Posts Tagged ‘providence’
Living by faith alone
Man now had to learn to live by faith: our sin and the misery in the world had made it appear that man could expect no favor from God. To be sure, man had also lived by faith in Paradise, but then his belief made perfect sense. After the fall, man had to live by faith alone. God drove man out of Paradise and appointed an angel to guard the way to the tree of life. At that point the trials of life by faith alone began. All the same, man still enjoyed the privilege of faith in God’s continued favor.
— S. G. de Graaf
Sin blinds our eyes to the Lordship and goodness of our Savior. Consequently, faith is not a natural way to think, and while it is a precious gift from God, we must also battle to see with eyes of faith.
HT: wedgewords
Things we love
We ought to cultivate an understanding of God’s goodness in all things. Gideon Strauss recommends this:
I post a list of things I love every now and then, every time with a few tiny updates. Making lists of things we love is an important practice, I believe, because we learn more about ourselves from thinking about what we love than from any other kind of reflection on ourselves. Our deepest loves, our strongest commitments, our most intense concerns and cares — these are the most basic forces shaping who we are and how we live.
Gideon sees this as a way of understanding ourselves better, and a way of identifying our vocations. In another post he quotes Augustine, saying that “when there is a question as to whether a man is good, one does not ask what he believes, or what he hopes, but what he loves.” But this is also a rich way to practice seeing the sovereign hand of God — and the goodness of God — in all things. In my experience this fuels both gratitude and joy.
What do you love, from great to small? Don’t feel compelled to over-spiritualize — we know that lightning, chocolate, traffic jams, Bach, the musty smell of wet fall leaves, the quiet beauty of a lit Christmas tree in a dark room, and orthodontic retainers are all gifts from God. My wife and I have found this to be one of our favorite date-night questions; you can easily fill an entire evening answering it.
All God's providences are good
“God’s providence is sometimes very, very hard. . . Even though the providence of God is sometimes very hard, in all his works he is purposing your happiness and your good.” — John Piper
Whether sweet or bitter, God’s providences are always good.
I gotta have my orange juice. 