Sunday, December 30, 2007

Hindsight

It's funny how, once you've gotten over someone you were once interested in, things that were once endearing to you (like mismatched socks or quirky habits) about the person you once admired become disenchanting and ridiculous.

Of course, this thought is not the result of one specific incidence of unrequited pining, just a realization which I happened upon during a quiet moment in my head, a moment when an accumulation of loose ends actually becomes a recognizable pattern.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

One of my favorite Christmas Hymns

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
laden with fruit and always green.
The trees of nature fruitless be
compared with Christ the apple tree.

Its beauty doth all things excel;
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
the glory which I now can see
in Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought
and treasure dearly I have bought.
I missed of all, but now can see
'tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil;
here I will sit and rest awhile.
Under the shadow I will be
of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Its fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
it keeps my dying faith alive,
which makes my soul in haste to be
with Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

What Resonates

"Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We are not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration...The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ...When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers." -Maurice Roberts (The Thought of God)

What about when it's not our fault that Christ has ceased to fill the heart with satisfaction? What if it's been so long we have forgotten how it feels to sense ecstasy and delight?

The God who made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us for, "In him we live and move and have our being" -Act 17:24-28 (ESV, emphasis mine)