Heavenly Music

How are we to respond to difficult times? By concentrating on the bigger picture. Here are two links that will encourage us to think heavenly thoughts. The first is a 24 minute chat between Joni Eareckson Tada and Nancy Guthrie, where at times they break out in song. The second is a list of hymns to sing when we are overcome by fear and anxiety. I hope these are helpful. 💜


Suffering, Healing, and the Hope of Eternity:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/q-a-podcast/suffering-healing-and-the-hope-of-eternity/


25 Hymns to Sing in Troubled Times:

https://www.9marks.org/article/25-hymns-to-sing-in-troubled-times/

Social Distancing and God

At the same time that I was writing my thoughts in yesterday's post concerning the excerpt from Paul Tripp's devotional and how it related to COVID-19, Paul Tripp was making a video about COVID-19!  What a coincidence, OOOPS, I meant providence.  It's very good and I just couldn't wait until next week to share it with all of you. It is entitled "How This Pandemic Preaches The Gospel" and is 14 minutes long. As always Tripp is biblically sound and pastorally compassionate.

On a disappointing note, I'm fairly certain that Paul's (I write about him enough that I think we're on a first name basis) visit to Exeter Presbyterian Church on April 19th will be canceled given the health challenges he experiences as described in his book Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense. 😟

Here is the video: https://youtu.be/uGiD-thXMKQ

God-Forgetting or God-Remembering?

Paul Tripp's thoughts: "I looked everywhere. I looked high and low. There wasn't a drawer, a cabinet, or a dark closet I didn't tear apart in my search. I even went out to the car twice to make sure I hadn't left it there. And after all my searching, it was just as lost as when I had begun. That night it hit me that my lost file was a picture of how little control I have over my own life. I do not even have sovereignty over my little world to guarantee that I will never lose important things. It can be a bit scary to consider. You and I have very little power and control over the most significant things in our lives. You and I don't know what's going to happen next. We have little control over the principle people in our lives, little power over the situations in which we live, and almost no control over the locations of our lives.

Honestly facing your lack of sovereignty over your own life produces either anxiety or relief. Anxiety is God-forgetting. It is the result of thinking that life is on your shoulders, that it is your job to figure it all out and keep things in order. It's worrisome to think that your job in life is to work yourself into enough control over people, locations, and situations that you can rest assured that you will get what you think you need and accomplish what you think you need to accomplish. If you fall into this way of thinking, your life will be burdened with worry and your heart will be filled with dread.

But there is a much better way. It is God-remembering. It rests in the relief that although it may not look like it, your life is under the careful control of One who defines wisdom, power, and love. In all those moments when life is out of your control, it is not out of his control: "For his dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;... and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'  (Dan. 4:34-35).

You see, rest is not to be found in your control but in God's absolute rule over everything. You will never be in a situation, location, or relationship that is not under his control."

Candy's thoughts: My good friend Patti S. sent this page from Paul Tripp's daily devotional book. She said, "It seemed particularly relevant for what we are facing today." Isn't that the truth? But I guess that shouldn't surprise us: God even knows weeks in advance which excerpt from which book I will post here on CandyceLand. Today's came from something a friend read and passed along to me. Who knew? God knew. 😎

But more to the main point: God wasn't surprised when COVID-19 was released upon the earth. He didn't all of a sudden think "OOOPS - I lost track of that pesky germ." And He knows exactly when we will all be set free from our homes to shop for food without having some stranger do that for us. 

I am so thankful that God is sovereign, and not Mother Nature or bad luck or a random universe. The other options are impersonal. Yahweh is personal, and Jesus is Yahweh in person who cares for us even in the midst of pandemics. We can trust the great I-AM to rule all things well.

C.S.Lewis on the Coronavirus

The following is a Gospel Coalition post by Matt Smethurst including a great excerpt by C.S. Lewis.

Smethurst's thoughts: "It’s now clear that COVID-19 is a deadly serious global pandemic, and all necessary precautions should be taken. Still, C. S. Lewis’s words—written 72 years ago—ring with some relevance for us. Just replace “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus.”

C.S. Lewis' thoughts:

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

Before A Sermon, After A Sermon

"That prayer is most likely to pierce heaven which first pierces one's own heart."  Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

Not only is that my new favorite quote, but it is the basis for my new favorite book. (Yes, yes, I know that I often write enthusiastically about reading a new publication, but it is still true that I have a "new favorite.") 😊

The book is a collection of prayers entitled Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans. It contains so many beautiful requests to God for those things agreeable to His will. The Table of Contents very helpfully lists the subject matter of every prayer in the book, so in desperation one could skim for the type of prayer most applicable to one's particular challenge.

Here are two examples which apply to everyone who listens to God's Word in worship and attempts to love, obey, and serve our Lord as a result of doing so.

Before A Sermon

Lord, I am now entering into your presence, to hear you speak from heaven to me, to receive your rain and spiritual dew, which never return in vain, but ripen a harvest either of corn or weeds, of grace or judgment.

My heart is prepared, O Lord, my heart is prepared to learn and to love any of your words. Your law is my counselor; I will be ruled by it. It is my physician; I will be patient under it. It is my schoolmaster; I will be obedient to it.

But who am I that I should promise any service to you? And who is your minister that he should do any good to me, without your grace and heavenly call?

Be therefore pleased to reveal your own Spirit to me, and to work in me that which you require. Amen.

Edward Reynolds (1599-1676)

After The Sermon

Blessed be God, the Father of all mercy, who continues to pour His benefits upon us.

You have chosen and called us, justified us, set us apart, and glorified us.

You were born for us, and you lived and died for us. You have given us blessings for this life, and for a better life to come,

Lord, your blessings hang in clusters, falling upon us. They break forth like mighty waters on every side.

And now, Lord, you have fed us with the bread of life, your word. So we have eaten the food of angels. Bless it, Lord, make it health and strength to us, as we strive and prosper, until our obedience reaches the measure of your love - you who have done everything for us.

Grant this, dear Father, for your Son's sake, our only Savior. With you and the Holy Spirit, three persons, but one most glorious, incomprehensible God, be all honor, glory, and praise forever, Amen.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

Get Yourself Under The Control Of...???

Candy's thoughts: When we attend worship on Sunday mornings, do we enter only hoping to become a happier person, or do we want to know what God has to say to us from His Word? Of course good feelings are a normal part of a worship service, but this should not be our primary motive for participation in Sabbath gatherings. We do not exist just to be happy. The holiness that the "King of Heaven" intends for His "ransomed, healed, restored, and forgiven" children will be far better for us than the quick fix of positive emotions. We need to be more concerned with knowing God than needing the very passing pleasures of this fleeting life.

Click here for a provocative four minute video by Alistair Begg speaking at a Ligonier Conference in 2013.