Ten Thousand thousand precious gifts

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view,
I'm lost In wonder, love and praise.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my heart was e'er aware
From whence these comforts flowed.

When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou
With health renewed my face;
And when in sin and sorrows sunk
Revived my soul with grace.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart
That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through ev'ry period of my life
Thy goodness I'll pursue,
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

Through all eternity to Thee
A joyful song I'll raise;
But O! eternity's too short
To utter all Thy praise!

Wonder and Love and Praise for God's precious gifts is sometimes lost in the sea of regrets. Sometimes they are lost in the sea of unforgiveness. Sometimes they are lost in the sea of guilty remembrances. My conscience and my heart is bare before the Lord. You, Lord and God are the author of my joys and peace. When my heart goes into remembrances of oughts against me, help me, Lord to forgive. When my heart remembers the pleasures of sins and longs for them inordinately, help me to fling them to You, Lord and confess and forsake. When my heart overwhelms me in my present circumstances, help me cast my cares on You; knowing that You care for me. You are the Lord of lords and the King of kings. I need not fear the overwhelming nature of the sovereignty that I feel in any realm, because You are God above it all. I submit my dominion to You and my lack, knowing that You are neither intimidated by my ability, nor impressed. You are neither embarrassed at my lack, nor dissuaded. You are God and I bow the knee and the heart to give You my love and my activities, today. Thank You, that You are no respecter of persons.

When God pulls up His sleeves.

In the light of a week of seeing the mercies of God presented to us, in the earthquake and in the hurricane that almost barrelled us, but simply swept along our eastern seaboard,

I see the Lord seated on the throne, high and lifted up..."

He owes us wrath, but He has remembered mercy. He shook the earth, near the capital, as if to remind us under whose authority we sit and stand, and He sent Irene to remind us that there might have been army boots on her, but there were toe shoes on her.
There were beautiful Christian graces evident, in the wake of the losses incurred in Irene, by our Governor Perdue. I am a New Yorker and even as Christians, New Yorkers are concerned about the bottom line. I was struck with awe at the evident compassion and Christian graces shown in governing by our Bev Perdue. Her verbal expressions of sympathy and concern for every level of loss were noticeable to me and a lesson, that I hope to inculcate, in my parenting and in my other relationships.

Christ changes our hearts and minds and gives us a heart to love Him, but the hardness of the NY state of mind is so blinding and proud that it seems trite to us to care about the lesser concerns, than loss of life. Her expressions did not seem trite, nor rehearsed, but a lesson of the weaving of Christian principles and scruples into our demeanor in our labors. They can legislate out prayer {perhaps}, but they cannot legislate out Christian compassion. I was rebuked and instructed that Christ is concerned about the least of these, as I should be. I thank the militantly hospitable South for showing me my sin in these areas. God be merciful, as I set my feet to walk in Your ways, in this.

"If my people...

who are called by my name",

the Lord has bid us to humble ourselves and seek His face. But it seems here in Ezekiel, where I am reading this morning that there is a direct relationship between the Sabbaths and the humbling of Gods people, that I hadn't noticed before. It seems in Ezekiel 20 that God refers to Himself as almost drinking the Sabbath and that the defilement that we pour into the Sabbath, by hallowing or not, is poured out upon us, that God would use that as a relationship to woo and to win us.
It seemed as though the cup of the Sabbath is taken to our God's lips and if it is dirty, He pours it upon us and we are choosing the poison that we are enduring, by our disobedience. I must say the there is alot of reasoning between the lines of what God says in Ezekiel, but it would take books to pen the lines of scriptural reasoning from this text.
God, grant us eyes to see the regard that You have for our obedience to You and not to be deceived by our own senses of pietism. Help us to be those who would humble ourselves, by Your grace, that our land would be healed and that our relationship would be with You and not with wood, hay and stubble. Ezekiel 20
Ezekiel 20

Whose PIP are you?

We are all thieves of grace and mercy and it is what we do with that grace and mercy, that link us to the grace of God. God has apprenticed us to Himself. We either reflect His glory, in the attainment of wealth and fame, or we reflect His condescension and humility, thus being beggars and receivers. When God makes us His PIP, either through the means of earthly, or heavenly means, what is it that we do with it. Ms. Haversham, took the glory to herself and her end was seen in the flames. "Are you not beholden to me for choosing you from among the wretches?" She saw herself as worthy of the graces and mercies that she received and she taunted the soul of the bereaved and the orphaned and her end was destruction. Those whose sin was evident and blatant, received the prayers of the orphans. Amazing Grace is accessible to the needy, but inaccessible to the self righteous. You can break his heart, was the haughty thought of the rich lady. I pray that her soul was saved erelong. Whenever we take it to break a heart for sport, especially the afflicted heart, we stand in the utmost pride. God have mercy on us.

Great Expectations!

The movie Great Expectations from 1946, gave us much, as a family to discuss, in terms of lessons of character. The question for the week is what is your motivating ambition? What makes you do and grow? What gives you joy and hope? We saw the interplay of the rich and the poor. We saw the interactivity of motivations. The young PIP, grew and prospered and showed the example of a single eyed pursuit of a goal. As people made in the image of God, we are inspired to pursue and to have a single goal of life. Like God, who tells us that His motivation in the New Testament will be to build His Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail. The demons of darkness were exorcised by PIP at the end, in direct imitation of our Savior and Lord, who exorcises all of the lies of the enemy to become the hope and life of His bride, the Church. We anticipate, with sincere hope, the light and life of Jesus being the motivation of the Church, as worked into our souls, by our loving and consistent Savior, Lord and King. Every enemy will be vanquished and crushed, when our Savior comes to us. Every dark way will be changed and cleansed. God is the Lord! Great Expectations on Youtube

Don't Blame the Moths for looking at the flame?

I was struck afresh by the blinding power of pride, as we watched Great Expectations yesterday. Estella could no more see the blindness of unbelief, than the beauty that she projected in the mirror. Riches and beauty are a blinding source of unbelief, sometimes. Pip, who was struggling between two worlds, was the source of our eyes view of this close tendency in our own souls.

We watch this humble and stricken young orphan grow to desire the accomplishments and acquirements of wealth and beauty and the things that they afford. I love how there is no commentary to the book. The story speaks for itself. What does it profit, if we gain the whole world and lose our soul? Or, What will a man give, in exchange for his soul?

I am grateful for Bishop pointing out that we are the fruit of answered prayer of our forefathers!

I looked into the eyes of Andy Hardy, in the movie, this weekend and saw a prayer for grace and mercy that I had never seen before. Pre war prayers, Depression prayers. Mickey Rooney, put foot to his prayers and acted more for the preservation of our depraved America, than any other actor, I had seen in a movie. I saw Bishop talking about the answers of our parent's prayers. From a Church as flimsy as a Lunar Moth to a church as solid as a Behemoth. Generational prayers that the solidness of the Judge Hardy Character would follow through the generations and not be smothered by the winds of change that we've inherited. Looking into the eyes of a respectful and respectable example of fatherhood, was the picture of Andy Hardy's series, in the prewar generation. It is answered prayers that fatherhood is not dead. Thank you, Mr. Rooney for the gift of respectable fatherhood.

The day the sky bit me.

I was tired and I certainly wasn't in the mood for socializing. The sky seemed to be an enemy, as we drove further and further into it, to find our friends' house. I bickered and squalled. I fussed and fumed. It is raining and we don't know where we are going and I am tired and this is not my idea of... we are lost and we won't find it. The sky is going to eat us, I say. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about the sky eating them, when the whole country was savage and uncivilized like we are driving into, don't you see the sky has teeth? My husband is so patient with me, when I get tired like this. I really am exaggerating, only a little. We looked at the numbers on the streets as we got closer and closer. Tens of thousands were the numbers, what if we miss our number we are tens of thousands out of the way, how will we ever get home again?
Our friend was outside and a happy and pleasant sight, when we got there. All was not lost. We were where we were supposed to be. When we walked in, the ceiling and the floor were pine wood. The ceiling and the floor were more sweet of a hug and I called them the teeth of the sky. Our friends' hospitality and kind provision for us was the sweetest hug from the sky that there could be. My squabbles, turned to MMMMM's and my fussing turned to fun. We had the very best time, by the light of the pine ceiling and floor. The silvery moon is far too far away to be comforting to a city girl the precious blankey of the finely set pine ceiling and the kind hospitality of our friends were a healing balm.

It is also interesting, what made the Lord say no,

Luke 12

In Sunday School, our teacher pointed out an occurrence of the Lord declining to assist a person. It was awesome the wonder of Jesus to care about the soul of this fellow in not interceding on his behalf. His request was obvious and it was a felt need. Others would have taken his cause, perhaps, but Jesus, did not say no. He said who called me to judge over a civil case? He said, you have a deeper need that needs addressing. He told a parable about a rich fool. The question in the passage is, are your eyes opened to see your real need? Jesus, actually said yes to his need and no to his request. I see this sometimes in the no's that God has said to me. I say no to your desire to be preeminent over your sisters and brothers and I say no to your glorying in the treasure of children that you have, I say yes to your learning to be a servant and a humble Christian woman, even above your earthly "birthrite". The New Testament is about wrestling our passions from our breasts: "I won't let you go until you bless me". If we walk with a limp, with a quesion of faith "Why didn't you take up my cause, Lord?" If our hearts are pricked toward God, with some sense of question of His ways, it is so that we can learn that His New Testament blessing is that our eyes may see Him and not for our glory, but for His. I would never want to have lost my son, but when God pricks the heart in such a way, He opens the eyes to Himself. I hope that I didn't go away without the blessing or the answer, as did the rich, young ruler. I hope that I saw the eyes that he is opening are the eyes of the spirit.