Ooo! I started a new very old book. One I'd forgotten, but I guess I have read it before. And might I say (as I'm sure I said the first time), it has me at Hello! I'm enthralled by the wondering insight... mostly because I simply love its subject!
I've only begun the preface, I've not even gotten to the first chapter yet, and already my mind marvels at this author's words. He writes:
"In sending out from the Press these Studies in the Life of Abraham, I am very sensible of the inadequacy of my attempt to conceive, or portray, one of the greatest characters of History. And yet there is one thought pervading the entire narrative, which brings it near to the poorest limner of its noble outlines. Abraham was great through his faith. And that faith was at first but a silver thread, a tiny streak, an insignificant sinew -- not stronger than that which trembles in the humblest and weakest reader of these lines.
"But wherever faith is, it is the link with Omnipotence; the channel for the Divine communications; the wire along which the Fire of Heaven may travel. And it is used according to the promptings of the Divine Spirit, and in obedience to His commands, it will grow. It grew in Abraham. It will grow in us.
"To trace the laws of that growth, and its gradual increase, for the encouragement of those who by faith are the children of Abraham, and who long with intense desire to emulate their great progenitor, until they can remove mountains of difficulty and achieve apparent impossibilities, has been the great principle on which these pages have been prepared."
F. B. Meyer
The Life of Abraham
The Life of Abraham
Has your interest been piqued, as well, and as much as mine?
I tell you what, I LOVE the study of Abraham!!! I have visited with that patriarch, that father of our faith that I've been grafted to in order to be a descendant from, I have sat with him on the pages of those Scriptures that tell of him often! Oh, how I love to read of his life! Oh, how I love the things he has to teach! Faith - being the ultimate lesson to be learned! Faith - it is the "link with Omnipotence." Faith - it is "the channel for the Divine communications." Faith - it is "the wire along which the Fire of Heaven may travel" Faith - it is that thing put inside us that is then prompted by the Divine Spirit and compels us to walk in obedience to His commandments in order that it will grow. (All as Mr. Meyer has said of it!)
Faith...! Oh, that God would grow mine! Oh, how much I thank Him already for the growth that He's already grown! And oh, how I thank Him so much more, for the growth that still He has yet (in me!) to grow!
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Oh... lQQk what I found! It's too good not to add to this post. A quote from "Still" by Lauren Winner:
ReplyDelete"Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith. And yet I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world; I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted, and not left alone. I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze."
Oh, how rich that statement is in its truthfulness! For, you know, I do believe that Faith is a battle! The enemy continues to try to rob you of it. It's simple really, even in its hardness. Bottom line is: Do we TRUST God, believe God, have FAITH in Him regardless that our eyes cannot yet see... or not? Yes... in our temptations to doubt, God is faithful to give us (as Winner says) "glimmers of holy" so that we're enabled, empowered, strengthened to hold on!