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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Soul's Delight

Where do you find your delight?
*Silence* I know for me, the true answer wouldn't be God. Hence I checked out "When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy" by John Piper from the library. In the meantime, here are some verses to get ya thinking.
 “Submit to God, and you will have peace;
     
 then things will go well for you.
 
 Listen to his instructions,
      and store them in your heart.

 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored
      
so clean up your life.
 
 If you give up your lust for money
      and throw your precious gold into the river,

  the Almighty himself will be your treasure.
      He will be your precious silver!
  Then you will take delight in the Almighty
      and look up to God.
 You will pray to him, and he will hear youand you will fulfill your vows to him. You will succeed in whatever you choose to do, and light will shine on the road ahead of you." ~Job 22:21-28
My best friend actually introduced me to that passage.  Clearly the italics and underlining are my work; the underlining is what we do, the italics are the rewards. Keep in mind, though, that the underlining isn't at all possible for us to do on our own - we need God desperately to help us. In the end, though, as the passage implies, our efforts will be quite worth it. :).


Also, here's a quote from a very good book - "A Chance to Die" by Elisabeth Elliot. In this part, one of Amy's babies has just died, and she's attempting to encourage her other children while handling the shock herself.

Amy took her children to the garden and showed them nasturtiums and convolvulus which were not flourishing as they should have. But one beautiful lily, the first that had ever blossomed there, had opened that very morning. "If Jesus came to our garden," she asked, "which flower would you give Him?"
They ran to the lily
. "We would give Him this!"
Would she give Him her lily?
 

Of course, as you probably already assumed, the 'lily' Amy struggles with giving away is the baby. But her lily doesn't just pertain to her. How many of us are willing to give up our lilies, our treasures? Our "precious gold" from Job?


Think about it. Pray about it. Live it!

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