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Join me in my blog entitled The Daily Bread, as I reflect on the mundane and the extraordinary, the trivial and the significant, and discover God is alive and well and as near as our closest breath. I pray these biblically based reflections will encourage and strengthen you, as we strive together to see God in our everyday lives – to know and experience Him more fully. Click here to read my archived posts.
Book Review
I am adding a new section to my Homepage to share with others the books I have been reading, and why they have impacted me. Coming soon, I will post titles and a very brief review of books I would share with others. Be looking for more to come!
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S.Lewis
I recently picked up this classic, and was reminded again of the brilliance of Lewis’ theological mind, and the insight he has into our human character. This dialogue between a senior level devil, Screwtape, and his protege, Wormword as they connive to divert and delude their Christian “patient” from any real and authentic faith in God, spotlights the areas of our faith that are wide, gaping targets for attack. Coming around the backside of faith, Lewis helps one honestly look in the mirror at our own weaknesses, prompting renewed vigor to resist the feeble but persistent attacks made to make our faith life boring, ineffectual, and lifeless. This is book inspires the opposite; that our Christian walk is dynamic, powerful and full of life. I highly recommend this entertaining read, if not for the first time, then for a refresher course in the importance of being intentional with God.
Think On These Things
In keeping with the Book Review above, I regularly come across good quotes, either new or old, either scriptural or secular, that have caused me to think a little deeper. I thought I would share them here. Soon, I will be changing this section weekly, if not daily. Please check on it. It will be a wealth of knowledge greater than my own.
This following passage from C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters really gave me something to think about, with regard to how I spend my free time and what I fill my mind with… how often I fill it with nothing of import, and time goes by where no good thought or action was ever conceived…How important it is to fill our God-given time with purpose and meaning, joy and real pleasures. And how easily we willingly throw all that away with a click on our phone or the remote control.
“The Christians describe (God) as one “without whom “Nothing” is strong.” And “Nothing” is very strong; strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them…
It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. … Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
– C.S.Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Chapter XII)
My New Book, Hand in Hand, Now Available
My new book, Hand in Hand, Walking with the Psalms through Loneliness, is now available to buy online through my website (see sidebar to the left). I continue to be very excited about the subject matter, ever aware of how many people silently suffer with loneliness, afraid to speak about feelings of loss, rejection, isolation and abandonment. I pray this book of reflections will touch the heartstrings of many, and God’s love and tender presence will be conveyed through its pages.
Prayers
I have been sustained by the prayers of others, as well as written, organized prayers through many devotionals and guides. They have helped shape my own prayer life. Please find below prayers from various sources, with references.
“O Eternal God…
Let me not go forth to my work believing only in the world of sense and time, but give me grace to understand that the world I cannot see or touch is the most real world of all. My life to-day will be lived in time, but eternal issues will be concerned in it. The needs of my body will be clamant, but it is for the needs of my soul that I must care most. My business will be with things material, but behind them let me be aware of things spiritual. Let me keep steadily in mind that the things that matter are not money or possessions, not houses or lands, not bodily comfort or bodily pleasure; but truth and honor and meekness and helpfulness and a pure love of Thyself.
– John Baillie, and excerpt from A Diary of Private Prayer; The Twelfth Day (Morning);
Published by Fireside/Simon & Schuster; New York, NY; 1996; page 53.