Note to a battle-scarred friend

May God give you and me much grace to look steadily at the beauty of Christ instead of the bitterness of our finite souls. Cal remarked yesterday on Luke 6:35 which ends with "for He is kind to the unthankful and evil." You speak unbelief when you fear that God will hurt you, "dump" you. Do not measure God by your externalities, but only by His eternal and faithful Word. Nor measure His love for you by your beauty and usefulness and success. His kindness is infinite and extends to the unthankful and the evil, and His justice dealt with our own evil through the obedience of Christ.

As I was out walking in the cool, wet air this morning I wanted to rub my hand through the droplets on a parked car. Something Dad would have done. But I would have rebuked him for the irritation it might cause some owner, or for a car alarm it could set off. How our society has changed--so much hardness and selfishness and anger and confusion. This breeds bitterness in me, unless I trust the things God has taught in His eternal Word, and look ahead, beyond this, to fellowship in perfection with Him and His bride. May we submit to the hardnesses and ugliness and harms here as wisely designed by an all-sovereign God for our Christlikeness. May He grant us small signs of progress.

Trust Him. Not your fallible and skewed view of things.