Charlotte Mason on Religious Education

I started blogging through Charlotte Mason’s School Education (Volume 3 of The Original Home Schooling series) in 2014 and got as far as Chapter XII. I’ve been reading it again this year with an online group and using this opportunity to start writing about it again.

So here are some thought on a few of the topics in Chapter XIII, 'Some Unconsidered Aspects of Religious Education.' 

The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt, 1851

In this chapter Mason touches on a few of the more practical principles which seemed to her to be essential in order to bring children up in ‘the nurture and admonition of the Lord.’

She starts with the principle of authority and the fact that most of us who have authority over someone are aware that we, too, are acting under a higher authority. 

We can’t let ourselves off the hook with “Do as I say, not as I do.” It’s hypocritical to require our children to be under authority if we reject it in our own lives.

When Mason wrote this volume in the early 1900’s, the exercise of authority was believed to have a stifling effect on individual personality. In our age of individualism that belief is even more firmly entrenched. Anything that smacks of authority is seen as detrimental to the growth of personality.

If we take the example of good and just government, we see its role as defending liberty. Laws are in place to restrain or punish those who interfere with the rights of others and to endorse those who do what is right. 

Proper authority doesn’t oppose the development of an individual unless that person is on a morally wrong track. It’s wrong thinking to equate harshness, punishment and force with the idea of proper authority. This kind of authority doesn’t punish but prevents us from doing wrong. The penalties that follow us through life are the natural consequences of broken law. Proper authority is preventative and helps to keep us from severer penalties later on.

Mason next considers the laying down of habit in the religious life and her first concern is the thought life. 

‘...every act and attitude is begotten of a thought, however unaware we be of thinking.’

A child needs to be guided into true, happy thinking; that ‘God should be in all their thoughts.’

With little children, devotional living (using everyday circumstances to teach into their lives) is something we can do to help instill and reinforce these habits of the thought life. Nature gives us an ideal opportunity for this and we have many instances in the Gospels where Jesus himself used the natural world to illustrate and teach - ‘Look at the birds of the air...’ 

‘To keep a child in this habit of the thought of God - so that to lose it, for even a little while, is like coming home after an absence and finding his mother out - is a very delicate part of a parent’s work.’

Reverent Attitudes - Mason believed that ‘the form gives birth to the feeling’ and that our aversion to ‘mere forms’ and the feeling that it’s ‘best to leave the child to the natural expression of his own emotions’ may be wrong. That children should be taught how to be reverent - to show/feel deep and solemn respect - is something worthwhile to consider now when spiritual instruction has a tendency to be dumbed down. Children given twaddle and cartoon characters won’t develop habits of attention and real devotion. Turning everything into fun or entertainment won’t deliver inspiring ideas in spiritual things - and a single great idea can change the course of a life.

Regularity in Devotions - this was an opportunity for our reading group to share how we each went about laying down habits and it reinforced the fact that each family is different in how they go about this in their homes or even at different stages of family life.

Idealism can produce unrealistic expectations but family devotions doesn’t have to be complicated or look a certain way. It can be something simple such as praying together, reading the Bible aloud, some sort of devotional reading, listening to/singing a hymn together, or a child might ask a question and you take it from there; taking advantage of seasons such as Advent or Easter to introduce a time of devotions together.

Families are sometimes messy. Dads aren’t always around or some family members may be antagonistic to spiritual things but God will honour your efforts to pass on your faith to your children. We don’t have to wait for ideal circumstances - they may never come. As Deuteronomy 6 shows us, there are endless opportunities throughout the day and untold ways to impress these things of the heart upon our children:

‘These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.’ 

Which brings me to one of my favourite ideas from this chapter - 

* That we make sure to prevent the separation of things sacred and things (so called) secular in the child’s mind and that we recognise that the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind. Instilling an overall sense of the presence of God in our children's lives strengthens this aim. *

Our children ultimately need to establish their own religious habits and a big part of that is for them to see that it is something we do ourselves.

Young children have a keen sense of wrongdoing and will keep their feelings turned inward. They might sulk, get passionate or be just plain naughty and have no idea that ‘there is a Saviour of the world, who has for him instant forgiveness and waiting love.’ 

I’ve observed that children sending a child to a ‘naughty chair’ as a form of punishment may encourage this bottling up of emotions and wallowing in self-pity. I’ve seen the banished child stew and come out worse than they went in. I understand that sometimes a child needs to be taken out of a situation to calm them down but I think that’s different. I had to do this with one of my sons because he had a quick temper but he knew I wasn’t punishing him. It gave him space and a way out of the temptation to lash out in anger.

Some closing thoughts:

Life can throw some difficult things at us and it’s important that we keep close to the Lord ourselves. We teach what we know so we need to make time to feed our own spirits before we can pass anything on. We are ALL under God’s authority - our children need to see this in our lives. 

Although we can’t ‘make’ our children follow God we can make it attractive for them. We can be firm about our beliefs but do so in a way that our children can always approach us. Forcing our beliefs onto our children can backfire.

The good news is that we’re not on our own. If we don’t have the wisdom we need we can ask for it.

It’s important to remember that Christianity and religious education isn’t a legalistic process where we tick the boxes but it is about a Relationship.

‘The very essence of Christianity is passionate devotion to an altogether adorable Person.’

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (1994)

It’s rare that I read a contemporary fiction book (presuming that a book written in 1994 would be in that category) but I have two good friends who loved At Home in Mitford, as well as its sequels, so I decided to read the first book in the series.
Mitford is a charming fictional village modelled on a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Father Tim, a conservative 60 year old Episcopalian priest and bachelor, is the main character. He has been the rector at Mitford for twelve years and is feeling exhausted, fatigued and low in spirits. He needs a holiday but doesn’t feel he can go away and leave his congregation.

To complicate matters, a very large dog turns up and adopts him, he takes on the care of a neglected young boy with atrocious manners, and he falls in love with his new neighbour.
At Home in Mitford is a gentle book to delve into if you need to take a breath, slow down, and find comfort in the little ordinary things that we tend to miss when life is busy.

“Y’know, Preacher, th’ more things you own, th’ more you’re owned by things.”

If you like Elizabeth Goudge’s writing you’d probably enjoy Karon’s. I enjoyed immersing myself in the lives of the people of Mitford and will be giving it to my 15 yr old daughter to read.

‘What had he done all those years with no dog and no boy, just the everlasting monotony of his own company? He supposed he hadn’t noticed very much that he was alone, proving the old adage that “you can’t miss what you never had."’

Announcing the '2019 Christian Greats Challenge: Past & Present'

The Purpose of the Challenge


There are a few reasons I decided to run this challenge:

* I enjoy the community aspect of blogging about books & thought it would be fun to host a challenge with a link-up & get to visit & comment on other blogs.

* I have a number of books by Christian authors on my shelves.  I'd like to read these & a challenge will help to spur me on.

* I've been surprised by the sheer number of classic authors whose writings contain dominant Christian themes. Many of these authors were not professing Christians but they had imbibed a Christian ethos that is evident in their writing.

* As I was reading 'Surprised by Joy' by C.S. Lewis this year he spoke of his 'chronological snobbery' before he became a Christian. He defined this as, ‘the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.’

Studying/reading history whether it be world history in general or Church history specifically, helps to counter this snobbery. 

* And lastly...

'A child is born in an obscure village. He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, proclaiming a message and living a life. He never writes a book. He never holds an office. He never raises an army. He never has a family of his own. He never owns a home. He never goes to college. He never travels two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He gathers a little group of friends about him and teaches them his way of life. While still a young man, the tide of popular feeling turns against him. One denies him; another betrays him. He is turned over to his enemies. He goes through the mockery of a trial; he is nailed to a cross between two thieves, and when dead is laid in a borrowed grave by the kindness of a friend.
Those are the facts of his human life. He rises from the dead. Today we look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, What kind of trail has he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned are absolutely picayune in their influence on mankind compared with that of this one solitary life…'

Dr James Allan Francis, 1926

Categories

1)  A Book on Early Church History (up to about 500 A.D) or a book written by a key figure who lived during that time, or a biography about that person. Examples:

The New Testament Book of Acts
Eusebius
Athanasius
Augustine of Hippo
Selected chapters from a book on Church History: e.g. 'Christianity Through the Centuries' by Earle E. Cairns.
A well-written children's book is also acceptable e.g. Simonetta Carr's biographies.


2)  A Book About a Prominent Christian Who Was Born Between 500 A.D & 1900 

Francis of Assisi
Joan of Arc
John Wycliffe
Martin Luther
William Wilberforce
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A good children's adaption may be used.

3)  A Christian Allegory

Pilgrim's Progress or The Holy War by John Bunyan
One (or more!) of The Chronicles of Narnia or The Space Trilogy C.S. Lewis
Books by George MacDonald


4)  A Book on Apologetics 

e.g. Authors such as Ravi Zacharias, Francis Schaeffer, Josh McDowell, G.K. Chesterton


5)  A Philosophical Book by a Christian Author

This could be on Education, Virtue, Morals, Worldview or Ethics. Some ideas: books by Anthony Esolen, Charlotte Mason, Stratford Caldecott, David Hicks, Vigen Guroian.


6)   A Missionary Biography or A Biography of a Prominent Christian who lived any time between 1500 A.D to 1950 A.D


7)  A Seasonal Book 

Pick a time of the year such as Lent, Easter, Christmas, Advent, a Saint's Day, an Anniversary/event  in the Church Calendar, and read a book for yourself or choose a book to read to a child. Paraclete Press have some good selections. 


8)  A Novel with a Christian Theme

E.g. forgiveness, redemption, self-sacrifice, grace. It doesn't have to be written by a Christian but the theme needs to play a prominent part in the story e.g. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, The Scarlet & the Black by J.P. Gallagher, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

9) A Good Old Detective or Mystery Novel...Why??

This is what J.I. Packer said:

'...these are stories of a kind that would never have existed without the Christian gospel. Culturally, they are Christian fairy tales, with savior heroes and plots that end in what Tolkien called a eucatastrophe—whereby things come right after seeming to go irrevocably wrong. Villains are foiled, people in jeopardy are freed, justice is done, and the ending is happy. The protagonists—detectives, Secret Service agents, noble cowboys and sheriffs, or whatever—are classic Robin Hood figures, champions of the needy, bringers of merited judgment and merciful salvation. The gospel of Christ is the archetype of all such stories. Paganism unleavened by Christianity, on the other hand, was and always will be pessimistic at heart.'

Some worthy authors: Josephine Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, G.K. Chesterton, Rex Stout, John Buchan.


10)  A Substitute - choose a book by any of the authors below in place of one of the above categories:

Timothy Keller
A.W. Tozer
Patricia St. John
Jan Karon
Wendell Berry
C.S. Lewis
Edith Schaeffer
Elizabeth Goudge

OR

Choose a second book from a category you like


Guidelines

Write a blog post with a list of books you think you might get to read for each category and link it below. (Update: link here)
When you finish a book, write a review and link it here with the name of the book in brackets. Use hashtag #christiangreats if posting on social media.

The aim is to enjoy the books and stretch yourself by reading outside your normal parameters or by introducing yourself to a new author. It's not to make you feel pressured so you're welcome to join in even if you only read from one or two categories.
Feel free to copy the image for your blog.

Reading, Thinking, & Domesticity #4

Making Room for Contemplation

I’ve noticed more recently that I’ve become increasingly distracted and my attention span hasn’t been as good as it was. I put it down partly to getting a new iPhone (my old one didn't do much and was often unreliable). When you're using your phone for texting, emails, appointments, reminders, timers etc., it's too easy to be distracted and one thing leads to another if you're not careful.

We're also in the throes of bathroom renovations that have dragged on for over 7 weeks (update that to 9 weeks!) & that’s made life a little chaotic, too...burst waterpipes, cement dust, tradesmen not turning up when they said they would or arriving when you aren't expecting them, pluming supplier sending the wrong parts...blah, blah, blah. Besides that, my morning walks have come to a halt because of these renovations, which is a sure recipe for a scattered brain for me.

I haven't listened to any podcasts lately but then I came across this one on the Circe Institute website - an interview with author Alan Noble. I haven’t read the book they mention but the podcast discusses making room for contemplation in the context of living in a distracted world. It’s well worth listening to. I’ve been thinking about ways I can cultivate this space - technology can be a great tool and I know I won't be getting rid of my phone so I need to work around it. Distractions aren’t going to disappear even when our renovations are done - something else will jump in, I'm sure, but I'm considering how I can allow space for contemplation regardless.

My older girls read these books by Elizabeth George when they were in their teens. Moozle has read one and is most of the way through the second. She reads a chapter a few times a week as a sort of devotional, apart from her 'official' lessons, and has been enjoying them. The author covers relationships in general and content-wise, they are just right for girls aged about 12/13 years and up. The author also has a book for younger girls (ages 8 to 12 years). I've read a few of her books myself and thought they were very good.
Her husband, Jim George, has written a few books for boys on similar topics. I like the fact that they don't venture into the 'too much information' side of things and leave it up to the parents to decide when to introduce these topics.

The Green Years by A.J. Cronin - this is the second book I've read by this Scottish author and I do like his writing very much. The Keys of the Kingdom was the other book and while The Green Years was not quite as good, it was, nevertheless very enjoyable. The setting is Scotland, in the same area I came from, so that was a great attraction for me. Cronin often substitutes a fictional place name for the one he's writing about but I recognised some of the places from his evocative descriptions.

I've started to read the books above in preparation for a Women's Retreat in mid-September. I'm speaking on The Friendships of Women & I want to look at this from a couple of different angles.

Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a classic by the German theologian who was martyred by the Nazis. I read Eric Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer  two years ago so it will be good to hear from the man himself. It's only a short book (my copy is 96 pages) & was published in 1954. From what I've read so far, it's very good and fairly easy to read.

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. I first heard about this book via Brandy @ Afterthoughts and have since read a couple of articles about the author and was intrigued by the impact made upon her life when a couple drew her into their lives by an act of hospitality. I bought my copy at Koorong (an Aussie Christian bookshop). I usually buy new books via BookDepository but they only had the audio book in stock when I tried to order it. Koorong has a 20% off sale a few times a year so it's worth waiting for one if you want to get a few things.

The Gospel Comes With a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield - here the author looks at 'radical hospitality' using her own life as a backdrop and shows us how to enact this in our own homes.


The Barefoot Investor by Scott Page - financial planning, money management in general, investments...a hands-on approach that walks you through the process. Page is an Aussie author and some of what he covers would have to be adapted if you're not living in Australia, but it is a worthwhile book and would be helpful for anyone. My husband read it earlier this year as did our married son and it was passed on to another son who shares a house with three other young fellows and they're all reading it, and actually putting it into practice. There's some Aussie slang and corny humour in places, and of course, the situation here is different in regards to superannuation, loans, health funds etc, but his general financial strategies may be used anywhere.
This would be a great book for an older high school student or any young adult, or those struggling with debt to help them manage their finances and plan for the future.
The book below has been updated for the 2017-2018 financial year.

Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide

Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide is a rich and beautiful resource compiled by Sarah Arthur and published by Paraclete Press in 2016.
This exceptional anthology includes selections from classic and contemporary literature by writers as diverse as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton, George Eliot, Wendell Berry, Luci Shaw and Frederick Buechner.

The book is divided into twenty-one sections that takes the reader from the beginning of Lent through to the end of the seventh week after Easter.
Each section has a theme and begins with an opening prayer, often taken from classic poetry. A Psalm, suggested Scriptures, five to seven literary readings, and opportunities for reflection are also included. The literary selections and the guide on their own would be a treasure, however, Sarah Arthur also has an introductory section that explains how to engage prayerfully with fiction and poetry using the practice of lectio divina (divine reading). While recognising that literary readings are not the words of Scripture, the basic principles, lectio, meditatio, oration and contemplation can be applied to novels and poetry.
There is also  a 'For Further Reading' section at the end of the book with a list of fiction and poetry for the reader to further explore the themes contained in this compilation.

Lenten sorrow makes way for Easter joy, and nothing - nothing - will quench the dawn.
And its the same shift that happens when the soul, alone in grief or guilt or illness or isolation, finds company in the life-giving words of another. During the midnight hours we shelter our guttering faith, and by its light we read poetry and prose that transcend centuries, hemispheres. Words from poets whose battles with God do not lead to victory but to a kind of grumpy determination. Stories from novelists who have tumbled into the abyss of their own undoing - of everyone's undoing - and found Someone there already, holding the bottom rung of the rescue ladder. Raise your eyes, these voices say. Look to the east. Do you not see it? There. The dawn.

These poets and novelists remind us that the sunrise is undeserved, but here we are. Our battles are ongoing but just skirmishes, really, the last desperate attempts of the losing side to go down fighting. The war itself is over.

A long-time friend of mine was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is scheduled to have surgery in the coming week. On Ash Wednesday I read this poem in Between Midnight and Dawn and it pierced my heart:

Ash Wednesday by Anna Silver (Anglo-American, contemporary)

How comforting, the smudge on each forehead:
I'm not to be singled out after all
From dust you came. To dust you will return.
My mastectomy, a memento mori, *
prosthesis smooth as a polished skull.
I like the solidarity of this prayer,
the ointment thumbed into my forehead,
my knees pressing hard on the velvet rail.
If God won't give me His body to clutch,
I'll grind this soot into my skin instead.
If I can't hold the flame that burned my breast,
I'll char my brow; I'll blacken my pores; I'll flaunt
with ash this flaw in His creation.

* Latin for a reminder that we will die

I was given a free copy of this book for review purposes and I have given my honest opinion - i.e. I wholeheartedly recommend it!
Sarah Arthur is the author, compiler, or co-author of eleven books and is a graduate of Wheaton College and Duke Divinity School and blogs here.

Paraclete Press have also just launched their e-subscriptions and have other resources for Lent and Easter.

 

Preparing Hearts for Easter - a Children's Book Giveaway!

Make Room: A Child's Guide to Lent and Easter by Laura Alary; Illustrated by Ann Boyajian is a simple but unique book to teach children about the heart of the practice of Lent in the lead up to Easter. While there are numerous resources explaining Lent, especially for adults, what makes this book different is the theme of 'making room' in our lives as opposed to being just a time of penitence.
I'm making this observation as one whose Church Family celebrates Easter and Advent while not officially observing the season of Lent but for the first twelve or thirteen years of my life I was brought up in the Catholic faith, so I do remember aspects of these liturgical traditions but I never really understood their meaning at the time.
Make Room explains them in a way that I never comprehended as a child. Lent in my mind brought  back memories of eating fish and having ash smeared on my forehead - externals that didn't reach my heart back then and therefore were easily discarded later on.
Over the past few years I've been contemplating liturgy and tradition and how to meaningfully incorporate them into our days. We've focussed mostly on Advent, but Easter seems to come upon us all of a sudden and while we celebrate Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, I don't think our observance of this time truly reflects its incredible significance. Unlike Christmas, where there is still evidence to be seen around us in the form of manger scenes, Christmas Carols, and 'goodwill to men,' the celebration of this most world-changing event is overshadowed by an avalanche of bunnies and chocolate.

In Treasuring God in Our Traditions, Noel Piper writes:

"Traditions are a vital way of displaying our greatest treasure, of showing what - Who - is most important to us."

Laura Alary explains the season of Lent as a journey mirroring the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness where he made time to listen to Father God and to get ready for what He had come into the world to do.
Whether your Church tradition includes the observance of Lent or not, Make Room is a book to share with your children to help prepare their hearts for understanding and appreciating the Easter message.

Make Room is published by Paraclete Press and contains 32 pages with winsome full-colour illustrations throughout. (See their website for a view of the inside of the book) It would be ideal for a family read aloud for ages 6 to 12 years.
Paraclete Press has kindly given me a copy of this book as a giveaway. If you would like to enter to win the book you may choose one or all of these ways:

* Leave a comment below
* Like journey & destination's newly created Facebook page
* Comment on the Facebook page

I'd also love you to share any traditions your family has to celebrate this season. A winner will be chosen and announced on Friday 3rd March.


Entrants from anywhere in the world where there is a postal service are welcome to enter!

Te Deum

Te Deum

Not because of victories 

I sing,

having none,

but for the common sunshine,

the breeze,

the largess of the spring.

Not for victory

but for the day's work done

as well as I was able;

not for a seat upon the dais

but at the common table. 

Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976) 

Thankful for my lovely daughters and daughter-in-law for a lovely birthday afternoon tea...

Grateful for fun in the sun

The pleasure of her first motor bike ride

Old school music

 Some new board games (see here for how Takenoko is played)

And a new card game - great for up to about 10 players

Playing with bunnies

Listening to podcasts for inspiration for the new year...

Looking forward to a new year and to the pleasure of connecting with my readers. I've enjoyed the rapport centred around books, ideas, and home education - feasting at the 'common table.' Thank you to all who have visited and commented or emailed me privately. It wouldn't be worth blogging if you didn't visit and talk to me! 

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-up and Finishing Strong

From my reading

The worship of success was something that fascinated Dietrich Bonhoeffer (I wrote about it here) and it's something that intrigues me. It's something that has pervaded not only the culture of the world around us, but also the church and our general attitude to suffering.

 A.W. Tozer, in his wonderful little book of essays, The Root of the Righteous, said that:

One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendants seem concerned only with the fruit. 

Success looks only at the fruit, at that which may be 'the brief bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its season.' 

Tozer goes on to observe that, 'Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of the true spiritual life are prophetic signs that go unheeded. Immediate 'results' are all that matter, quick proofs of present success...
Religious pragmatism...Truth is whatever works. If it gets results it is good. There is but one test for the religious leader: success. Everything is forgiven him except failure.'

I recently read an essay on the Book of Job in the Old Testament by G.K. Chesterton that one of my daughters recommended. Chesterton says:

Here in this book the question is really asked whether God invariably punishes vice with terrestrial punishment and rewards virtue with terrestrial prosperity. If the Jews had answered that question wrongly they might have lost all their after influence in human history. They might have sunk even down to the level of modern well-educated society.

For when once people have begun to believe that prosperity is the reward of virtue, their next calamity is obvious. If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue. Men will leave off the heavy task of making good men successful. He will adopt the easier task of making out successful men good.
 
Job is not told that his misfortunes were due to his sins or a part of any plan for his improvement...we see Job tormented not because he was the worst of men, but because he was the best.

 



Secular writer David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) offered some piercing thoughts on worship:

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship...
If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth...Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

I think it would be consistent with Wallace's observations to say that if you worship success...you will never be satisfied. You will end up feeling you've achieved nothing.

The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self.


The worship of success is a default setting. You won't be discouraged from operating on this setting. You will be applauded and encouraged, most likely, but you won't be free.

The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is...

Oswald Chambers

The Irreparable Past & the Irresistible Future

I've never thought of myself as a worrier but the other morning I woke up very early and the first thing to enter my head was a verse from the Psalms: Do not fret; it only leads to evil.

To fret: to agitate; to disturb; to tease; to irritate; to be vexed; to utter peevish expressions.

I had been fretting about some things that I really had no control over: about whether decisions made had been the right ones; about our children's futures; over decisions that need to be made, amongst other things.  Fretting is never helpful and doesn't change anything - except my ability to rest, receive the grace I need and believe that He will make a way then there seems to be no way.

Later, I read this by Oswald Chambers, a word of wisdom for the start of a new year: 

Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterday's, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us.

Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future...

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

Wednesday with Words

We memorised Psalm 19 many years ago and we when were reviewing our memory work during the week my little girl asked, "Can we do the one about the bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion?" We all laughed because she is very excited about being a flower girl at her big sister's wedding next week and then at her big brother's wedding early next year but there's something very beautiful and splendid about those words and also the rest of the Psalm.

It was the Glory of God that I saw in nature one day in my late teens that revealed Him to me for the first time. I didn't understand it as such at the time but the natural beauty that reached into my heart that day prepared me for the day about five months later when I committed my life to the One who created the beauty I beheld.

Many years later, a couple of months ago in fact, my husband and I were driving to Adelaide airport returning home after my dad's funeral with all the emotion and weariness that occasioned, when after a light shower a rainbow broke through the clouds and I just sensed God's presence in a very tangible way. I read these words later:

Nature to a saint is sacramental. 

If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature. 

In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, 

in every sign of the sky, 

in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, 

there is a real coming of God to us if we simply use our starved imagination to realise it.

Oswald Chambers 

 And Nature, the old nurse, took

  The child upon her knee,

Saying: "Here is a story-book

  Thy Father has written for thee."

"Come, wander with me," she said,

  "Into regions yet untrod;

And read what is still unread

  In the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and away

  With Nature, the dear old nurse,

Who sang to him night and day

The rhymes of the universe.

Longfellow

Psalm 19 is a reminder not to take the 'manuscripts of God' for granted. I lived for three years in another state and went back for a visit a couple of decades later. I was really surprised to find that the spot was a beautiful place. I hadn't seen the loveliness when I lived there as I was focusing on my problems and they veiled the beauty that proclaimed His presence.