Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"
Let the light of Your face shine upon us, O Lord.
You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
David gratefully praised God and extolled His wisdom even before his battle victories. He recognized that God was always good, always faithful, always wise, regardless of the circumstances.
In the last two plus years, I've seen my own stores increase: financial and material abundance paired with the irreplaceable bounty of a wife and child.
And yet what fills my heart with the greatest joy is the same light of Christ that shone prior to these additions, when I lived a more modest life as a bachelor with a one-bedroom condo on the undeveloped near-west side.
Hope and sin never change for the believer in this world.
The persistent struggle of old sin in new contexts still burdens because of a heart shared with God, and the unfailing hope in Christ persists by comparison in sweetening each day for he who is able to focus on it.
And this gift from God of hope in Him is so sweet that I still count it my greatest blessing. Hope in the morning as I look forward to my devotions, hope when I think of heaven, hope when I think of what I was.
Later that today I received an email from a friend asking me to elaborate on what I posted Jan. 4:
"The question I put to non-Christians is not how do we avoid struggle, but in which struggle should we engage?"
Knowledge of God for the Christian simultaneously gives him his understanding of sin in human struggle, and impels him toward his Savior, giving him both the understanding of the malady and the antidote.
I, um, have to restart my computer, so I'm posting this now. I'll be thinking over how to present my response to The Two Struggles as soon as my son lets me.
No comments:
Post a Comment