It is not death to die

Today's mail brought a forwarded email request for the family of a young sister we don't know. Please add them to your prayers to the God of All Comfort.

God's gifts

"I looked at Corrie. She was having a hard time keeping a straight face. The letters even at that moment were stacked so high that one of her coffee cups had been missing beneath them for weeks. And here, handed to us without our even asking for it, was God's solution."

--On the joy experienced by Brother Andrew, God's smuggler, and his wife, at the provision of a man who could serve as correspondent for their growing work.

Grace read this to me today as I worked in the kitchen and it served to remind me to acknowledge one such answer to prayer in my own life while thanking God for His gracious provision and His gracious saints. Last spring, after the winter's drought, broken sprinkler system, and months of the neighbor boys wearing a baseball diamond into my distressed back yard, I stood at the kitchen door, despairing of ever having a nice backyard again, even though I think a nice backyard is a testimony to the good stewardship of the believer's life. I am sure I asked God for help. Then came the summer rains. After that a renewed friendship with a master gardener who has already coached me well in fertilizers and insecticides, and donated the thriving firespike we are now training to hedge the back yard. And today dear Hugh Stockton dripping in the September heat finished setting the posts for the pergola he is building on which I can train the thriving grape plant David put in for me two years ago. I smile to recognize God's answer to my prayer. May He answer all my need. May I be cognizant of His inexorable but often quiet work. Praise Him from Whom all blessings flow.

In defense of smaller groups

"We believe that our particular group has grown as large as it ought to. We have stopped short of being an organization; we are an organism instead, a living and spontaneous association of individuals who know one another intimately, care for each other deeply, and feel the kind of respect one for another that makes rules and bylaws unnecessary. A group is the right size, I would guess, when each member can pray every day for every other member, individually and by name, interceding for his personal needs as well as for the success of a particular mission. But what is to prevent twenty, fifty, one hundred such groups from springing up wherever the call is heard--each obedient to its own particular genius, each working in its different way of the coming of the one Kingdom. "

--Brother Andrew in God's Smuggler

Our good works

This morning's daily Spurgeon reading is just what I need to see as I get ready for a busy week. Especially good to my soul is the recognition that all my good, all my good works, are flowing from His life in me. Praise His Holy Name.

"From Me is thy fruit found."—Hosea 14:8.

UR fruit is found from our God as to union. The fruit of the branch is directly traceable to the root. Sever the connection, the branch dies, and no fruit is produced. By virtue of our union with Christ we bring forth fruit. Every bunch of grapes have been first in the root, it has passed through the stem, and flowed through the sap vessels, and fashioned itself externally into fruit, but it was first in the stem; so also every good work was first in Christ, and then is brought forth in us. O Christian, prize this precious union to Christ; for it must be the source of all the fruitfulness which thou canst hope to know. If thou wert not joined to Jesus Christ, thou wouldst be a barren bough indeed.
Our fruit comes from God as to spiritual providence. When the dew-drops fall from heaven, when the cloud looks down from on high, and is about to distil its liquid treasure, when the bright sun swells the berries of the cluster, each heavenly boon may whisper to the tree and say, "From me is thy fruit found." The fruit owes much to the root—that is essential to fruitfulness—but it owes very much also to external influences. How much we owe to God's grace-providence! in which He provides us constantly with quickening, teaching, consolation, strength, or whatever else we want. To this we owe our all of usefulness or virtue.
Our fruit comes from God as to wise husbandry. The gardener's sharp-edged knife promotes the fruitfulness of the tree, by thinning the clusters, and by cutting off superfluous shoots. So is it, Christian, with that pruning which the Lord gives to thee. "My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Since our God is the author of our spiritual graces, let us give to Him all the glory of our salvation.

Wedding poem

Today I did my math paper using as a desk a framed rendition of a poem with photo of Cal and me at the beach that Susan made back in 2000. After Grace and I had finished our maths, she noticed this poem, written as a wedding gift by Luci Shaw 25 years ago:

Seeing the Shore--for Calvin and Deborah, November 12, 1983

At ebb tide the sands are stretched--
flat, damp, written on with the rain, woven
with a warm air from the west. Stitches
from gulls' feet join dunes with sea
as the tide moves in again
and each succeeding wave spells
a new boundary in a sweeping sentence
punctuated with foam. Its drawing back
pulls a silver foil across the slope.
The film flows, thins, clouds
like a breath-touched mirror, sinks
into the body of the shore.

Your marriage is a beach--a spread
of weeds and wet edges and shells
(pink-lipped, unanchored seeds from the
sea-floor, left in the open air at
high tide, like love-notes).
Now let the seasons shift your singing
sands, let the wind lift and level you,
let water--salt, or fresh from the sky--
shape all the grainy contours
of your joining into ribs and rivulets
and pools for snails and
sea anemones. Let the roar and roll
of breakers polish the quartz and agate
in your detritus. Like gulls, move
with the movement; have no fear; the edges
of the earth, the rims of rock are a
foundation under you. You will not
be swept out to sea.

Beauty in exile or Triage in service

Delighted by a set of beautiful pictures that a friend sent today of their beach vacation got me dwelling on beauty. Not only are her healthy children beautiful, but she is beautiful. Physically. Well kept, and well put together. In a flash I had thoughts that here I try to unravel. (Writing gets harder for me these busy days. Busy with what? Chores. Chores in my life for the kingdom. Busyness that keeps me not only from noticing and appreciating beauty, but even from making it sometimes, especially regarding myself.)

Peter had some gifts to send to his favorite little kids. It was thoughtful of him to spend his wooden nickels from the orthodontist's office on them and not on himself. He could have put the two items in a used Amazon shipping box. But, thinking that the children might have the fun of unwrapping their own gifts, we decided it would be more thoughtful to wrap each item separately before putting them in the shipping box. Looking into our stash of bags, papers, ribbons and bows we found a small jewelry box perfect for holding the gift card he'd selected for the girl, and we found the little boy's favorite color tissue paper for wrapping his gift. I was delighted to find matching colors among our hodge podge collection of wrapping materials, some of them previously used. As we wrapped the packages, I remembered how nice it is to receive beautifully wrapped things; how delightful to receive well-made cards; how I have enjoyed doing such things for others. Beauty speaks of care and reflects our Creator who delights to give us good gifts, including beauty.

Yet, it is important not to make an idol of beauty, and in these temporal lives of ours, triage often dictates that we have to let some things go. What am I so busy about that can't take time for beauty? Does God need my service here and there so much that I am missing the delight He meant for me in living? I wondered about that in a flash of insight. This life, this earth, is our momentary place of exile. It is our battleground. It is our place of cross-carrying. (How kind for God to give us the glimpses of glory here and now.) But He also commanded us exiles to plant vineyards and marry off our children in this land of exile. I delight in the beauty of order and the beauty of holiness and the beauty of service. And to give a gift is more important than to have it wrapped beautifully.