Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
From His own fulness all He takes away.
Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
—Catharine Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, 1752.
“None of us is very good at silence. It says too much.”
— Frederick Buechner
What if I tell them who they are?
What if I take away any element of fear in condemnation, judgment or rejection?
What if I tell them I love them, will always love them, that I love them right now, no matter what they’ve done, as much as I love my only Son, that there’s nothing they can do to make my love go away?
What if I tell them there are no lists? What if I tell them I don’t keep a log of past offenses, of how little they pray, how often they’ve let me down, made promises that they don’t keep?
What if I tell them they are righteous, with my righteousness, right now?
What if I tell them they can stop beating themselves up? That they can stop being so formal, stiff and jumpy around me?
What if I tell them I’m crazy about them? What if I tell them, even if they run to the ends of the earth and do the most horrible, unthinkable things, that when they come back, I’d receive them with tears and a party?
What if I tell them that I am their Savior, they’re going to heaven no matter what—it’s a done deal?
What if I tell them they have a new nature—saints, not saved sinners who should now ‘buck up and be better’ if they were any kind of Christians, after all He’s done for you!
What if I tell them that I actually live in them now? That I’ve put my love, power, and nature inside of them, at their disposal?
What if I tell them that they don’t have to put on a mask? That it is OK to be who they are at this moment, with all their junk. That they don’t need to Pretend about how close we are, how much they pray or don’t, how much Bible they read or don’t?”
What if they knew they don’t have to look over their shoulder for fear if things get too good, the other shoe’s gonna drop?
What if they knew I will never, ever use the word “punish” in relation to them?
What if they knew that when they mess up, I will never ‘get back at them’?
What if they were convinced that bad circumstances aren’t my way of evening the score for taking advantage of me?
What if they knew the basis of our friendship isn’t how little they sin, but how much they let me love them?
What if I tell them they can hurt my heart, but that I never hurt theirs?
What if I tell them I kinda like Eric Clapton’s music too?
What if I tell them I never really liked the Christmas hand bell deal with the white gloves?
What if I tell them they can open their eyes when they pray and still go to heaven?
What if I tell them there is no secret agenda, no trapdoor?
What if I tell them it isn’t about their self-effort, but about allowing me to live my life through them?
What if I tell them?
— The New Testament Gamble by John Lynch.
“What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy… Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection.”
— Len Sweet & Frank Viola
“His melody fell upward into joy
And climbed its way into spangled rhapsody.
Earthmaker’s infant stars adored his boy,
And blazed his name through every galaxy.
‘Love,’ sang the Spirit Son and mountains came.
More melody, and life began to grow.
A song of light, and darkness fled in shame
Before a universe in embryo.”
-from The Song by Calvin Miller
“Death cannot be to those who know
The Troubadour of Life. He gives
A crown to every man who shows
By dying that the Singer lives.
So give the breath you cannot keep
To gain the life you cannot lose.
Before the Axman never weep,
But sing with joy the Singer’s truths.
The prince of dragons soon must fall
Before the Prince of Planets.”
— from The Song by Calvin Miller
“Why did you come?”
“The Invader led me to you because the Singer loves you.”
“Are the Singer and the Invader one?”
“As water and ice are one — or heat and fire.
The Singer came to be a man, then came again to be in man.
The first time he came he was the Trabadour
and the next, the Wind Song.”
— from The Song by Calvin Miller
To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him. Yet how He eludes us! For He is everywhere while He is nowhere, for “where” has to do with matter and space, and God is independent of both. He is unaffected by time or motion, is wholly self-dependent and owes nothing to the worlds His hands have made.
Timeless, spaceless, single, lonely,
Yet sublimely Three,
Thou are grandly, always, only
God in Unity!
Lone in grandeur, lone in glory,
Who shall tell Thy wondrous story?
Awful Trinity!
— Fredrick W. Faber
From The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer
What will it be like to walk into eternity?
I imagine it will be somewhat akin to how the astronauts feel when they finally touch back down on our planet after months in space, only multiplied a hundredfold.
It will be like coming back home after a long trip, only a thousand times better.
It will be like waking up to a world of marvels that you always knew deep inside (but scarce could believe) existed, and realizing that everything up till that point had been a hazy dream, and that THIS was real life. THIS was what it had all been about from the beginning.
It will be like finding a reason to smile and never stop, except to laugh.
It will be like that feeling when you catch a perfect sunset beside someone you love dearly, only a million times better, and preserved forever.
Perhaps it will be sort of like that.
