Did i tell you of my Journeys?

Today, I’m sharing with you a passage from a missive sent to a family member that contains some wisdom I thought I must disseminate abroad.

Did I tell you of my journeys? I have been around the world, not in a literal sense, of course, but through my literary discipline. My Visual skills have declined to the point that most of my reading nowadays is done through audiobooks, but the Lord blesses his own; we have to adjust to the realities of life—my journeys have led through the battlefields of the South, the jungles of Vietnam, and the deserts of Afghanistan. From conflicts through the ages. I am quite eclectic in my taste. Sometimes, one volume I read will lead me down a rabbit hole, pursuing a deeper understanding (no pun intended) of the subject at hand. For instance, I took a detour in my reading. I jumped genres to Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, which led me to explore his life and imprisonment, the trials of faith, and how, through those trials, one of the all-time Christian classics emerged. 

I have been keeping a journal with favorite quotes from different sources. One of my favorites comes from Robert E. Lee: following his army’s catastrophic, fateful defeat at Gettysburg, he said, “We must expect reverses, even defeats, they are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies and to prevent our following into greater disasters.”

Jumping to another volume, “That’s why mature Christians pay special attention to the accidents, misfortunes, and coincidences that befall them. For in reality, there are no such things. Only the providential ordering of a God who watches over His prayerful, trusting children, and whose unseen hand is guiding, guarding, arranging, and rearranging circumstances.” 

“Charles Spurgeon once quipped, ‘We believe in the providence of God, but we do not believe half enough in it.”

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

“Years ago, I found this untitled and unattributed poem in a little volume by V. Raymond Edman titled,

The Disciplines of Life: 

When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, And skill a man To play the noblest part; When He yearns with all His heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch His methods, watch His ways! How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects! How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into trial shapes of clay which Only God understands; While his tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands! How He bends but never breaks When his good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with every purpose fuses him; By every act induces him To try His splendor out—God knows what He’s about.

There are no mistakes in God’s plan; Jesus does all things well. A. W. Tozer said, “To the child of God, there is no such thing as an accident. He travels an appointed way. . . . Accidents may indeed appear to befall him, and misfortune stalk his way. Still, these evils will be so in appearance only and will seem evils only because we cannot read the secret script of God’s hidden providence.”

— The Red Sea Rules: 10 God-Given Strategies for Difficult Times by Robert J. Morgan