:minimalist

Thursday, March 07, 2013

 

My latest obsession is this hymn:

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

'Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He, I trust, has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

I think anyone who earnestly pursues sanctification will eventually experience what John Newton describes as God answering prayers in unexpectedly painful ways. When I was in high school, I prayed that God would teach me to have compassion, and His response was... well, to break me, really. He showed me how ugly and hateful and depraved my heart was, and it was enough to almost drive me to despair.

What a sadistic God, one might think, who teaches us to ask for holiness and responds by crushing us under the weight of His eternal glory. Except, this:

These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in Me

This takes a great amount of faith to accept, but without this understanding I don't think I would have even approached comprehending what it means for God to be my perfect heavenly Father.

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Hebrews 12:7-11 [NASB]

This hymn really inspires me to seek God's discipline once more (having been content with my own schemes of earthly joy for awhile)... I hope it does the same for you.

bananna 6:26 PM  |