A Prayer for Monday: Humiliation

(from the Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett)

When clouds of darkness, atheism, and unbelief come to me,
      I see thy purpose in love
           in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize him more.
           in chastening me for my confidence in past successes,
           that my wound of secret godlessness might be cured.
Help me to humble myself before thee
      by seeing the vanity of honor as a conceit of men's minds,
           as seeing between me and thee;
      by seeing that thy will must alone be done,
           as much in denying as in giving spiritual enjoyments;
      by seeing that my heart is nothing but evil,
           mind, mouth, life void of thee;
      by seeing that sin and Satan are allowed power in me
           that I might know my sin, be humbled,
           and gain strength thereby;
      by seeing that unbelief shuts thee from me,
           so that I sense not thy majesty, power, mercy, or love.
Then possess me, for thou only art good and worthy.

Thou dost not play in convincing me of sin
Satan did not play in tempting me to it,
I do not play when I sink in deep mire,
      for sin is no game, no toy, no bauble;
Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin
      lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed,
      as in the greatness of the person sinned against.
When I am afreaid of evils to come, comfort me, by showing me
      that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch,
           but that in Christ I am reconciled, made alive, and satisfied;
      that I am feeble and unable to do any good,
           but that in him I can do all things;
      that what I now have in Christ is mine in part;
           but that shortly I shall have it perfectly in heaven.

Comments

The Seed and The Soil of Education (New Learning Project Part 1)

(This is my entry for the first part of my project for my New Learning course that I am taking.) Introduction Corn Fields in Illinois I have lived the majority of my life in the Midwest: mid-state Illinois to be specific. Where I live, farming is everywhere. My grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of my family were farmers. My dad grew up on a farm and owned farmland, well into my own adulthood. But, even if it wasn’t in the family, I still would have been surrounded by farming. You can’t go more than a mile outside of my city’s limits without encountering miles and miles of fields. Most of our highways, and even interstates, are located between acres of farmland.

The Minnesota Crime Commission wrote:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his uncle's watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

This too shall pass...

Gam zeh ya'avor (Hebrew) "This Too Shall Pass" Welcome! According to Google Analytics, this is by far the most visited post that I have ever written. If someone comes here from a search engine, most of the time they are looking for " this too shall pass quote " or simply " this too shall pass " on Google or one of the other search engines. I am sure that most of the time visitors are looking for the originations of this quote, but I have to wonder, why is this quote on people's minds? Why are they pondering the passing of events? Here is my thought: It is probably because most of us have realized that the adult life is much harder than we ever imagined it to be. There is more pain and more sorrow than we had ever imagined as children, but we have learned that time keeps ticking. And as time continues to flow things pass. In fact, even the really big things and the really hard things will still pass. If you are here because you are thinking ...

HARMLESS THOUGHTS

Search This Blog