Contemplating

April 24, 2011

I shared this link recently.  Because I thought it was impacting and full of much needed truth.

We need to know the truth that the emptiness, hollowness in our lives can glorify our God just as much, sometimes even more than, fullness.

When we are full, it is hard for Him to pour into us. But when we are emptied of ourselves, that is when He can overflow us with Himself. And we can see Him glorified in ways we can't imagine.

 

So the words of that post have lingered in my mind the last couple of weeks. The words of the song echo in my head at random times.

 

This morning I sat in church. Resurrection Sunday. Listening to a recounting of the events of that morning long ago. 

Our pastor's emphasis landed somewhere I hadn't anticipated.

The empty tomb. The beauty of the emptiness of the tomb. How amazing that image should be to us. The powerful significance of the tomb being empty.

And I heard the echo in my mind….

We know the beauty of the empty tomb, because we know the whole story.

But those women that morning….in that small moment after they realized the tomb was empty and before they had been comforted with the reality that their Lord had conquered death…. that empty tomb must have been despair. Sorrow upon sorrow. 

Often the emptiness in our lives can be the same. We are in the place where all we can see is the empty. We don't know why we are staring at emptiness, and we feel defeated by it. 

BUT, our Lord has conquered death. And just like we can look with hindsight on that empty tomb and see something beautiful, we have to know that every empty space in our own lives will be just as amazing when we can one day see the whole story.

Our pastor's words… how amazing is the image of emptiness in the life of the believer.

I want to come to all of the empty places in my own life and be reminded of those women at the tomb. And how the despair was only for a moment before God's glory blazed from that empty tomb.

"Glory to God! Glory to God!
This is how emptiness sings"

 


Word-Full….er…Thursday

September 9, 2010

Sorry. I'm a day late! Oh well.

I really love this, and I just read it today, so if I had posted on time I wouldn't have been able to share it. :)

 

Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls of others.  But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature.  It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.   We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil.

-Oswald Chambers

Word-Full Wednesday

August 18, 2010

 

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future.  Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment "as to the Lord".  It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for.  The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

-C.S. Lewis
Learning in War Time

Word-Full Wednesday

July 7, 2010

 

 

 

Every freedom can be taken away from man except one,

and that is the freedom to choose your attitude.

-Elie Wiesel

 

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