On Bunyan

I've been reading John Bunyan's autobiography. It's mostly from a spiritual standpoint, and one thing I found surprising was how long God worked on his heart before he was truly converted - something like 5 years! During that time, he sincerely wanted to understand how to be saved, but was constantly being assaulted by temptations and doubts. It made me think of Christian at the beginning of Pilgrim's Progress; undoubtedly Bunyan was drawing on his own experience while writing the book. I found myself readily sympathizing with him, because I remember (albeit after I was converted) a few years when I had my own painful struggles with assurance. I suppose all Christians can relate. We all have to walk through the Valley of Humiliation.

Another thing this made me think about was how Christians today unrealistically expect conversion to be this sudden, dramatic light-bulb experience. I know I used to think that way, which probably explains my astonishment at the length of time of Bunyan's conversion. I think of all the  over-zealous street preachers and conference speakers who pressure their listeners into saying "the prayer," regarding it as a magical incantation that guarantees one's way into heaven. From my reading and talking to people I know, I'm persuaded that God more often than not works out our salvation over a long period of time while we scarcely realize what's happening.

My favorite part of Pilgrims' Progress is when Christian stays at the Palace Beautiful. In the allegory, it's a picture of the weekly meeting of the church. The peaceful rest from his journey and the fellowship Christian enjoys with the inhabitants of the palace are a lovely portrayal of what the church visible is intended to be.

Christian arriving at the Palace Beautiful

"If I could possess the tinker's abilities to grip men's hearts, I would gladly give in exchange all my learning." - John Owen

"Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak with out quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God." - Charles Spurgeon

Happy New Year

Christian in Palace Beautiful

If I were reading this, my mind would go on auto-pilot because of the title. A bunch of the blogs I read (and it's always the most interesting ones) have been half-forgotten by their owners, but upon the arrival of 2011, at least half have been updated with a Happy-New-Year!-Sorry-for-being-a-bad-blogger-It-won't-happen-ever-ever-again post. And then there isn't another post until February. C'est la vie.

I will join the band of absent-minded bloggers in saying that there are some things I want to change though. Here follows my Blogging New Years Resolutions:

1. More book reviews. (Or at least to talk about what I'm reading) What's the point of reading if you can't share what you learn? Last year I made a goal to read 5 books a month, and am continuing it this year. And there's got to be SOMETHING interesting to write about in there.
2. A revamping of the Junto. Let's all say it together: The Junto fails. Maddie and I have been talking a lot about it, and have decided to try a new approach. Instead of randomly choosing books that look entertaining, we have decided to follow a list. Actually a book - Invitation to the Classics. I'm really excited about it!
3. Following through with what I plan to do here. Otherwise, I just look like an idiot......

I've pretty much given up on personal New Years resolutions. But I'll make an exception for this one of Jonathan Edwards: "Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before."

I hope your 2011 is a year grace-filled and God-centered.

2011

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downward by thy flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

 

--Isaac Watts--

Best Picture Ever

The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg

 

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Cicero

The loveliness of God's will

"God's plans and purposes for me, and for you, dear reader, were all made and determined on from the beginning; and as they are worked out day by day in our lives, how wise should we be if, with joyful certainty, we accepted each unfolding of His will as a proof of his faithfulness and love! When once I, as a believer, can say from my heart, 'This is the will of God concerning me', it matters not what the 'this' is - whether it be a small domestic worry or the severance of the dearest earthly ties - the fact that it is His most blessed will, takes all the fierce sting out of the trouble, and leaves it powerless to hurt or hinder the peace of my soul. There is all the difference between the murderous blows of an enemy, and the needful chastisement of a loving father's hand! The Lord may make us sore, but He will bind us up. He may wound, but His hands make whole. How often has the Lord to break a heart before He can enter into it, and fill it with His love; but how precious and fragrant is the balm which, from that very moment, flows out of that heart to others!"

(Susannah Spurgeon, Free Grace and Dying Love, pp. 35-36)

On the wise men

"Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations"

The verses above refer to the three wise men who came to visit Christ as a child, but I think we can all learn a lesson from their example. If three pagan scholars stopped their work and undertook the long journey to Palestine, can't we - professing Christians - set aside time from our work and studies to commune with God?

As usual, Jonathan Edwards has profound insight that sums it up better than I could........

"The excellency of Christ is an object suited to the superior faculties of man, suited to entertain the faculty of reason and understanding; and there is nothing so worthy about which the understanding can be employed as this excellency. No other object is so great, noble, and exalted."

Cruelty

 Wow. The pattern companies have stooped far too low.

You can just see the humiliation on these dogs' faces.

The coolest Halloween costume ever, no?

I greet thee, who my sure Redeemer art

I greet thee, who my sure Redeemer art,
My only trust and Saviour of my heart,
Who pain didst undergo for my poor sake;
I pray thee from our hearts all cares to take.

Thou art the King of mercy and of grace,
Reigning omnipotent in every place:
So come, O King, and our whole being sway;
Shine on us with the light of thy pure day.

Thou art the life, by which alone we live,
And all our substance and our strength receive;
O comfort us in death's approaching hour,
Strong-hearted then to face it by thy pow'r.

Thou hast the true and perfect gentleness,
No harshness hast thou and no bitterness:
Make us to taste the sweet grace found in thee
And ever stay in thy sweet unity.

Our hope is in no other save in thee;
Our faith is built upon thy promise free;
O grant to us such stronger hope and sure
That we can boldly conquer and endure.

Miscellanies

1. I'm not a grammar nerd, but I have been taught to live in horror of the dreaded 'dangling participle.' It made my day when I found the aforesaid grammar error in my grammar textbook:

   "Although her collaborator was deceased, the Nobel Prize Committee promptly excepted its rule and awarded Dr. Yallow the undeniably prestigious Nobel Prize for Medicine."

   Hahahahahhaha. 
2. I was curious, so I counted all the Facebook statuses (stati?) I posted in 2010. The total? The devastatingly huge number of 12. I am so addicted, I know.
3. Apparently there is another Jane Eyre movie coming out in March. It looks slightly incredible. I like how the poster doesn't have the stuffy look most "bonnet dramas" seem to have:

   
4. I read A Midsummer Night's Dream a week or two ago. Boy, the last act is hilarious! Shakespeare isn't as hard as I was afraid he would be. Don't you love those revelations? :-)
5. I did an epic cleaning of my room last week, and I found the beginning of a little story I tried writing when I was in middle school. It's all about the incidents that a group of kids in a tiny church got into. Each character is a thinly disguised version of everyone who was at my own church at the time, and just about everything that went on in the story actually happened. It was pretty awesome reading it and being reminded of the fun times I had back in the day. So there's my commercial in support of cleaning - you never know what you may find. Ha.

Some things never change......

Even though there is in this generation a growing number of professors, a great noise of religion, religious duties in every corner, and preaching in abundance, there is little evidence of the fruit of true mortification. Perhaps we might find that, judging by the principle of mortification, the number of true believers is not as multiplied as it appears from those who have made a mere profession. Some speak and profess a spirituality that far exceeds the former days, but their lives give evidence of a miserable unmortified heart. If vain spending of time, idleness, envy, strife, variations, emulence, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness, are the marks of Christians, we have them among us in abundance. May the good Lord send us a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we will be in a sad condition!

 John Owen, The Mortification of Sin