an early interrogation I had told an officer who was threatening to kill me, “Sir, let me explain how I see this issue. Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Here is how it works. You know that my sermons on tape have spread all over the country. If you kill me, those…
If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.
(via ivychiu)
”God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
- C.S. Lewis
“I’m in my sixties, and I have to admit that I am already getting tired of me. I am tired of trying to deal with the insecurities that have haunted me for years. Tired of the failures in my life that I think I have finally gotten victory over just to have them pop up again. Tired of the carnal way I feel when people talk about their favorite preacher and it’s not me! Tired of looking in the rearview mirror and wishing I had done things differently. Tired of the awkward way I feel on those rare occasions when people praise me. I am just flat out getting tired of me.
But after sixty years I have to say that I never get tired of Jesus! I never get tired of praising Him and hearing Him praised. I still stand amazed at His unusual grace and mercy that He continues to pour out on me daily. As life goes on, I find Jesus to be more adventuresome, interesting, challenging, fresh, and compelling than ever before. I continue to find Him wonderfully different—anything but boring! No wonder Paul said that he counted even the best things about himself like dung compared to the surpassing value of getting to know Jesus (Philippians 3:7-8)!
When we’re young, we’re bullet proof. We think we’ll live forever. But when you get to be my age, you can see your mortality approaching on the horizon. It’s not difficult to see yourself someday sitting alone in the corner of a room at the nursing home waiting for the lunch bell to ring. And, if life has been all about you, that’s going to be a really bad day because there’s nothing left of you that’s worth getting excited about! But if your life has been all about Jesus, it will be a really good day because Jesus will be just as wonderful as He ever has been. And you might just hear Him whisper in your heart, “You’re almost home!”—which would be far better than hearing the lunch bell ring!”
