Over the power of death

The power to discern God’s presence in common life is imparted when one becomes a Christian, an event in which the power of the Word of God in one’s own personal history is manifest over and over against the power of death. Then and thereafter the Christian lives in any and all events in reliance upon the presence of the Word of God. Then and thereafter the Christian lives to confront others, whatever their afflictions, with the news of God’s care for the world. Then and thereafter the threat of our own eventual historic death holds no fear for us, for there is nothing which we will on that day experience which we have not already foretasted in the event of becoming a Christian, in the event of our surrender to the power of death and of our being saved from that power by the presence of God. Then and thereafter we are free from the most elementary and universal bondage of humanity: the struggle to maintain and preserve, whatever the cost, our own existence against that of all others. Then and thereafter are we free to give our present life away, since our life is secure in the life of God.

William Stringfellow: A Private and Public Faith, pg 66, quoted in The Slavery of Death by Richard Beck.

Grief and fear

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man’s life. I was happy before I ever met H. I’ve plenty of what are called ‘resources.’ People get over these things. Come, I shan’t do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this ‘commonsense’ vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.

From A Grief Observed by C S Lewis

God stoops to our fears

On preaching 1 Samuel 16:1-13

...don’t you see what point II [God stoops to our fears] tells you about God? These little, scrawny verses, this mere conversation between God and his prophet? See how God takes notice of and addresses Samuel’s fears? He does not mock or ridicule him or tell him he’d never make a decent rugby player. He doesn’t jeer at him for trembling before Saul’s sword (cf. Psalm 103:14). Is he not the same God with us? Does he not understand what terrifies us? Perhaps the fear that we’ll not be saved at the last because we have no assurance of salvation now? Or are you alone in the world and wonder who is going to care for you when darker days come? Though you are one of Christ’s flock, do you have a terror of dying? Have you a spouse who is abandoning you and you can’t imagine how you will get on? Do you see Samuel’s God? He does not despise you in your fears but stoops down to meet you in them.

Dale Ralph Davis in The Word Made Fresh, page 124

Desire...Fear

Deliver me, O Jesus:

From the desire of being esteemed

From the desire of being loved

From the desire of being honoured

From the desire of being praised

From the desire of being preferred to others

From the desire of being consulted

From the desire of being approved

From the desire of being popular.

Deliver me, O Jesus:

From the fear of being humiliated

From the fear of being despised

From the fear of being rebuked

From the fear of being slandered

From the fear of being forgotten

From the fear of being wronged

From the fear of being treated unfairly

From the fear of being suspected

And, Jesus, grant me the grace

To desire that others might be more loved than I

That others might be more esteemed than I

That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease

That others may be chosen and I set aside

That others may be preferred to me in everything.

- Mother Theresa, 1910-1997

Escaping mediocrity

There must be a way to escape [mediocrity] even when you know you are even below it. Perhaps knowing you are below it is a way to begin. I say I am equal with it; but I am below it. I will always be staggering between Despair & Presumption, facing first one & then the other, deciding which makes me look the best, which fits most comfortably, most conveniently. I'll never take a large chunk of anything. I'll nibble nervously here & there. Fear of God is right; but God, it is not this nervousness. It must be a joy. Every virtue must be vigorous. Virtue must be the only vigorous thing in our lives. Sin is large & stale. You can never finish eating it nor ever digest it. It has to be vomited. But perhaps that is too literary a statement - this mustn't get insincere.
How can I live - how shall I live. Obviously the only way to live right is to give up everything. But I have no vocation & maybe that is wrong anyway. But how [to] eliminate this picky fish bone kind of way I do things - I want so to love God all the way. At the same time I want all the things that seem opposed to it - I want to be a fine writer. Any success will tend to swell my head - unconsciously even. If I ever do get to be a fine writer, it will not be because I am a fine writer but because God has given me credit for a few of the things He kindly wrote for me. Right at the present this does not seem to be his policy. I can't write a thing. But I'll continue to try - that is the point. And at every dry point, I will be reminded Who is doing the work when it is done & Who is not doing it at that moment. Right now I wonder if God will ever do any more writing for me. He has promised His grace; I am not so sure about the other. Perhaps I have not been thankful enough for what has gone before.

Flannery O'Connor in A Prayer Journal, pages 22/23

Hope and fear

Psalm 119:120

My flesh trembles for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements.

 ....let me not be ashamed of my hope. True religion consists in a proper mixture of fear of God, and of hope in his mercy; and wherever either of these is entirely wanting, there can be no true religion. God has joined these things, and we ought by no means to put them asunder. He cannot take pleasure in those who fear him with a slavish fear, without hoping in his mercy, because they seem to consider him as a cruel and tyrannical being, who has no mercy or goodness in his nature; and, besides, they implicitly charge him with falsehood, by refusing to believe and hope in his invitations and offers of mercy. On the other hand, he cannot be pleased with those who pretend to hope in his mercy without fearing him; for they insult him by supposing that there is nothing in him which ought to be feared; and, in addition to this, they make him a liar, by disbelieving his awful threatenings denounced against sinners, and call in question his authority, by refusing to obey him. Those only who both fear him and hope in his mercy, give him the honour that is due to his name. — Edward Payson.

From the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.

No end of love

Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: "What else is the world interested in?" What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved.... When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, his son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them. There can never be enough of it.

Dorothy Day On Pilgrimage

Praise the Lord

From the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David: Psalm 113:

 Verse 1. Praise ye the Lord. This praising God rests not in the mere speculation or idle contemplation of the Divine excellence, floating only in the brain, or gliding upon the tongue, but in such quick and lively apprehensions of them as to sink down into the heart, and there beget affections suitable to them; for it will make us love him for his goodness, respect him for his greatness, fear him for his justice, dread him for his power, adore him for his wisdom, and for all his attributes make us live in constant awe and obedience to him. This is to praise God, without which all other courting and complimenting of him is but mere flattery and hypocrisy...God Almighty endowed us with higher and nobler faculties than other creatures, for this end, that we should set forth his praise; for though other things were made to administer the matter and occasion, yet man alone was designed and qualified to exercise the act of glorifying God...In short, God Almighty hath so closely twisted his own glory and our happiness together, that at the same time we advance the one we promote the other.—Matthew Hole, 1730. [Most likely from Mr Hole's Discourses on the Common Prayer]

The true fear of God is filial love

From the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David on Psalm 112

Verse 1. Praise ye the LORD. This exhortation is never given too often; the Lord always deserves praise, we ought always to render it, we are frequently forgetful of it, and it is always well to be stirred up to it. The exhortation is addressed to all thoughtful persons who observe the way and manner of life of men that fear the Lord. If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, the Lord should have all the glory of it, for we are his workmanship. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord. According to the last verse of Psalm 111, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; this man, therefore, has begun to be wise, and wisdom has brought him present happiness, and secured him eternal felicity. Jehovah is so great that he is to be feared and had in reverence of all them that are round about him, and he is at the same time so infinitely good that the fear is sweetened into filial love, and becomes a delightful emotion, by no means engendering bondage. There is a slavish fear which is accursed; but that godly fear which leads to delight in the service of God is infinitely blessed. Jehovah is to be praised both for inspiring men with godly fear and for the blessedness which they enjoy in consequence thereof. We ought to bless God for blessing any man, and especially for setting the seal of his approbation upon the godly. His favour towards the God fearing displays his character and encourages gracious feelings in others, therefore let him be praised. That delighteth greatly in his commandments. The man not only studies the divine precepts and endeavours to observe them, but rejoices to do so: holiness is his happiness, devotion is his delight, truth is his treasure. He rejoices in the precepts of godliness, yea, and delights greatly in them. We have known hypocrites rejoice in the doctrines, but never in the commandments. Ungodly men may in some measure obey the commandments out of fear, but only a gracious man will observe them with delight. Cheerful obedience is the only acceptable obedience; he who obeys reluctantly is disobedient at heart, but he who takes pleasure in the command is truly loyal. If through divine grace we find ourselves described in these two sentences, let us give all the praise to God, for he hath wrought all our works in us, and the dispositions out of which they spring. Let self righteous men praise themselves, but he who has been made righteous by grace renders all the praise to the Lord.

Blessing

From the additional notes by other writers in Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David: Psalm 103. 

Verse 1. Bless the LORD, O my soul.

You have often heard, that when God is said to bless men, and they on the other hand are excited to bless him, the word is taken in two very different senses. God is the only fountain of being and happiness, from which all good ever flows; and hence he is said to bless his creatures when he bestows mercies and favours upon them, gives them any endowments of body and mind, delivers them from evils, and is the source of their present comforts and future hopes. But in this sense, you will see there is no possibility of any creature's blessing God; for as his infinite and unblemished perfection renders him incapable of receiving any higher excellency, or improvement in happiness; so, could we put the supposition that this immense ocean of good might be increased, it is plain that we, who receive our very being and everything that we have or are from him, could in no case contribute thereto.

To bless God, then, is, with an ardent affection humbly to acknowledge those divine excellencies, which render him the best and greatest of beings, the only object worthy of the highest adoration: it is to give him the praise of all those glorious attributes which adorn his nature, and are so conspicuously manifested in his works and ways. To bless God, is to embrace every proper opportunity of owning our veneration and esteem of his excellent greatness, and to declare to all about us, as loudly as we can, the goodness and grace of his conduct towards men, and our infinite obligations for all our enjoyments to him, in whom we live, move, and have our being. And a right blessing of God must take its rise from a heart that is full of esteem and gratitude, which puts life into the songs of praise. And then, of all others, the most lively and acceptable method of blessing God, is a holy conversation and earnest endeavor to be purified from all iniquity; for blessing of God consists, as I told you, in adoring his excellencies, and expressing our esteem and veneration of them: but what can be so effectual a way of doing this, as the influence that the views of them have upon our lives?

That person best exalts the glory of the divine power, who fears God above all, and trembles at the apprehensions of his wrath; and of his justice, who flees from sin, which exposes him to the inexorable severity thereof; and of his love, who is softened thereby into grateful returns of obedience; and then we celebrate his holiness, when we endeavour to imitate it in our lives, and abandon everything that is an abomination to the eyes of his purity. William Dunlop, 1692-1720.

RIP Steve Jobs

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.


Steve Jobs
"2005 Stanford University Commencement Address"

Incarnation

For me, the Incarnation is the place, if you will, where hope contends with fear. Not an antique doctrine at all, but reality - as ordinary as my everyday struggles with fears great and small, as exalted as the hope that allows me some measure of peace when I soldier on in the daily round.

Kathleen Norris
Amazing Grace

Difference

Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing ... But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.

- Audre Lorde
from her book Sister Outsider

Delivering us from fear

O Lord, we beseech thee to deliver us from the fear of the unknown future; from fear of failure; from fear of poverty; from fear of bereavement; from fear of loneliness; from fear of sickness and pain; from fear of age; and from fear of death. Help us, O Father, by thy grace to love and fear thee only, fill our hearts with cheerful courage and loving trust in thee; through our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

Akanu Ibaim
“Fear of the Unknown” in An African Prayer Book

Marilyn McEntyre

I have come to believe that saying yes to Christ means saying yes to seeking truth--truth that will set us and others free, and consenting to act on that truth when we find it. For me, this has meant that even though I haven't given away all my possessions or abandoned my car, I have begun to cultivate new habits of awareness and action--to ask about economic and agricultural and political processes, to consider what I'm supporting when I vote, buy, or travel. It has meant evaluating my moral choices not only in terms of whether I personally lie, cheat, steal, or play fair, but also how the systems that I inhabit function, for whose benefit, and at whose cost.

Marilyn McEntyre
"Consenting to Consciousness" in Zealous Love