i just came from fellowshipping with some brethren...a little taste of heaven that i don't get much of in this wilderness in which i now dwell..and so forgive if i speak too much words. i am filled with God's goodness right now for He is an ever present help in all my little troubles.
i came out of the house this a.m., used my keys to open the car, threw the knapsack into the passenger seat in the front...and...my car keys were gone! (these kind of weird, surrealistic happenings are increasingly common. i once soared on wings like an eagle (though in the flesh, not in the Spirit) and it was so easy to do things quickly, very rapidly...and in some sense one might say, well done. that is why most of my adult life i was a legend in my own mind. satan, combined with my flesh was feeding me with constant rave reports about myself and, fool that i am apart from God, i actually believed them. but now...i often am reduced to snail-like, filmy speed..often boggled in mind concerning what i am encountering.)
so, i searched the car painstakingly. took every item i had squirreled, stuffed under the front seats..looked in every place again and again and again...put them back again, took them out again...nothing. my two most oft stated prayers, 'help' and 'thank You' were continuing (recently in a moment of greater lucidity i changed 'thank You', which i realized did not correctly mirror my actual heart condition, to 'help me to thank You'..hence a hybrid of my two most common prayers..and so i began to pray that. i went in the house and got my second car key. i went in the house and got my little flash light, unloaded for the nth time the area under the seats and carefully looked in every nook and cranny...and finally found the key.
of course in all these 'time trials' my flesh rages against..the Lord, actually...for He is their author and i know that. as i was musing on the lesson this a.m., but these things are many times deep and unsearchable...i thought about the blessedness of light. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (john 8.12) when all is dark concerning a matter, may i hie to Him and wait in His presence for light.
as a postscript, since i am giving way to wordiness right now (oh Lord make my words few, profitable and full of You!), i must briefly enthuse over a seemingly little, but to me a big, thing.
the front page of this hardbacked king james version has in my blessed father's handwriting, 'rev. alvin j. paine 94', meaning that he got this four years before he died.
(even though like a beast i hated him at heart and condemned him for not loving me during his life, things are coming clear concerning him. he was a sinner like me and like me fell short of loving me in a way i could understand. but he loved me in the most enduring way - best he could he kept seeking to obey God no matter how it caused him to be reviled by others. i pray that God take away the same adamic hatred out of me, but if that is denied may i keep seeking to obey God no matter what others think and say of me. i so look forward to being with him again, all earth stains and the horrible blots of sin gone, in the presence of the Lord. thank You Lord for such a father even in light of all my misperceptions of him..even in the great pain that i had not the light to love him truly as he was.)
....anyway, i was attracted to this bible because i found that it had the best concordance in the world. i began to go to it when i could not remember the particular wording of a verse in the new american standard version. i was brought up with the king james version but from 1976 on i have exclusively used the nasv (except for memorization of and, most recently, the devotional reading of the psalms). i can find any unknown verse in this little concordance. it is a thompson chain-reference bible put out by b.b. kirkbride bible company, the bible my father sold during the great depression and used his entire life (as far as i know). but it is a wonder. this copy printed on wafer thin paper has a concordance, second to none, printed in tiny yet sharp letters easy to read on approximately 95 pages (which, between the thumbs only encompass about 1/8th of and inch)...in which i keep finding easily every passage whose reference i cannot remember. all i do is think of the key word of the phrase i am looking for and under that word the passage is listed! it is a joy and i must gas a little about it here in thankfulness to God for leading me to it.
i bring it up here because i used it this a.m. to find 'my times are in Thy hand', which came to mind concerning all the many hours i have been led by the hand of my Lord thru the many labyrinthine, consuming-my-time mazes that God has set for me lately. may i rest in the fact that my time(s) is (are) in His hands. may i rest, no matter how maddening to the flesh, no matter how impossible to construe, no matter how grievous the results...may i rest continually inquiring in His presence, beholding His beauty. amen.
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