I like your quote. You are so good at putting things into words.

It is neat that we’re studying and thinking along the same lines. Sometimes we need a lot of help to enter that rest He calls us to. You’d think the opposite, that it should be easy to rest and trust in Him. But it’s a great battle sometimes; we only cry out to Him when we’ve come to the end of our own efforts. It never ceases to amaze me how faulty our remembrance of God’s faithfulness is (of course we make it much worse by prayerlessness and carelessness!)

Jan,

Thanks my sissy! You are on that same page, too, I know. I will call you tomorrow…

The particular focus was Jeremiah Burroughs argument against folks who use the feeling that God has departed from them as an excuse for murmuring and wallowing in discontent. He says, “It is a very evil thing for men and women over every affliction to conclude that God is departed from them.” At that point we read the passage in Exodus.

He then makes the point that, “if God is departed, the greatest sign of God’s departing is because you are so disturbed….Your disquiet drives him from you, and you can never expect God’s coming to manifest himself comfortably to you souls, till you have gotten your hearts quiet under your afflictions.” And at that point we read Isaiah 30: 15-16 and discussed how God responds when we refuse to trust and rest in Him, and what is gained when we do rest in Him.

And rather than leave it hanging, I’ll add his last point in answer to this: “Do you find God departing from you in your affliction? Will you therefore depart from God too? Is this your help?…If the child sees the mother going from it, it is not for the child to say, ‘My mother is gone yonder and I will go the other way’; no, but the child goes crying after the mother. So should the soul say, I see the Lord is withdrawing his presence from me, and now it is best for me to make after the Lord with all my might, and I am sure this murmuring humour is not making after God, but by it I go further and further away from God, and what a distance there will be between God and me within a little while!”

All these miles between us and God has us on the same page!

I think there’s a tendency for many believers to overeact to the “spiritual warfare” abuses in certain charismatic circles, by disregarding the evil one altogether. I’ve been in churches where the attitude is that if you just keep your act together spiritually the devil will be irrelevant in your life. I’ve been guilty of that type of thinking myself. But we do need to be aware that we have an enemy, and what his tactics are. If we don’t recognize him, we won’t resist him. His ways toward the reasonable among us always seem reasonable. He may do wild and wooly stuff among the wilder and woolier among us, but he is capable as well of great subtlety. It’s the hieght of arrogance to think that we don’t need to be aware of his schemes.

And I think we, as women, are particularly vulnerable. Our peculiar vulnerability is given as the basis for not being permitted to hold positions of authority over men, or teach men in the church. (1 Tim 2: 11-14) It’s interesting and edifying to ponder the difference between the sin of Adam and the sin of Eve, and their different roles, and how Satan dealt with these two, up until that moment, perfect individuals who had no natural bent towards sin. Why should we expect it to be easier for us to resist him when sin already dwells in us?

I enjoyed looking around at your blog and at the hymns you have at cyber-hymnal. Yes, I’d love to have a copy of your hymn collection, thanks so much! Email on the way…

Thanks for the encouraging word about my hymns that you left in a comment on my blog.

If you like hymns, I’d be happy to send you a copy of a small (very self-published!) collection of hymns I’ve written. Give me an email and let me know where to send it, if you’re interested.

Blessings!

Eric