Category Archives: Encouragement

The Sad Songs, Sans-Joy

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THE SAD SONGS:

Listen to the pace and the melody of a sad song.  As far as I can tell, I am not educated in music, all the notes are arranged in minor scale.  I suppose there’s a technical name for that, but it escapes my mind.  For it escapes my desire to learn.

It is a melody slow and deliberate.  It is a melody that defies dance.  It is more a melody of atrophic limbs.  It is not a melody that gives our legs that leap you see in those who are presently joyful.  It is far more a malady to our body than a melody.

But the soul.  The soul stands still.  The eyes of the soul are not shut, while its ears listen attentively..  It looks around with longing.  It looks around for eternal hope.  The soul sings along with sighs and groanings, imperceptible to the ears and eyes of man.  And if it could be heard, Man would not understand the sounds.

The response to sad music is in full light of God’s eyes.  No man can see that response.  No one dances lightly down the street to a dirge.  They plod along with careful steps.  Introspection, for a time, is their king.  Balancing their lifeless frame atop helpless hips.

From point A to point B, that is their only need.  Sadly and deliberately, we live in point A.  Point B is too far removed from our perception even in the best of days.  How much farther when trouble attends our every waking moment?

The sad song is not the solution.  It is a manifestation of the symptoms.  Christ is the solution, my friends.  He is the One who watches for the broken hearted.  The joyful often elude his sight, even while they receive his sustaining.

Are you broken hearted?  Then listen to a sad song and let your souls eyes look up.  From the hills comes to Redemption.  Upon the Great Hills is the glistening White Hope.

By His Grace.

Murdering Hope

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Two things will kill a man.

One is to ignore the righteous demands of life.  The other is to fail to look deeply into the gospel of Christ.

The first will cause untold hardship in this life.  Regret and a misshapen identity will haunt everyday you live in this world.  You will live all your days as if a walking deadman.  In the end, you will despise the man you have been.

The second will do the same thing for eternity.

Times of Sobriety

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Food for thought:

When life goes well, people feel strong.  But such strength always leads us to a false illusion.  For the bad times do come.  What right then did we have to feel secure?

The wise man remains sober even while he laughs with joy.  The bad times then have no effect on such a man’s perceptions.

But see how the bad times devastate those who live for pleasure and joy.  As if such people have a right be at peace in this world.

Perfect strength is sobriety in Christ, it will not be found anywhere else.

Confusion Blooms

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“Settle down old ragged beating heart.  Remember the Truth He spoke to those who are His.  Visit the testimony within you.  “Glory and peace belongs to the Glorious One alone.”  His name is ALL Good things.   His Holy name is Jesus.  

Presently, it’s our time to suffer and die.

Look to His Day!   The Promised Consoling is traveling to you, even now.  See how you remember this.  WORK!  You untrustworthy, broken, unrighteous, and chaotic mess of tangled thoughts; errant miscreant that you are.  REMEMBER!”

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.  (2 Corinthians 4)

Worthless Powers

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The superstitions of Man are so abundant and deeply rooted that we often live in endless trouble determining what is false and what is true.  The Living God alone is true.  He has glorified his Holy Son as the only source of Truth. 

We say we know this.  How is it then that we continually turn to superstition as a testimony of what is strength?  “I hope luck will be with me.”  “Maybe Fortune will smile on you.”  And I won’t name the kind of so-called gods people use to bless one another.

Why do we beat around the bush?  Why do we call on every “power” but Jesus, when we speak to one another about prayer and the power of God?  Why is the name of the only true God so hideous that we are ashamed to speak it with confidence?  Are we truly afraid that others will laugh at us?  Is that all it takes to make us cower in the dark shadows?

Whose opinion matters?

You are all greater than I.  You are all reasonable and trustworthy people.  You have not done the things I have done.  But add this understanding to the things you do.  Then you will be the people you say you are.

Home?

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The Lord, The Sovereign Lord, the Source of life, ever-present Righteousness, Glorious mercy and justice.  He has all things, doesn’t he?  He lacks nothing, how true.  That’s what Sovereign means.

But let me speak to the rich man.  Let me speak to the perverted drunk.  Let me speak to the beautiful woman.  Let me speak to the greasy whore.  Let me speak to all those who have a place among Man, whether glorified or horrified; those with clean hands and those whose hands are covered with blood.

God has all things for he is all things.  Yet what he does not have, he has poured out his life to gain.  He does not have your love.  He does not take first place in all your days, though he is first in all eternity.  All creation honors His Holy Name, except here.  His name is Jesus the Christ, look into it.

“You ask too much of us!  You sit in your religious Chapel, carved of pure Ivory, and judge us.  You have forgotten the demands of life that are far more then we can bear.  We cannot put God first we must defend our home!”

Your home?  Your home is a soleless pair of old shoes.  Your home is a worn-out pair of jeans filled with holes, and leaving your buttocks bare.  Your home is an umbrella missing it’s purposed fabric.  Your home is a cave filled with Wolverines and poisonous snakes.   The floor of your home cannot be cleaned!   Why can’t you smell the stench of your household enemy’s feces, which lay in the crags you can’t reach?  Precious place, isn’t it, this place you call your home.  The place where you fear even in what you call solace.  You light a lamp, but still darkness pervades.

8 “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6)

He is your potential friend.  He is your potential Guardian.  Already he provides what you call your home. 

Who causes the lava to harden?  Who plants the seed of a tree in its craggy niches?  Who brings the beautiful erosion to cause a paradise?  Who gave you this place?  Who dressed you with skin?  Yet you would fear and keep him far from you?

Trust him and do the things that belong to him.  Then you will have a home that is not filled with stench and death.  Your home provides you no pact with death.