Hope

A faith that really keeps to what is invisible and lives by it, acting as if it were already here, hopes at the same time for the time of fulfullment, of seeing and possessing. We hope for it as confidently as the hungry child to whom his father has promised bread can wait a while because he believes. Yet eventually the child wants to get the bread. Or take the music listener who willingly follows a dark interplay of disharmonies, but only in the certainty that these disharmonies will have to be resolved sooner or later. Or think of the patient who takes a bitter medicine so that the pain is finally taken away. A faith that does not hope is sick. It is like a hungry child who does not want to eat or a tired peron who does not want to sleep. Humankind hopes as surely as it believes. And it is not a disgrace to hope even beyond measure.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Where to look…

Let us look for God in the future more earnestly than we have done in the past, — look for him in vineyards and orchards and harvest fields, — in the bright plumage of birds, and the delicate bloom of fruit, and the sweet gracefulness of flowers, — in the dense foliage of the forest, and the sparse heather of the moor, — in the rich luxuriance of fertile valleys, and the rugged grandeur of the everlasting hills, — in the merry dance of the rivulet, and the majestic tides of the ocean — in the gay colours of the rainbow, and the splendour of the starry heavens, — in the gentle radiance of the moon, and the gorgeous light of setting suns, — in the clear azure sky, and the weird pageantry of clouds, — in the snow mantled wintry landscape, and the brilliant effulgence of a summer’s noon, — in the virgin loveliness of spring, and in the pensive fading beauty of autumn, — let us look for him with an earnest, eager, and unwearied gaze, till we see him to be a God of wisdom as well as power, of love as well as sovereignty, of beauty as well as glory. –A. W. Momerie, in “The Origin of Evil, and other Sermons”, 1881.

IS the will of God

“The weak need My Strength. The strong need My Tenderness. The tempted and fallen need My Salvation. The righteous need My Pity for sinners. The lonely need a Friend. The fighters need a Leader.”

“‘Incline your ear, and com unto Me: hear and your soul shall live. – Isa. 55:3′
Not only live but grow in grace and power and beauty – the true Beauty, the Beauty of Holiness.
Reach ever forward after the things of My Kingdom.
In the animal world the very form of an animal alters to enable it to reach that upon which it delights to feed.
So reaching after the treasures of My Kingdom your whole nature becomes changed, so that you can best enjoy and receive the wonders of that Kingdom.”

“This life is not for the body, it is for the soul, and man too often chooses the way of life that best suits the body.”

-God Calling

“‘Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do…’ The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it apear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.”

“If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself – begin to have spiritual discernment.”

- My Utmost for His Hightest

“I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah“

-Psalm 143

Be
Loved,
The Jack of Hearts

spurds?

I think I’m gonna start this up again, so even if you don’t see this, it’s here.

I had a really good talk with a friend tonight and I’d like to ask everyone to pray for her

The Jack of Hearts

The Other Side of Sunsets

Beauty is a word with impact. I mean…you say ‘beauty’ and I bet something different pops into the heads of those around you. A g¡rlfriend, a celebrity, a work of art, a flower. Or maybe they think of dat¡ng a celebrity and giving her (him) a flower in an art museum. I don’t know. Because it’s not just something universal in the sense that we see it the same way. Then again, maybe there isn’t really anything that produces the same train of thought in everyone’s mind, but a lot of things bring up similar concepts in our heads. Not beauty, though. It’s vastly different for everyone. Except… (I think) except for creation. I’ve been seeing the beauty in things a lot lately, but where are the most beautiful? The works of God’s hands. And it’s so far out of our league too. We paint a picture of a sunset over a lake with mountains and a guy in a boat fishing. God’s on the other side of that sunset (which he created) and he formed each crevice of those mountains. He built and constructed them, something which, if even attempted, would take us like a bajillion years…I jest…maybe not a bajillion. But a heck of a lot longer than a day. And he was the one who poured out that water, right there, because he knew that lake would fit perfectly. He created hundreds of species that live and breathe and are sustained in water and put some of them in the lake, maybe even just for that one guy. Because God created him too, and he cares like mad for him. Cares enough to give the guy the right amount of mind power to think of a boat and to think of getting a stick and a line together and to think of baiting the hook so the fish won’t know and to think to go out on that lake…and…to be able to recognize the vast beauty laid before him.

We call ourselves ‘creators’ a lot, especially in the art world. Culinary arts? Look what this guy ‘created’ from scratch. Yeah, nice arangement of already created things, but it wasn’t really scratch. Scratch is what God formed everything from. And I think it’s funny, too, cause people always talk about how God spoke everything into existence. Where does it say that? I mean…he spoke some things sure, but he made others. Created, rather. He created the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and every living thing. I don’t know the logistics of it all, but a lot of places say that God spoke it, ”And it was so.” And then they go on either to say God created it or they leave it at that. Of course, I’m not a creation expert, so I don’t really know what that means…but think about the act of creating. It’s not anything we can do, only God can make things from scratch. But think…you gotta have an idea for something right? But it’s not really an idea because how did the idea get there? We see things now, here on Earth, and get ideas of what to do with them. But if those things weren’t there, we wouldn’t have the idea…follow? So even before creating anything, we get stuck cause we can’t create something unless it already exists. And then we wouldn’t really be creating it. But then there’s the whole act of creating, and I don’t think this is it, but all I can imagine is like purple lightning coming out of God’s hands and ‘poof’, there’s an antelope, or ‘poof’ there’s an island, or ‘poof’ there’s Bill Cosby. Of course, I think it’s way awesome that it all comes back to God being so much cooler than us (Is. 55:8-9). Ooh and I just read below that (vs. 10,11) about God’s words accomplishing things for him. “11…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Wow. How cool is that? So maybe he did speak everything into existence and his words did the creating. I’m not too sure I want to think about all that right now. Let’s chew on that and come back together someday with our thoughts, sound good? Anyways, Deut. 29:29, we’ll never know everything. But isn’t that what inspires awe in us? Where’s awe without mystery? The two go hand in hand. Look at any magic trick. Why don’t the magicians give away the secret? Cause then you know how it’s done. Then it’s just a matter of watching to see if the magician messes up or reveals his secret by acc¡dent. No more, “Holy schneikes! How’d you do that?!” or no more gasps from little children while they wonder if magic is real. But that’s just the thing: I think magic is real. It’s magic how God made everything (forgive me if I sound sacreligious ), and that’s why we can’t know. Anything is magic   until we break it down and cease to wonder. Imagine if we never looked under the hood of a car…just leave it to the mechanics. If we didn’t know, at least slightly, how it works, the mechanics would become our magicians, working their magic in the back rooms where we can’t go because of ‘insurance purposes’.

So to bring it all together, the magic of beauty, created by God’s hand, gives life and wonder and awe and a sacred delight that can only be known by those in a glorious dance with their Creator. I asked someone what one of the deepest desires or longings of their heart was, and thought about my answer to the question. It took a while, but I found out that I desire mysterious wonder. That’s the way I’d put it. I want to laugh and cry and gaze at a sunset and not wonder “How?”, but simply wonder. Wonder at the mystery of a sunset, the magic of creation, and the guiding, sustaining, redeeming, renewing, abolutely glorious Being behind it all.

Be Loved,
The Jack of Hearts
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