Better Than Two Cast Iron Tubs

Life is… one darn thing after another, according to Mark Twain. There is no shield or buffer, particularly in tough times. There are real and imagined threats. We can even multi-task, invading the future to tap into the anxiety of things that haven’t happened yet.

So what’s a man to do (emphasis on “man”)? It is hard enough to keep your own head on, much less worry about the heads of others, especially that significant other, the wife.

Jesus offers a special benefit to hanging out close to Him. It is referred to as “the washing of water with the Word.” This is what Jesus does to the church, and practically, to all who walk close to Him.

The effects of this life are toxic and cling to us. We need to be washed daily. Our hearts are also toxic, and incited by life, it begins to fill our blood with impurities. Staying close to Christ means that His Word washes us. He supplies us with daily dialysis, clearing the stuff out of our blood. How do you know if someone is close to Christ? They behave and smell like they are clean and they act healthy. Paul says, “but if one loves God, one is known by Him.” It is involuntary. You love Him, you hang out with Him and you’re getting fresh and clean and refreshed, and you get known by what He does to you.

For a guy, it means that life gets centered in Christ. You have the Word working in you to give balance and perspective, trust and determination, love and reliance. What we read is used by the Spirit. We see Abraham and Sarah waiting and we are convicted and think about our waiting. We see David surprised by the loss of everything and we learn to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. And it goes on and on. None of this is easy and it means staying close to Him even when we could do other stuff. It’s amazing how it works.

I notice the effect it has on me to be washed in the Word in my reading and in memorizing and the often subtle effect of God’s Truth and Spirit being there with me to help me or caution me or to advise me everyday and in every situation. It really is cool and I think this is what it is supposed to be.

So then, as a guy, I read Ephesians 5 where it says that husbands loving their wives they should follow Christ’s example and give themselves to sanctify her by the washing of water with the Word.

Especially in the situation we’re in, I notice how calming and helpful it is that Laura is in the Word and that we are reading the same stuff. When I come in we have a short discussion almost everyday about something she read. We go over the discipleship stuff for “future ministry” but really, it is to wash us in the Word now. Even today, talking about Grace and reading the prodigal son was good.

I think this is supposed to be the ministry of a husband to his wife, doing as Christ does to His church. How many years have I told my wife “stuff?” Sometimes it helps and sometimes not. I’ve prayed a lot. But if I understand what God is saying here, like Christ, I am to set her aside for the Lord and to lead her by sharing with her in the Word. As God is working in me, I am to be with her making this a part of our lives, allowing the Spirit to cleanse us and keep us soothed in the Word. It has to be true of me before the Lord, and I have to be pursuing it with Laura. The effect is to present her to Christ with splendor, without spot or wrinkle, that she may be holy and without blemish.

How many wives are resigned with frustration or riddled with anxiousness and their husbands are no help. The truth might be that the husband can’t help. Whoever said a man could meet an essential need that only God can meet. Hook up a 3 volt battery to a semi and try to crank it up. It would eat the battery without a peep or the slightest movement. Only the Lord can care for the deepest needs. So the husband is to gently lead his wife to the stream of the Word and is to develop the habit with His wife to spend time washing together in the Word. Happy is the man whose wife loves the Lord and the Word and will do this. Happy is the wife whose husband loves Christ and gets this. It’s better than having two cast iron tubs next to each other in the back yard and the neighbors won’t call the cops.

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

You can’t keep life out, but you can keep clean. Christ doesn’t take us out of the world, He just promises to live with us, closely, dining with us, hanging out, cleansing us as we get the job done He left us here to do. People notice you don’t smell and they get curious. They see your calmness and balance and perspective, and they wonder. They see a marriage without toxins and wonder how that happened. It’s all in the company we keep and the washing of water with the Word.

Naturally: The gospel as joy and hope and glory

In my mind, because of church experience and the way it is done, I think of the Gospel as a presentation of truth, the truth about Jesus and what He did. I’m sure that’s what it is.

But maybe the Gospel is first and foremost really a presentation of Joy. Maybe we got it wrong side forwards.

When Paul describes what the witness of a church should look like, he says, “Romans 15:5 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So here are the elements:

In harmony with one another…one mind, the unity of the faith…

In accord with Christ….His mission and commission…until we all attain to…the knowledge of the son of God, mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, abiding in Christ.

Now comes the witness…together with one voice glorifying the God and Father.

I think everyone can glorify God for what He has done in Christ. To “glorify” simply means to shine light on something, like pointing to a sign or a mountain. A couple of verses later it says that Christ came so that the Gentiles might glorify God because of His mercy. If God were a cool video we could say, “Hey, take a look at this,” and show it. If God were a grandchild, we could whip a photo out of our wallets and say, “Hey, look at my grandkid.” If God was God we could just…..but we’re not really too proud of Him. And worse, we’re not really too happy about what He did for us or in us. Or are we?

Do we need a class on how to glorify God, how to express our thanks, or show our gratefulness in front of others? If we do need a class, we are to be pitied. What have we become? How did we limit all of this to musical hour on Sunday? “Therefore do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord…” Just say how happy you are? If you won a million dollars you would be happy and tell people. Spiritually and really, you did better than that. If you met Tom Cruise or Oprah or the Queen, you’d let people know. Well? And if you had been miraculously set free from a terrorists' fort where you were about to be killed and a black ops team did an amazing A-Team type extraction, you’d let people know. Well?

Paul says in Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” I sense that this is a leaky kind of hope that people would see, and they’d come up to you and say, “Hey I don’t know if you know this, but you’re covered with hope and sort of leaving a trail.”

The more I think of how natural our witness is to be, the more I realize that it has to be the natural result of Joy, not apologetics. Our confession is in worship…at His feel in grateful submission and thanks and then serving Him on our feet in doing love and acts of Spirit-inspired kindness to our neighbor for Christ as the Holy Spirit shows us. And we live in joy and hope and express as much.

Joy and glorifying God for His mercy seems to me to be the natural, built-in witness to Christ that each person and the church as a group, is meant to unleash. We make it hard on ourselves and neglect our calling by making our joy private and small. His love is public and generous and leaky and it left a trail…of blood.

Crashes in the Kingdom

Over the past week my reading was in the uncomfortable period of David’s life that I’m sure he wishes hadn’t happened. Funny to think that he was a great man, but God doesn’t spare him from the eternal public humiliation of what he did and how it changed his life, family, and heart.

Paul’s words echo here, “Let any man who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall.”

So last week 2 pastors were “fired.”  I know the men on both sides of the malfunction. Men are not good at dealing with long-term tension, either in treating it with grave seriousness while it’s small, or in the heat of the moment being patient to work out the right closure. It doesn’t matter if we have a million books and wrote a million more, the flesh rebels, defeats the law of the mind and takes us captive. This leaves the state of man and the state of following Christ in a state of random flux. Anything can happen. Don’t assume rationality will win the day.

You watch men fall, though not deep, just fall. We baptize our arrogance as a right, a mere failing. But the crash was still there and people suffer on both sides. Who has wisdom for all of this? How long do you stick it out, praying for help, and when does wisdom wake you and you realize that it is time to go?

And so the kingdom of God moves on slowly amidst our fumbling and crashing. If it were not for God, this would be a total wash and wreck.

And then there is Paul, the failed man. You may say he failed early and got it out of the way, but what a crash. Killing, beating, arresting Christians and then, poof, he is one. Three days of blindness to review the carnage. And Paul never forgot this….to me, though I am the least of all saints this grace was given….unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God….I am the chief of sinners, this last one within a couple years of the end of his life.

So I land again at Phil. 3….I press on to make it my own because Christ has made me his own. You get a picture here of a man living every moment with grave concentration on following Christ, fully aware of his heart but seeking to give honor to Christ in everything. It’s like if someone threw you a dart and you had to catch it, or if someone threw you a baby, deep, deep concentration. And what was the reason, to be sinless, to be perfect for the sake of being sinless and perfect, no, it was because Christ had made Paul his own and given him the blessings and power of the universe for a specific task. Paul pursued Christ.

If someone gave you a plane and paid all the fees, paid all the gas and all the maintenance and inspections, you’d be nuts not to fly it and as often as you could, and imagine if there was a task associated with the plane. You’d want to fly it often and perfectly and, of course, avoid all crashes. It would be out of honor and appreciation, but there would be a sense of fun and thrill and trying to hone your ability with this unique gift and privilege.

And so what do you learn about the church and its crashes? That God forgives and restores and uses all the calamity of His children to teach them, move them, break them, and dissatisfy them until they want nothing more than humbly, with full concentration, pursuing Jesus to honor Him for His incredible grace and forgiveness. And then this “thing” he has put into our hand, the life and the mission, takes on the awe and fun it was meant to have as we strap ourselves in, taxi out to the end of the runway, release the brake, give it full throttle and head for the sky.

This time, we hope, without the crash.

Waiting when it hurts

Exactly 4 weeks later. What ups and downs. Heroic faith and a flop. Reading of Saul and David. Heroic faith and a flop.

Theology is easy. Following is difficult, especially with a nature that rebels and insists that God takes too long. Waves seem to be the invitations to doubt. Drowning doesn’t appear to have an upside, even if our flaying to stay alive means we have to disobey the author of life. There are days you wish God would just blow the trumpet and get this over with.

So, the Lord asks us to wait. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. I guess this means that in waiting, you lose strength. Didn’t see that coming. Saul waited and lost strength as he saw the people leaving him. David was anointed and waited for years…a couple in Ziglag and then 7 in Hebron, to be fully made king. I guess waiting is draining….no, let me say it distinctly, waiting is very draining.

And to think, God asks us to do it. And sometimes it is because we’ve made all the right decisions. Obey the Lord…and it produces a result, but not a comfortable one. Elijah prayed for it not to rain. God took care of him for a while, but then the brook dried out. Now what? Go to starving widow. You just go, trusting, waiting.

Waiting means, eventually, obeying and looking to the Lord. Eventually, because finally there is nothing left to do. No distractions or small forays forward meet the need for which you await an answer. You act to do the nitty-gritty of living with a drying creek, but His word is the release. And where will His word find us. That is the rub or worry. Will we have lost weight, lost possessions, lost credibility, lost everything?

Yet, what do we really lose if we wait. We gain faith and eventually we gain renewed strength. But for me, I want to gain Christ. I’m tired of not “getting it.” I want Him. Paul wanted this too and seemed to find it, following Him in the mission, learning the secret of contentment in all circumstances, in plenty and hunger, in abundance and want. He learned to do all things through Him who strengthens.

So the ship sits in the ocean with no breeze to drive it. You wait. The creek dries and the throat is parched and the birds have not returned. You wait. The armies of the philistines gather and the troops give up. You wait. A promise is made, but you despair in waiting. And still, you wait. God works everything for good with those who love Him, who are called according to HIS purpose. And so we wait, for “they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

You Can’t Lose.

What is the highest goal? I have to answer “Glorifying God.” The reason I have to say this is that everyone does. It is the least common denominator, the number that can’t be reduced, the goal when all the goals are finished. It’s the last goal standing….sort of. When evangelism and lost people are a thing of the past, our sin is gone, and we see Him face to face, we will still live to glorify God. That’s what the theologians and catechism writers say.

But the question is, “How do you glorify Him? What is the context?” This question is more interesting and practical. A dying person, an over worked mother, a burdened husband, a teenager, the poor, the disabled, the successful, the failed, do we all have something that we can see that makes our work and life and effort the same and fulfilling? What makes sense of life when life makes no sense, or when life is so routine we could spit, or when everything seems to be going in the totally wrong direction? When God seems absent and the unrighteous get the over hand, is there still something God wants us to do? Glorify Him? Sure, but how? Let’s face it, even the Bible doesn’t give us the idea that we should be shouting for joy even in the darkest moments of our soul. So what does God’s goal for us look like? What is the real goal of our lives.

I think it is learning more of & knowing God. That explains Moses following sheep 40 years in the wilderness. It explains 14 years of obscurity for Paul. In fact, it explains 2.5 years in jail for Paul, the apostle on steroids, sitting on his hands in Caesarea Philippi. It explains Jesus knocking on the door and calling for us to open.

Paul says in Phil. 3. I count everything as refuse for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and might share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death…. Paul wasn’t done learning of / knowing Christ. It drove him because Christ had known Paul.

To learn of Him and know Him is the goal, 24/7, and then to let Him shine through us. Certainly He brings those times of learning of Him to use when we tell others of Him. Nothing is wasted, in fact, the primary goal, even in disaster, is to learn of Him. All of our goals are extremely secondary, even in trying to serve Him. His view of success is us learning, not completing any particular project, in fact, “dead-ending” our project may be His will to bring us to the emotional point of learning. The Father prunes to increase our fruitfulness, but that pruning, involves entering the classroom of chaos, the divinely designed place of pressure, the bewilderment of fear or defeat, maybe even the valley of death. A project that explodes or leaves us wondering what went wrong. A new place in life that is just hard. When we are trapped in a routine of mind-numbing tiredness and sameness.

A tale of 3 couples. What would be the chances that I’d have the occasion to express all of this to 3 couples on the same day? In some regards, all similar situations. Kids consume their days and lives. Life is not the “Hey, let’s just go…” thing it was before. Serving God involves strollers and messes and tiredness and diapers. When will this all be over so I can finally get something done? But this is a predestined, divinely made, holy place. What about our goals? This is the only goal, learn of Him here. What about the work? That is a side issue. Here is where you learn to love God, and balance life, and obey His Word, and learn of Him. This is not an accident. You have been selected to take part in this course of study. Too often we confuse achievement with finishing a task rather than learning to Love Christ and to Know Him. This is what He wants. You concentrate on loving your “next one” and you learn to enter into God’s heart. Those who know and love God will always be reaching out to the lost because they have the heart of God. They will always be fruitful. They will know that success and fulfillment are on our lips and in our hearts, not far away. It is to hear Him now and know Christ.

So these fishermen have been up all night. Maybe for a little they have been talking about this rabbi, Jesus, but mostly they have been discussing that this is the worst night of fishing they have ever experienced. What happened to the fish? This is total expenditure with nothing to offset their labor. As the rays of the sun break over the hills surrounding the sea of Galilee, they know that the morning market is near to opening, and they have nothing. They will be broke, but still be obligated to pay wages.

On the shore they turn away the buyers and sellers and express their own amazement that they caught nothing. Peter’s father comes by and they all shake their heads. Now they have to clean up. They spread out the nets and clean out the kelp, mend parts of the nets that tore, and lay them out on the boats to dry and as they are beginning this they see crowds and then Jesus, the rabbi. It seems like the crowd is herding Him toward them and He asks if he can teach from a boat as they tend their nets. They push out and listen to Him teach as they multi-task. They still hear it all, and some of what He says is utterly captivating. It is so real and makes so much sense. They’ve seen Him do miracles like in Cana and John the Baptist pointed them to Him.

He teaches on and on and on. The nets are folded and almost dry. The fishermen look at the sun as He keeps talking and notice that it is well past noon and their day is coming to an end. They need to sleep and begin again tonight, hopefully to a catch that will reverse the misfortune of last night. This day had now gone totally out of control, and while they are moved or challenged by some of what Jesus says, they wish he’d stop and let them get on home.

He’s done, finally. The crowds are slowly leaving, too slowly. Some are waiting for Him to come on to land to ask Him questions, or to touch Him, or to ask for Him to do something. The fishermen talk with Him and alongside all the small talk they mention the weird night they had. His eyes kind of spark like He’s made a connection, figured something out. Why did they tell Him that? So He says, “Push out into the deeper water.” Sure, this will get him away from the lingering crowds and as they row out, more people are giving up waiting and going home. Then he says, “let down your nets and you’ll get a catch here.”

Someone please say “NO!” He knows nothing about fishing. They all think this. This isn’t the time of day. The nets won’t go down to the depths the fish are at in the heat of the day. Then they have to re-clean and fold and dry the nets. They’ll never get to sleep!

But Peter, fighting his own heart and attitude, agrees. Peter likes Jesus, sees something in Him. And though they’ve seen Peter face off with buyers in the market, he is cautious with Jesus, almost as if he believes He could be right. So he agrees.

The boats come together and spread the nets in the water. Nothing. Someone says, “This is what it was like last night.” Then a fish jumps. Someone yells, “Get it, at least we can have lunch.” Then the water begins to boil with movement. Instincts take over and the chatter increases to a laughter of calling and working and jesting, but slowly it becomes silent, the strain of the work and then wonder. Men call back to the shore for help. Boats are beginning to sink. Peter’s father arrives on the shore and Peter calls to him to help. Two more boats are on the way.

Never have they seen this many fish. It is so unbelievable, if God Himself were to… and then Peter turns to Jesus, who is on His knees holding on to the net. Peter amazes them. He falls to his face before the knees of Jesus and says, “Leave me Lord, for I’m a sinful man.” Peter learned something in this awful day. Jesus sees this and smiles and says, “Follow me, and you will become a fisher of men.”

When they arrive on shore with this windfall of fish, all of Capernaum seems to be waiting for them. They are selling fish right from the boats. They won’t have to work tonight. They’ll finally get to spend a longer evening with their wives and children.

And now look at that, Peter, Andrew, John and James are walking off after Jesus. Peter’s father is talking after them, shrugging his shoulders, waving his hand at them. But they learned something about Jesus, it was all worth it, and they are following Him.

The wasted night of fishing was staged by God. The patience bending time of waiting for Jesus to finish talking was crafted to test their understanding of who Jesus really was. Then the emotional strain of being asked by him to do something you would never do and contrary to all of your instincts.

Then came the learning. Who is this Jesus? Who cares about fish? Who cares about the profit? Leave it all behind because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus.

For those who love God and are trained with a passion to know Christ and share His love, there are no accidents or unfortunate circumstances where failure is a slap in the face and the results are empty hands. If my family is here it is so I can know Christ; if my  health is failing it is so I can know Christ; if I’m in this stress it is so I can honor Him by focusing on His goals, not mine, and know Christ. And it is from this knowing Him, that we can never know failure and never be fruitless.

Taking a Little Desert with Me

This morning going over Romans, slowly, but maybe not slowly enough, I remembered a discussion Laura and I were having yesterday. The new has arrived in doing church and the old sounds so old. Actually, we just have new ways of saying the same old stuff, but really, all of our theology and doctrine and even church ideas are a heritage we have from other generations. In fact, we are in debt to them, and really, we couldn’t produce today what they did years ago. It’s not in us.  It is not our culture.

Think of the hours AH Strong put into his concordance. I have all of that at my finger’s touch, in a second. Yet that isn’t the point. In Strong and others like Warfield and Thomas and Machen and Chafer, and the list goes on, you had men who had to take time, and in time and in repetition comes meditation and remembrance and new discovery and depth. The heritage they left was more than the product on a shelf.  They instilled depth in those they knew and who followed them.  Depth is something we lack today simply on the level of time. It is all too easy. Too quick. Too instant. We have to multi-task or we die.

Yesterday I was looking at the tulips and realized how easy it is not to trust God. We planted them and then certain ones came up quickly and bloomed….all one color. Questions and disappointment. I thought we bought a varied varieties bag, and why were the others taking so long? Then some others bloomed. Yellow variegated. Not bad. Now the bed is full of older and newer blooms. It’s beautiful. Variety all over, different colors, shapes, sizes, and my point, different timing, slowly, persistently God made development. What an amazing thing. The older ones aren’t missed because the newer ones look so beautiful. I couldn’t have planned it better.

God plans stuff like this, and it happens, but only for those who wait. It was the same with the plants in front. We’re thinking we killed them with mulch, trying to uncover, find, them. Then one day they were there.

Speed and ease rob us of depth, and with God this means depth of relationship and love, real love. Spiritual love is the kind of love and trust and joy that just knows and is confident in quiet. It brings peace with it wherever it goes.

So how does God break us out of this? My experience: He uses the same plan He did with Moses, David, Elijah, and Paul. He sends us into the desert. Phones don’t work there (or no one calls us). Lost at first, we finally become comfortable with quiet and barren vistas. Finally the ringing in our ears dies away and we hear it: nothing. Then eventually we listen into the quiet and hear His voice. A word or phrase in His Word piques our interest and we slowly begin to give that thought room to roam through our minds and hearts where previously there was too much multi-tasking and distraction and self importance.

Even before I begin to mention to others what the Lord has been massaging my mind and heart with regarding discipleship, I know in most churches it wouldn’t be embraced. Why? The approach is too slow. Even to think of Jesus building into the lives of the disciples for 3 years, in the life of the church today, it seems to be too long a process. We are too busy multitasking. We need instant and auto pilot. If it took a master carpenter 3 years of focused chiseling and sanding and crafting to make His disciples, what makes us think it should only take a 12 week class and sporadic “checking in.”  We lack the time and patience and focus, not the tools.  It’s so important we need to go slow.

It took time, but we’ve got birds outside that are a joy to watch. We’ve got plants all over that are growing and even if we’re not here to enjoy them, someone will. We’ve got new thoughts growing in our hearts, new insights growing in us. Loving Christ has once again become a mysterious joy and mission . There are verses that I’ve read before, but finally discovered, and I wonder how I ever lived without them and all because of the quiet, slowness of life. Funny, that fruitfulness would come in the desert and that if He’d kept me in the main flow of life, I would have remained harried and barren. I know the Lord will lead us from here, but now I feel a little like Naaman the Syrian asking Elisha, “Can I take a couple donkey loads of this ground with me.” Wherever He leads us, I need to make sure, from this point on, to take a little of this desert with me.

Where is Jesus?

This morning in Deut. 31 God says the people will turn away from Him yet recognize that their problems stem from God leaving them. God says He will hide his face from them. Now, theologically, God cannot not see them. But relationally, He will “turn away” and let them reap what they have sown until they turn to him. Obviously He gives them gentle nudges, but until they are fed up with the emptiness of their lives and see His distance as something they have created, which they can no longer live with, they won’t change and won’t see his “relational” blessing. The question is, “Would they want to see His face?” What does it take to “see His face?” Is it simply obedience or is it more?

What if it works like this with the Lord? Israel lost sight of God because their lives were full of themselves and stuff and idols. What about us? Do we see God, we who believe in Christ? I don’t think so. We call the daily “nothing” normal, and really don’t want more of God unless it rains. Our lives are full of ourselves and stuff and idols. We don’t even miss Jesus. We think of following as a duty and we don’t mind not having duty and obedience laid upon us. He seems quiet enough about it all. Maybe He’s okay with it. We call this normal.

All of this made me think of “New Moon.” Bella was “sick” in love with Edward, but they were separated. She could only see him if she was in trouble or taking a risk. So, she kept getting herself into situations where she would see him and hear his voice. It was dysfunctional, but it made a good point.

If we were “sick” in love with Jesus, I guess we would seek all those activities and go to all those places where we could “see” Him and “hear” His voice.

In Brad Paisley’s song “Raining You,” he expresses something similar, how his memory of his lost love is nearer to him when he remembers standing with her in the rain.

If I had my way
It would do this every day
I would never see the sun
Because the closest I get
To holding you again
Is every time that sky opens up

It feels like it's rainin' you
I can't explain it
But I am baptized anew
It feels like it's rainin' you
It feels like it's rainin' you

If we found Christ in a certain place, would we forsake every other place to be with Him? What if we’re looking for Jesus in the wrong place? And what if our hearts are so full of other stuff that we now lack the love necessary to really seek His face and desire His presence, even if we knew where to find it.

So where is Jesus to be found? For this we go, not to “teeny-girly-vampire romance,” or a great Country singer, but to William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. The video is verbatim from an address he gave. So, where is Jesus according to Booth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aTqk5YGiRo

Could it be that we only really “see” Him and “hear” His voice, if we are engaged in His work. What would drive us to work hard with the lost or work hard getting a church to please and follow Christ in His mission? Obedience, sure. Duty, money, job, etc. All of these would work, but the only pure motive is love for Jesus, being “sick in love” with Him and wanting to see His face and hear His voice. Love. Maybe it is in the darkness of the harvest that we remember His love, and renew our vows and are baptized anew, and see Him.

Somehow I just don’t think this is as hard as we make it. Love God with everything, Love your neighbor as yourself. Give praise to God in all you do. The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart. Just do it.

This next link is only for those who need a motivational rush. It’s various quotes of William Booth and CT Studd ending with a prayer from Valley of Vision: Puritan Prayers  p.177 God’s Causes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zg10wdrczY&feature=related