Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Yesterday I was talking with my mother-in-law about some friends who have planned a mission trip to Thailand.   They planned the same trip last year, but were unable to go at the last minute.  This year, catastrophic flooding is preventing them from going.  It can be so frustrating to feel called to a particular place and purpose, to plan and have success in planning the event, and then find you have seemingly done so much for nothing.  However, God has shown me over and over again that nothing is ever done without purpose!

I often feel a spiritual pull toward various missions.  Most recently my prayers have been for my friends and the children of Guatemala, where I spent a short time three years ago.  I know I could be of service there!  My niece Jennifer feels the same calling to Africa, especially after a short mission trip there this past summer, but has responsibilities to finish here in the states before she can go there full-time.   Here is what I am learning:  God may be calling you, but there is always a preparation to be made, and usually not in the manner you first think.  Hold on to your dreams, but don't hold them so tightly that God can't do anything with them.  He is full of delightful surprises!

The circumstances in my life right now, the responsibilities and ties that seem to be holding me back, are actually the very places God wants me to be faithful in service now.  He is growing me and shaping me, and fitting me for the future - no matter what it holds.  All I need to focus on is Him and obeying Him, and He will take me where He needs me!

I am certainly not the only person who has ever struggled in this area.  I find great encouragement in the following story about Ina Ogden, who wrote the lyrics to the old hymn, "Brighten the Corner Where You Are."

Mrs. Ina Ogdon was selected to be on the Chautauqua Circuit. This would give her the opportunity to reach thousands around the country with her brilliant oratory. Just before she was to leave on the tour, her father was injured seriously in an automobile accident. Ina felt it necessary to cancel her plans so she could take care of her father. At first Mrs. Ogdon felt much anger and resentment against God for allowing this tragedy to happen. Gradually, however, she determined that she would be happy and remain “true to the many duties near” her. She would do her best to “brighten the corner” where God had placed her. Ina completed this poem in 1913. Later it was set to its lilting music by the well-known musician, Charles Gabriel, and it became the popular theme song of the Billy Sunday-Homer Rodeheaver campaigns. Interestingly, Mrs. Ogdon no doubt ministered effectively to more people with these challenging words, born out of despair, than she would have done with her speaking tours on the Chautauqua Circuit.

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar,
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.

Just above are clouded skies that you may help to clear,
Let not narrow self your way debar;
Though into one heart alone may fall your song of cheer,
Brighten the corner where you are.

Here for all your talent you may surely find a need,
Here reflect the bright and Morning Star;
Even from your humble hand the Bread of Life may feed,
Brighten the corner where you are.

Chorus:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!

http://www.scriptureandmusic.com/Music/MIDI/Brighten_The_Corner_N.mid

Living Faith (Making it Real)

I read today from Streams in the Desert.  Here is part of the devotional reading:

"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34).

The cross which my Lord bids me take up and carry may assume different shapes. I may have to content myself with a lowly and narrow sphere, when I feel that I have capacities for much higher work. I may have to go on cultivating year after year, a field which seems to yield me no harvests whatsoever. I may be bidden to cherish kind and loving thoughts about someone who has wronged me--be bidden speak to him tenderly, and take his part against all who oppose him, and crown him with sympathy and succor. I may have to confess my Master amongst those who do not wish to be reminded of Him and His claims. I may be called to "move among my race, and show a glorious morning face," when my heart is breaking.

There are many crosses, and every one of them is sore and heavy. None of them is likely to be sought out by me of my own accord. But never is Jesus so near me as when I lift my cross, and lay it submissively on my shoulder, and give it the welcome of a patient and unmurmuring spirit.

He draws close, to ripen my wisdom, to deepen my peace, to increase my courage, to augment my power to be of use to others, through the very experience which is so grievous and distressing, and then--as I read on the seal of one of those Scottish Covenanters whom Claverhouse imprisoned on the lonely Bass, with the sea surging and sobbing round--I grow under the load.--Alexander Smellie. 

I have been struggling of late with feeling unproductive, sometimes even unnecessary.  I see no results in much of the work that I do.  Even knowing God is at work, and He will bring about His results, these feelings persist.

I have been struggling to fully forgive a couple of people who have wronged a loved one.  I thought I had forgiven, until I came face to face with one of these people.  What a wakeup call - to have to put into practice what I know to be the right thing!

These words encouraged me today.  They give me a photograph of what grace in action looks like.  They turn my "spiritual thoughts" into real living, practically and purposefully.  And I had to smile when I saw who originally wrote these words - Mr. Smellie surely had experienced some ignominious moments of his own!

Thank you, Lord God, for your mercy and continued instruction to me.  Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

My Glory

Psalm 3:3-4

 But you, LORD, are a shield around me,
   my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
I call out to the LORD,
   and he answers me from his holy mountain.

You are my shield and my glory....wait, I have glory?  This speck of human frailty and insecurity, prone to wandering and sinning, this seemingly insignificant and indistinguishable bit of humanity – has glory?

Yes, my child.  I am your glory.  I lift your head.  I know you and love you.  I will answer you.  I am with you.  Be still…, and know that I am your God.

Make His Praises Glorious!

1 Peter 1:6-8  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy…

I have a grandson, Jackson, who will be two years old in August.  When Jackson was only a few weeks old, it was discovered that he had been born without a liver bile duct, a rare condition called biliary atresia.  Consequently, his liver was not draining the accumulated poisons of digestion, and was being damaged.  Emergency surgery (called the Kasai procedure) was done to create a bile duct from his existing intestine.  Although this surgery has kept him from total liver failure, it did not solve the initial problem, and Jackson has been waiting for a new liver for over a year.

When I learned that Jackson had been put on the liver transplant list in Alabama, I immediately went to the Lord in prayer, and started praying for him to get a new liver.  But before the words had even left my heart and mouth, I realized that I was, in effect, praying for another baby to die so that my grandson could live.  I find that I cannot pray that prayer – I feel I have no right to pray such a thing.   And yet, my heart’s yearning is for this child of my child to live, to play and smile and get into mischief and bring us delight through his growing and learning.

God knows the desires of my heart.  He also has promised me that ALL things work together for good, because I love Him and am called according to His purpose.  And I know He is able to heal Jackson, fully and completely.  So I am waiting in trust and faith for just that – healing.  I don’t know how God will do this, nor when.  But I am watching and waiting, and even now seeing His almighty hand at work in Jackson’s life and the lives of our family as we love this precious little boy.

God has promised me that there will be a glorious resolution to the story that began with the birth of little Jackson.  And so every time I hear or read the word “glorious,” it is God’s reminder of His promise.  I often need the reminder – my flesh is weak and my spirit becomes discouraged so easily.  But I am fully convinced of God’s faithfulness, for it never fails.  And I eagerly await the day when the promise of “glorious” becomes the reality, and I will sing another new song to my glorious God and King!

The Empty Tomb…Fullness of Life!

Interesting fact:  Cruden’s Concordance shows that the word “empty” and its variants (emptied, empties), is only used 4 times in the New Testament, while the term “full” (and its variants) is used in a positive sense at least 60 times.  What a beautiful and wonderful contrast!  Here are a few “fully” loaded benefits we enjoy:

Because the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive, we are full of joy.

John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

1 Peter 1:8 …whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

Because the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive, we are filled with Christ Himself.

John 1:16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

Ephesians 4:13 ...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Because the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive, we are filled with the fruit of righteousness.

Philippians 1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Hallelujah – the tomb is empty and I am full! I am filled by God’s Holy Spirit, fully forgiven and welcomed into His family, fully satisfied in Him with every spiritual blessing, filled to bursting with joy and glory, overflowing with living water.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for emptying Yourself so I can be full.  Make me a vessel, poured out yet never emptied, so that others may know You and your fullness.

A Magnificent Dwelling Place

The house that is to be builded for the LORD must be exceeding magnifical,

of fame and of glory throughout all countries.  (1 Chronicles 22:5)

David had a communion with God that most of us would love to attain.  He was filled with awe and wonder at the power and majesty of God as the Creator of all, but he also was aware of God’s presence in him and through him, one-on-one.  So when he began to prepare for building a place of worship, it had to be the best of the best, like no other place before.  And with God’s instruction and assistance, David’s son Solomon did build the temple, a place whose magnificence is considered even now a marvel.

Peter calls us, as Christians, living stones that are being built up as a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5).  Surely this house should also be “exceeding magnifical!”  It must be a testimony to the greatness and goodness and glory of God.  What will make this building exceed the fame and splendor of the early temple?

“And in Him (Christ Jesus) you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit.”  (Ephesians 2:22)

What a statement!  I am part of an architectural wonder!  The master architect and construction foreman is God, and Jesus is the foundation.  We are the laborers, using bricks and stone, silver and gold, wood and straw (1 Corinthians 2:16).

I confess, however, that my dedication to this job is sometimes less than enthusiastic.  (After all, you know how some of those other laborers are, right?  Some of them are really lazy and apathetic, and some of them have a real attitude problem.  And if everyone isn’t working to their best, why should I?  Right?)  If this is how I approach the work of God, it’s no wonder that this building isn’t getting the kind of recognition it should!  I need to remember David again, and his intimacy with God.  Is my relationship with Him hindered because I’m building His temple with a selfish or “what’s the use?” attitude?  Am I really building up, or tearing down?

 Lord, give me a new vision of you and your holiness.  Help us all to work in the building of your dwelling. I want to be exceedingly lovely to You.