Stevemidkiff's Blog

But in order to make dreams come into reality,

it takes an awful lot of determination,

it takes dedication,

it takes self-discipline and effort.”

Jesse Owens

But without faith it is impossible to please Him:

for he that comes to God must believe that He is,

and that he is a rewarder of all who diligently seek Him.

Heb. 11:6

It’s impossible to please God apart from faith.

And why?

Because in approaching God

We must believe both that he exists

And we must believe that he cares enough

to respond to us when we diligently seek Him.

The main art in the matter of spiritual living

is to know how to handle ourselves.

We have to take ourselves in hand,

We have to address ourselves,

We have to preach to ourselves,

We have to question ourselves.

You must say to your soul:

Why are you cast down’–

what business do we have being discouraged?

We must turn on ourselves,

We must yell at ourselves,

We must condemn ourselves,

We must exhort ourselves & say to ourselves: ‘

Hope thou in God’

instead of muttering weird stuff to ourselves

And then we must go on to remind ourselves of God,

Who God is & what God is & what God has done,

and what God has promised Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note:

defy ourselves & defy other people & defy the devil

and defy the whole world & say to ourselves

‘I shall yet priase Him for the help of His countenance,

who is also the health of my countenance & my God’.

Adapted from (Spiritual Depression, 20-21)

D. M. Lloyd Jones

I’m just wondering

Before long they’re will be laws that we have to sleep while masked up

I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer . . .

Why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?

How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

Haunted by the myth of Cupid and Psyche throughout his life,

C.S. Lewis wrote this, his last, extraordinary novel:

to retell their story through the gaze of Psyche’s sister, Orual.

Disfigured and embittered, Orual loves her younger sister to a fault

and suffers deeply when she is sent away to Cupid, the God of the Mountain.

Psyche is forbidden to look upon the god’s face, but is persuaded by her sister to do so;

she is banished for her betrayal.

Orual is left alone to grow in power but never in love, to wonder at the silence of the gods.

Only at the end of her life, in visions of her lost beloved sister, will she hear an answer.

Till We Have Faces succeeds in presenting with imaginative directness

what its author has described elsewhere as

‘the divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live’ . . .

It deepens for adults that sense of wonder and strange truth

which delights children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,

Prince Caspian, and other legends of Narnia.”

Jesus is the happiest man who ever lived.

It’s in odd contrast to the truth that He was a man of sorrow and aquatinted with grief.

I believe the contrast between sorrow and joy is profound and mysterious.

Jesus is a man who knew the deepest sorrow

Jesus is a man who knew joy in its infinite heights.

(Or joy unspeakable and beyond words)

The Psalmist wrote:

Weeping may endure for a night,

but joy cometh in the morning

Psa. 30:5

The truth is we are passing through a temporary night,

But we’re headed to an eternal morning

Our affections are set on things above not on things below

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,

works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory

2 Cor 4:17

exceeding is an adverbial phrase meaning exceeding to deeper exceeding

It means excessive beyond our wildest imagination

“Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine”

Blake

Scripture is full of contrasts and paradox

As G. K. Chesterton the prince of paradox noted:

“Paradox is truth standing on her head to attract attention.”

Rutherford said:

“But flowers need night’s cool darkness,

The moonlight and the dew.

So Christ from one who loved Him,

His presence oft withdrew.”

Another contrast or paradox is Jesus thoughts on;

A woman when she is in travail has sorrow,

because her hour is come:

but as soon as she is delivered of the child,

she remembers no more the anguish,

for joy that a baby is born into the world.

John 16:21

“Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted”

Mt 5:6

“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy”

Psa 126:5

The age old axiom is:

does sorrow eat up joy and devour it

or does joy consume sorrow.

The conclusion is Joy has a bigger mouth

Again in Rutherford’s beautiful poetic lines

“The king there in His beauty,

Without a veil is seen

It were a well-spent journey,

Though seven deaths lay between:

The Lamb with His fair army,

Doth on Mount Zion stand,

And glory, glory dwelleth

In Emmanuel’s land

O Christ, He is the fountain,

The deep, sweet well of love!

The streams on earth I’ve tasted

More deep I’ll drink above:

There to an ocean fullness

His mercy doth expand,

And glory, glory dwelleth

In Emmanuel’s land.

Faith is what an atheist exercises when he steps on an airplane

with no scientific proof that the pilot will succeed in getting him to his destination.

Faith is what an atheist has when he lies on an operating table

with no scientific proof that the surgeon will do his job properly.

Faith is what an atheist exhibits when he drives through a green light

with no scientific proof that other drivers will not come through the intersection on a red light.

Faith is what an atheist demonstrates when he bites into a hamburger

with no scientific proof that the fast-food chef has not poisoned it.

Faith is what an atheist practices on a daily basis—

you can’t live life without it.

Why not trust in Jesus for His perfect forgiveness,

Why not exercise faith in Christ’s for His amazing salvation

Why not believe in the Lord for His abundance of a new life from God

When we have a vision, a passion about something

When we have this purpose & plan that just seems so special and ideal.

Then out of no where everything falls apart.

A wrench falls into the meshing gears & it explodes

And suddenly everything all breaks up in so many jangled pieces.

It’s the death of a vision.

We feel wrecked.

We feel exposed & worthless.

We feel down

We feel disappointed

And we sink easily into a long exasperating low point that haunts us constantly.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

But a desire fulfilled is life giving”

Prov. 13:12

We can’t give up.

We Keep praying.

We Keep trusting.

We Keep waiting.

Waiting is an amazing biblical concept.

Waiting means binding.

To wait on the Lord is to bind our weakness to His strength.

“But they that wait (bind themselves) on the LORD

will renew their strength;

they will mount up with wings as eagles;

they will run, and not be weary;

and they will walk, and not faint.”

Isa. 40:31

We keep our vision alive through waiting prayer.

We fight the fight of faith & refuse to give up.

“If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth.”

Eccles. 11:3

C. H. Spurgeon wrote:

“WHY, do we dread the clouds that now darken our sky?

True, for a while they hide the sun, but the sun is not quenched;

The sun will be out again before long.

Meanwhile those black clouds are filled with rain;

and the blacker they are, the more likely they will yield plentiful showers.

How can we have rain without clouds?

Our troubles have always brought us blessings, and they always will.

Our problems are the dark chariots of bright grace.

These clouds will empty themselves before long,

and every tender herb will be gladder for the shower.

Our God may drench us with grief, but He will refresh us with mercy.

Our Lord’s love-letters often come to us in dark-edged envelopes.

His wagons rumble,

Our vehicles sometimes appear to have square wood wheels.

But they are loaded with benefits.

His ways blossom with sweet flowers and nourishing fruits.

Don’t worry about the clouds, but sing

because May flowers are brought to us through the April clouds and showers.

O Lord, the clouds are the dust of Thy feet!

How near You are in the cloudy and dark day!

Love sees You, and is glad.

Faith sees the clouds emptying themselves and making the little hills rejoice on every side”.

“What seems so dark to our dim sight

May be a shadow, seen aright

Making some brightness doubly bright.

“The flash that struck our tree-away.

To shelter us-lets heaven’s blue floor

Shine where it never shone before.

The cry wrung from our spirit’s pain

May echo on some far-off plain,

And guide a wanderer home again.”

“The blue of heaven is larger than the clouds.”

Just keep trusting

Just keep praying

Hope delivers from shame

The cedars of Lebanon which God has planted.

Psalm 104:16

Lebanon’s cedars are representative of those who believe in Jesus Christ.

We owe our planting totally to the Lord.

This is true of every believer.

We are not man-planted

We are not self-planted,

We are God-planted.

As Spurgeon has noted:

The mysterious hand of God’s Spirit dropped the living seed into our heart.

He prepared our heart to receive God’s Word of grace.

Our destiny of heaven is owed to Jesus, our great cultivator and our planter.

The cedars of Lebanon are not dependent on man for their watering.

They stand on the lofty rock, unmoistened by human irrigation.

It is our Heavenly Father that supplies their moisture.

In Christ, we as His believers, learn to live by faith.

We are independent of man, even in physical things.

It is God’s continued maintenance that keeps us.

We look to the Lord our God, and to Him alone.

The dew of heaven is our portion, and the God of heaven is our fountain.

We, as the cedars of Lebanon are not protected by any mortal power.

We owe nothing to man for their preservation from stormy wind & tempest.

We are God’s trees, kept & preserved by Him & by Him alone.

We are not a hot-house plant, sheltered from temptation.

We stand in the most exposed position.

We have no shelter, no protection, except this,

that the broad wings of the eternal God always cover the cedars which He Himself has planted.

Like cedars, we are full of sap, having vitality enough to be ever green, even in winter’s snows.

The flourishing and majestic condition of the cedar is to the praise of God only.

The Lord, even our Lord alone has been everything to the cedars.

The Psalmist writes:

“Praise the Lord, fruitful trees & all cedars.”

In us, we have nothing that can magnify us as self made peoples;

we are planted,
we are nourished
we are protected

by the Lord’s own hand & to Him let all the glory be ascribed.

Please deliver all we love

O Lord, we’re insufficient

You are all-sufficient

You are completely adequate

Intervene please help

You can pierce the scales of the
monstrous ones

You can get under the thick impenetrable skin of Leviathan and all that appear impenetrable

You can make us feel all that You desire us to feel

You can speak to a grave

You can call out to the dead to come to life

You can speak to rocks

You can bring praise from hard hearts

You can lecture the mountains & they skip like Rams the little hills like Lambs

You can move them & us where You want

You can move anyone with arguments

You can make the blind see

You, Lord, can pierce our hearts
the sinner

Penetrate our hearts Lord

You can direct an arrow between
the cracks of our armor

Direct us with truth

Cut deep into our bone & marrow

You are the God of all armies

We come through David against Goliath

We come to wrestle, not with flesh and blood

You wrestle through us with the raging rulers & cosmic powers

You wrestle through us with spiritual
forces of the evil of this world

Lord defeat the wicked one

Lord, take away the armor from the
strong man

Lord give us the captives out of Satans grasp

Lord, choose our words

Lord, skill us in the use of Your
weapons

Lord, pierce below our resistant surface

Lord, cut to the heart

Lord, take all opposition down

We will pray until You hear us

We will pray until our loved ones
live in Your sight!

Lord, save them, or they will perish

Our hearts are crushed if our loved
ones are endlessly lost

Lord, have compassion,

Lord, save us out of the burning

Put your powerful voice forth & the
work will be done

Slay our sin & save our soul

The reason why our prayers so often fall flat…

is because they’re not grown from the soil of God’s word”

Eugene Peterson

And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him,

and God never allowed his words to fall to the ground.

1 Sam. 3:19

Everyone recognized that Samuel was the real thing

He was accepted as a true prophet of God

And the Lord revealed through Samuel His word

“We will be glad and rejoice in Your love,

for You saw our affliction

You knew the anguish of our soul.

You have not given us into the hands of our enemies

You have set our feet in a spacious place.”

Psalm 31:7–8 NIV

To be & to dwell in Christ is to dwell in most “spacious place” imaginable.

In our culture, we focus our trust & affection on one hope

Jesus Christ

Jesus is never narrow or risky.

Dwelling in Jesus Christ is to occupy a wide, expansive place.