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.
A few days ago, I found this book at a used book store in Asheville, in the vintage sci-fi section. It’s from 1978, and the cover and title snagged my full attention. I was highly intrigued, so I bought it and read it.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected. I think I initially believed it would turn out to be incredibly blasphemous. But I was pleasantly surprised. It’s very supportive of Christianity, and it’s imaginative, inspiring, and even slightly believable.
The curious thing is that it was written by a Mormon and a prominent sci-fi author of the time whose religious affiliations are unknown. From what I can tell, neither of them have written any religious fiction in the past, and the other odd thing is that this book was the last novel that each of them ever published. I’m extremely curious now to learn the history of how this book came to be. Did Mr. Jones become a Christian towards the end of his career before writing this book? Color me intrigued.
At any rate, it’s a great little sci-fi book with a great message. Not bad for a dollar!
“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.
A slight, slivery sunbeam wriggled through a gash in the roof to reveal dust motes dancing and swirling in its wispy light. These motes, I knew, would frolic their way into a lazy drift that would brush them right across and into my soft skin. Their residence would be permanent; standing immobile in my corner of the museum for years piled on years, I already bore a veritable winter coat of the stuff.
Could I have moved to shake it off and clean myself up, I would have. But I was frozen, a statue of clay, designed to be a mockery of life, it seemed.
I stared, ever-unblinking, at the other displays. Men, women and children, all stiff and still in their comely scenes. The distance and the poor lighting united to disguise the dust I knew infected their cold flesh. From my corner, they looked almost human, almost alive.
But they weren’t. And neither was I. And what could we do about it? Nothing. We were wax figures, abandoned in a dead attraction. We were all of us the same; just like the museum — dusty and dead.
The curator (as such he called himself) had not been seen for years. He had lured us to this place with false promises of beauty and wealth and fame. Eternal life! he claimed. We would be preserved in beauty forever. People would come to see us and love us. They would pay to admire us. It was too good to be true. Indeed it was. Sure, we do have eternal life, but it is life set forever in a wax mold shaped like death.
He left us!
Then came the day when the new Curator appeared. The Curator from the museum next door: The Historical Museum of Future Life. It was a quirky, oddball museum that most people tended to avoid. Nothing but crazies there, everyone knew that.
But that Curator came and stole through our dim world of dust. With his top hat and tail coat he danced between us statues still. He offered us a new place to stay, free from dust, free to move, free from our molded shells.
Most of us rejected the offer. We were too accustomed to our old museum and its small, dark, yet comfortable extent. Plus, who wanted to be on display in the Museum of Future Life? That sounded terribly uncomfortable. After years of immobility, wouldn’t it be too much work to run and play again? We would rather stay the same. It was easy.
Yet I wanted to go. And with my cold, stationary eyes I told the Curator as much. He smiled, bowed, removed his top hat, touched me gently, and exhaled deeply on my face. His breath seeped into my nostrils, and as it did, warmth crept into my wax skin. Warmth that had gone unfelt for ages.
The material that had so long shaped and defined me began to crumble and fall away. My real skin — my real body — broke through.
I danced, I leapt, I laughed. I was finally free from the Wax Museum.
And the Historical Museum of Future Life? Way better than I could have ever imagined, even with my mind freshly purged of wax. And the best part was that the admission fee had already been paid for.
By the Curator’s son, no less. And it was strange. When I met the son, I could have sworn that I had seen him before. I think he had also been a statue in the wax museum, a long time ago. But, if my molded memories have not yet melted, I seem to recall that he was only there for three days…
Strange, isn’t it?
I feel the winds of God today; today my sail I lift, It is the wind of God that dries my vain regretful tears, If ever I forget Thy love and how that love was shown, — Jessie Adams
Though heavy, oft with drenching spray, and torn with many a rift;
If hope but light the water’s crest, and Christ my bark will use,
I’ll seek the seas at His behest, and brave another cruise.
Until with braver thoughts shall rise the purer, brighter years;
If cast on shores of selfish ease or pleasure I should be;
Lord, let me feel Thy freshening breeze, and I’ll put back to sea.
Lift high the blood red flag above; it bears Thy Name alone.
Great Pilot of my onward way, Thou wilt not let me drift;
I feel the winds of God today, today my sail I lift.
