Inspiration from Greece, Chambers, and Mrs. E Prentiss

Watch out, folks. Heart is full - overflow coming your way...

I just finished reading "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss last night and it was incredible. Amy P had been encouraging me to read it for years, and I finally followed her advice. I am so glad I did. What an inspiring account. Now everyone, don't delay as long as I did! Go out and get a copy and read it! I think you will be amazed, as I was, at the conclusions of the book, after an account that was sometimes almost painful to read: "To love Christ and to know that I love Him - this is all!" And "I have been emptied from vessel to vessel till I have learned that he only is truly happy who has no longer a choice of his own and lies passive in God's hand." What depth there is there.

I have also been reading the Oswald Chambers devotional Bible this year, which has been incredibly rich. From that I have been realizing the importance of being God-aware and God-conscious, instead of self-aware and self-conscious. It is exciting to grow and to realize more of the world around me and more about who I am. But to stop there is to stunt the growth God intends for me. Those things are stepping-stones to the more important - the only important - God-awareness, and who He is.

And then there is Greek Literature. Okay, so we were reading about all these Greek guys, and how they try to thwart their fate and always fail to do so. Fate is supreme. No one can avoid it. The Greek worldview was, in that way, pretty depressing. They were totally trapped by fate.

Then we were reading, in the teachers' devotions time, about Saul and how he was trying to kill David. But instead he was finding failure on every side, for God had willed David to be king. And I started thinking, wait a minute. Is the Christian worldview just as trapped as the Greek one? We can't go outside of the will of God, just like the Greeks couldn't go outside of the fates. Am I supposed to be feeling claustrophobic?!

And then, so quickly, I realized the fundamental difference. We as Christians serve a God of infinite love, goodness, and trustworthiness. His will and His love are one. He is love. We are not trapped in a fate against which we put up a desperate struggle for freedom. We are led to the best and highest freedom by a God who loves us so much that He sent His Son. We are not trapped by a capricious or unconscious fate (I'm not sure which would be worse), but are on our way to our destiny: oneness with a God who is essentially good and loving, and for Whom we were created. What an incredible difference. What a God we serve!

Trust has been my watchword recently. What a security and peace we have in our God. Claustrophobia? No! "Jehovah...brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me." (Ps 18:19)