathers us up, He gathers up also the things we have dropped, our poor fallen resolutions, mistakes, everything, and deals with them Himself. There is eternal love and tenderness in these dear words, “The Lord God of Israel shall gather you up.” Not only that, The glory of the Lord shall be your Rear guard (Is. 58.8).
So, as we travel on into another month we need not fear, Eternal Love is our Vanguard, the glory of Eternal Love is our Rearguard. The everlasting Arms of Everlasting Love shall gather us up.
Someone said to me a few years ago: “We don’t choose our favorite saints; they choose us.” I feel just that way about St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She’s been a good friend for a long time. I’ll let her speak for herself:
Perfection seems easy to reach. I realize that it is sufficient to recognize one’s own nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child in the arms of God. (LT 226)
The poorer you are the more Jesus will love you. He will go far, very far, in search of you, if at times you wander off a little. (LT 211)
Keep in mind the method used to make copper objects shine. You smear them all over with mud, with things that make them dirty and dull; after this operation, they will shine again like gold. Okay! Temptations are like this mud for the soul: they serve for nothing less than to make the virtues which are opposed to these same temptations to shine forth. (CRM 51)
Love knows how to draw profit from everything: from the good and from the bad that is found in us. (LT 142)
O, Mary, if I were Queen of Heaven, and you were Thérèse, I would wish to be Thérèse so that you could be Queen of Heaven.
More quotes from St. Thérèse can be found here.
Witnesses to Hope 