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Posts Tagged ‘faith. spiritual’

On why we are not to know what is coming next

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I sympathize most deeply with you on the loss of Fr. Louis. But for good as well as for ill one never knows what is coming next. You remember the Imitation says ‘Bear your cross, for if you try to get rid of it you will probably find another and worse one.’ But there is a brighter side to the same principle. When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.
All blessings and sympathy.
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
To find the blessings hidden in our pain and suffering, we must be continually looking for them and being grateful for them. And this is among the hardest things for us to do, especially when wracked by grievous hurt.
 
We are best able to keep looking and being grateful when our faith gives us the hope which blesses us with endurance to persevere while turning us into the children of God we were created to be.
 
In this process, the blessings reveal themselves according to God’s will as the good which can be found through our suffering. And we, persevering through our pain in this way, grow more like children of God. That is the greatest blessing of all.
 
On the lookout,
Z gardener

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On The Primacy Of Spiritual Sin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred.

For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
It seems to this writer, that spiritual sin not only corrupts the practitioner, but also all those at whom it is directed or who are exposed to it. While the sins of the flesh seems to inflict most of its harm on the practitioner. Neither is good.
Rather than parsing the differences, let us commit to eliminating both. That commitment, followed through upon and made the foundation of our lives will lift us above both types of vices and will bring us to the place that God intended us to be. It will also ensure that when we fall to vice, we will be lifted up and made better for the experience when accept the truth, we repent and turn back to God.
Turning away,
Z gardener

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On Self

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. . . . I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call “me” can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
The fundamental premise of these devotionals is that God gave us an Eden in which to live, and the only thing keeping us out of it is us. It is called the Good Morning Garden because each day we can live in the garden called Eden.
We just have to get our “selfs” out of the way. That is also the secret to becoming the children of God we were created to be.
Being God’s child,
Z gardener

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On Goodness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
 
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Being good reveals things to us that would otherwise be invisible.  It shines light, where otherwise would be darkness. It shows us a way, that without it, would be unavailable to us.
 
Sort of  like making the blind to see.
 
In blindsight,
 
Z gardener

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On Being In Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married’, then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.

Love in this second sense—love as distinct from ‘being in love’—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

When the passion of the moment fades, the abiding love that remains is the that which will carry us through. This abiding love is directed at the other person, unlike momentary passion which is directed at one’s self.

While there is room for both fiery passion and abiding love, the one that abides and sustains is the true love that conquers all. It provides the fuel for the flames of passion.

Love in,

Z gardener

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