On accident.

In the common mien of med school, I’ll toss at you the high-yield factoids of my life status:

• I went on a vacation! To the semiannual study of Leviticus. Christ is everything. I might write a post about it. Perhaps remain tuned.
• Professors Sprout were overwatered and undersunned in my absence, and are looking quite wilty. Not a problem of etiolation, but of perhaps cryptic root rot. Recovery uncertain.
• My spirit was refreshed by seeing all of my classmates after 6 months continuing to grow in the Lord in every place!
• People told me this new course block was not as busy, but I don’t think I see that yet. I am occupied like Wall Street in Oct. 2011.

Psalm 6:3-4. "But as for You, O Jehovah, how long? / Return, O Jehovah;"

In the middle of a psalm of David in which he is languishing, it seems he asks Jehovah to return. In context, he is asking the Lord to return for his own sake. To deliver his soul, to bring shame and regret to all of his enemies. This little couplet doesn’t match the rest of the psalm’s pining moiety.

David’s eyes are firmly set on his pitiable condition, yet somehow, in praying for his own needs, he touched on one of the closest things to God’s heart, and uttered a prayer that was incidentally central to the one thing that God wanted to accomplish in this age.

I wondered as I read this, is this kind of prayer precious to God? A prayer that happens to match God, but spoken out of a self-serving motive? Obviously God deserves better. He deserves people who love His appearing (2 Tim 4:8) because they love Him (1 Pet 1:8). But does God also take these prayers and willingly answer them, regardless? I feel like He forbears the mixture, selfishness, and avarice of mankind for gems like this — moments when we, groping as the blind, accidentally graze the pulsing flow of God’s purpose in time, and pray it back to Him.

Now we can echo this cry, more and more genuinely. Lord, how long? Return, O Jehovah!

I found a hymn that apparently I had gone through before. It had some old underlining. But I liked something different this second time around.

Hymn 606.

Verse 4:

Oh, utter but the Name of God
 Down in your heart of hearts,
And see how from the world at once
 All tempting light departs.

Verse 8:

The perfect way is hard to flesh;
 It is not hard to love;
If thou wert sick for want of God,
 How swiftly wouldst thou move!

Matthew tells us we shall be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. This way though is hard for our flesh to take. Yet, it isn’t hard if we take it out of our love to the Lord.

What’s love got to do with it?

1 John tells us that if we love God, this love causes us to abide in Him. Then by abiding in Him, we keep His commandments.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

Sometimes people read it the opposite way, like a conditional statement. Examples:

• If I love God, I should keep His commandments.
• If I am not keeping His commandments, I must not love God.
• His commandments are burdensome. I must not love God enough.

This is not what the Bible says! The Bible says when we love God, we get the love of God. That’s a promise. This love of God means we keep His commandments, as we continue to abide in His love.

Our task is not to keep the commandments, but to abide in His love. Doesn’t that change things up?

The unbelievers are finished when they go into death. However, Christians should be afraid that they might miss death, for whenever they go into death, the function of the life within them is manifest.

Lessons on prayer, chapter 16