Category: Scripture reflections

“The brimming river of God’s love”

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A commentary by Amy Carmichael on the banner scripture for this blog:

Rom 5.5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This verse seems clearly to mean that love comes first into our hearts.  Then because love has come we hope, and that hope “never disappoints,” as Weymouth puts it.

Experience worketh hope, Romans 5.4 tells us.  And so it does.  But it also worketh fear.  If we have had long experience of the weakness of souls, and seen many a time what seemed a great blaze-up of blessing fizzle out, we do become fearful of hoping too much.

And yet the word stands.  Here it is Way’s paraphrase (vv.3-5): “I will go further, and say that we actually exult in such afflictions as ours, knowing as we do that affliction develops unflinching endurance; that endurance develops tested strength, and tested strength develops the habit of hope.  This hope is no delusive one, as is proved by the fact that the brimming river of God’s love has already overflowed into our hearts, on-drawn by His Holy Spirit, which He has given to us.”

“What do we say when we are grieved and angry?”

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An encouragement from Amy Carmichael to not respond in kind when we are accused:

Mk 8.5: And he looked around them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Mk 3.21-23: And when his friends heard it, they went out to seize him, for they said, “He is beside himself.”  And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”  And he called them to him, and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?”

When our Lord had looked around on them with anger, being grieved for their hardness of heart, He said a loving word to a poor man who was probably a good deal troubled because of the excitement in the place.

What do we say when we are grieved and angry?  Do we speak a kind word to someone who needs it?

Some said: “He is beside Himself.”  Others declared: “He casts out devils by the prince of the devils.”  But He asked, How can Satan cast out Satan?  There was not a word of indignant self-defense, just a quiet question.  It was the overflow of the sweetness and peace of His heart.  When we are unkindly and unjustly accused, perhaps just when we have been helping someone, how do we react?  Perhaps there is not time for a long prayer in that moment of quick temptation, but there is always time for a look up to Him.  “Thy sweetness, Lord.  Thy peace, Lord.”

It will always be given.

How many are my foes!

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How many of you are saying (shouting) that phrase right now in your lives? “How many are my foes!”  Well, you are in good company.  David began Psalm 3 with those very words.  Three times he uses the word “many” in reference to those who were attacking him . . .

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Pope Benedict has begun a new series on prayer in his weekly Wednesday audiences.  I thought I would share with you part of his meditation on the beginning of Psalm 3.  I hope you find it as encouraging as I did.

Ps 3.1-2 O Lord, how many are my foes!  Many are rising against me; many are saying of me, there is no help for him in God.

“The prayer’s description of his situation is marked by strongly dramatic tones. Three times he repeats the idea of the multitude — ‘numerous,’ ‘many,’ ‘how many’ — which in the original text is said with the same Hebrew root, in order to underline even more the immensity of the danger in a repeated, almost relentless way. This insistence on the number and greatness of the foe serves to express the psalmist’s perception of the absolute disproportion there is between himself and his persecutors — a disproportion that justifies and forms the basis of the urgency of his request for help; the aggressors are many; they have the upper hand, while the man praying is alone and defenseless, at the mercy of his assailants.
“And yet, the first word the psalmist pronounces is ‘Lord’; his cry begins with an invocation to God. A multitude looms over and arises against him a fear that magnifies the threat, making it appear even greater and more terrifying; but the man praying does not allow himself to be conquered by this vision of death; he remains steadfast in his relationship with the God of life, and the first thing he does is turn to Him for help.
“However, his enemies also attempt to break this bond with God and to destroy their victim’s faith. They insinuate that the Lord cannot intervene; they maintain that not even God can save him. The assault, then, is not only physical but also touches the spiritual dimension: ‘The Lord cannot save him’ — they say — even the core of the psalmist’s soul is attacked.
“This is the great temptation to which the believer is subjected — the temptation to lose faith, to lose trust in the nearness of God. The just man overcomes this ultimate test; he remains steadfast in the faith, in the certainty of the truth and in full confidence in God, and it is precisely in this way that he finds life and truth. It seems to me that here the psalm touches us very personally; in so many problems we are tempted to think that perhaps not even God can save me, that He doesn’t know me, that perhaps it is not possible for Him; the temptation against faith is the enemy’s final assault, and this we must resist — in so doing, we find God and we find life.”

Tomorrow I will post his comments on the next couple of verses of Psalm 3.  Or you can read his whole meditation here.

In the land of my captivity

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I will give him thanks in the land of my captivity. (Tobit 13.6)

I have been pondering this verse all morning, thinking about how applicable it is to us all who are living in the land of our captivity.  How often do I grumble rather than give thanks?  Tobit goes on to say “I will give him thanks in the land of my captivity and I show his power and majesty to a nation of sinners.”  What a simple but powerful witness we would each be if we could just develop more of an attitude of thanksgiving and trust in the land of our captivity.  Lord, teach us how to do this.  Prompt us by your Holy Spirit to give thanks to you in all circumstances.

He knows

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Ps 103.14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
Job 23.10 He knows the way that I take: when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

“Perhaps those words, He knows, are meant for you today because God has allowed you some special trial of faith.  The love of God is very brave.  He does not hold trial off lest we should be overwhelmed.  He lets it come and then gloriously strengthens us to meet it.  And at the end, I shall come forth as gold.”  (Amy Carmichael, Whispers of His Power)

Over the flocks

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And to complete the trilogy:

1 Chron 27.31 And over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagerite.

His name meant “Shining.” Most of us have sometimes to do with camels, sometimes to do with asses, but oftenest, thank God, with the flocks of the Good Shepherd.

There was once an unhappy shepherd, Zechariah, who dismissed three under-shepherds in one month, and said, And my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me (Zech 11.8).  We have a very different flock from that committed to poor Zechariah, and quite different fellow-shepherds.  Are we half grateful enough for the joys of good fellowship?

Jaziz had a beautiful name–Shining.  No dullness, no heavy-heartedness as he tended the flocks.  God make us all to be Jazizes–happy shepherds, shining shepherds.  (Amy Carmichael)

The unoffended

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I have been fascinated with the life of John the Baptist these past few years.  Today being the Feast of his death, I cannot but help think back to an insight I gained through reading Amy Carmichael that has never left me: the notion of living a life of taking no offense at the Lord and whatever He may be about in our lives, whether we understand what He is doing or not.  I’ll let Amy speak for herself:

I have been reading Luke 1.  “With God nothing shall be impossible” [Luke 1.37].   Then I read Acts 12.  James was killed in prison; Peter was set free.  God, with whom nothing is impossible, did not answer the prayers of those who loved James in the same way as He answered prayers of those who loved Peter.  He could have done so, but He did not.  “And blessed is he who takes no offense at Me” [Luke 7.43].  The words seem to me to be written across Acts 12.  John must have wondered why the angel was not sent to James, or at least have been tempted to wonder.  Again and again in Acts the Lord Jesus seems to say those words under His breath, as it were.  Let us turn all our puzzles, all our temptations to wonder why, into opportunities to receive the blessing of the unoffended.

And now all the grief of those days has been utterly forgotten by those who loved James; they have all been together with him in the Presence of the Lord for 1900 years, and the one thing that matters now is how they lived through those days when their faith was tried to the uttermost.

So it will be with any who are longing to see the answer to their prayers for those who are in affliction, or any other adversity.  In a few years–how few we do not know, but few at most–we shall all be together in joy.  So with us, too, all that matters is how we live through these days while we are trusted to trust.   (Thou Givest . . . They Gather, p. 76)

Sometimes we see this lived out so well among the very poor or the very sick–an abandonment, a complete surrender, a unsullied trust in God and His ways.  May we too be among those who live their lives as “unoffended.”

The dry places

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Ps 105.41  He opened the rock, and water gushed forth; it flowed through the desert like a river.

Have any of us any dry places?  They may be out of sight of even loving eyes.  We may be ashamed to think there are such places when we have so much to fill our lives with song and praise, and yet there they are, dry places of longings, weariness, disappointment, difficulty of any sort, failure.

Oh, blessed be the love of God; ‘the waters . . . ran in dry places like a river.’  There is no need to go on in dryness.  ‘For the Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody’ [Is 31.3].  (Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways)

May this promise be fulfilled soon in each of us.

But how can we be happy?

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Did some of you stumble on yesterday’s post: Every day?  Perhaps this from Amy Carmichael will help you, commenting on Ps 9.1-2: I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all thy wonderful deeds.  I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High. 

Joys are always on their way to us.  They are always travelling to us through the darkness of the night.  There is never a night when they are not coming.  So the Psalm for this morning should be the word of our heart every morning.  It is the ‘Every day’ word again.  ‘Every day I will bless Thee’.

If any of you feel, But how can we be happy while we are burdened by the sins and sorrows of the world?  I say to you, ‘O thou enemy, destructions are coming to a perpetual end. . . But the Lord shall endure for ever: . . . He shall judge the world in righteousness. . . ‘[Ps 9.6-8 P.B.V.].  The day when that word will be fulfilled is on its way, it is hastening.  So in faith and in certainty we rejoice, for sin and sorrow shall not endure for ever, they have an end. ‘But the Lord shall endure for ever:’ Alleluia.  (Edges, pp. 64-65)

May God lift up your heart today . . .

Every day

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Still working through Amy Carmichael’s commentaries on various psalms.  I was struck by her words about Ps 145.2: Every day will I bless Thee; and I will praise Thy Name for ever and ever.  She writes: “Every day—that means this day.  On some days it is much easier to bless the Lord and praise Him than on other days, but there are not exceptions: ‘This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it’ (Ps 118.24).  Whatever the burdens, however sharp the conflict, the word is the same.” So this day may we each bless the Lord and rejoice in this day that He has made.  No matter what it may look like to our eyes, the spiritual reality is always the same: God is love and only love.