Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6 ESV
I recently took a couple of weeks off from this blog, because I felt God calling me to refocus and unload many activities. Though I am back to posting, I have shed some activities and am trying to be careful not to commit to things without prayer. Today’s poetry is a reflection from my journey, and I hope it may help you on yours. Have a blessed Memorial Day everyone, as we all take a day to quietly reflect on the sacrifices made for the peace we now enjoy.
Will there never more be silence When the heaven fills with songs And the voice of men and angels Shout all praise to God belongs
When the mountains leap for gladness And the forests clap their hands Will there no place of quietness In God’s almighty plans?
Oh, we may have a calm assurance That when evening shadows flee He has promised lambs may come and rest And with their Shepherd safely be
Quietness by Peter Caligiuri Copyright 2024 all rights reserved
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57 ESV
The hymn “Victory in Jesus” was requested near the end of our Friday nursing home service, and though I do love this song, it has been quite a while (maybe years!) since I sang it. I was amazed at how my friends at Life Care Center, just lit up and clapped all the way through. Then I looked up a little of the background of this song and discovered that in 1939 when Eugene Bartlett wrote this song, he had been recently paralyzed by a stroke and was confined to bed. Though he had written many other hymns, this one became his most popular and was later sung around the country by his son, Eugene Jr., as he carried on his dad’s ministry.
At the nursing home, I saw how the words and music really struck a chord of hope in the hearts of the residents. Our friends in long-term care, know better than any of us on the outside what it means to look ahead to our eternal victory in Jesus Christ. Rather than focusing on naming and claiming, we are reminded that, Jesus named and claimed us, by His redeeming blood. The Old Testament tells us, “The life is in the blood.”, and today true life and victory can be found nowhere else but in the blood of Jesus Christ. Through HIs blood He purchased our mansion in glory, where, in the words of the song, “some sweet day we’ll sing up there that song of victory!”
So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.1 Corinthians 3:21-23 ESV
I have taken the last two weeks off from writing on this blog hoping to find a bit of quietness. Well, to tell the truth, during that time, nothing has been very quiet here in our home. Our new adventure in home repairs began with a leaking shower, leading to a mildewed carpet (which was nearly new) and voila! – unscheduled (and expensive) repairs going on all around us. And instead dealing with things as I should with calm assurance, I allowed frustration, and general grumpiness to get a toehold in my attitude. But this morning God reminded me of a time years ago when Nancy and I were still renters. We and our two small boys lived in a nice upstairs apartment in a two-family home, with our landlord in the downstairs unit. When we wanted to paint a room, Mike, bought us the paint. If the furnace stopped working, Mike had it repaired. When the taxes came due, they went into Mike’s mailbox, not mine. For twelve years, all we had to do was pay the rent and call Mike when things went wrong. Our relationship with God has some great similarities. Earlier in this chapter, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we are God’s temple. He is the landlord and the deed to our souls belongs to Jesus. Today’s verse lets us know that He is the owner of both our present and our future, so we no longer have to have all the answers to life’s problems. The pressure is not only off of us because God is our landlord but better than that, He is not just living in the downstairs apartment. He is living in us and whatever happens to us matters to Him and is His responsibility to fix. But before you or I can count on God’s help to get things fixed, we have to be sure that the deed to our soul is His. Just as one part of buying a home, is to check if the title is unencumbered, by debts, the only way for us to belong exclusively to God is to be sure we have sold out 100% to Jesus. When His name is on the deed to our heart, then today’s verse tells us that, both our present situation and future circumstances are in His hands. Then we can rest, even while building repairs are going on around us. We can have that blessed assurance because all we have is Christ’s, and Christ belongs to God, and with God in charge of building maintenance, He will make sure that everything works out both for our good and His glory!
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