Courage!

"With God we shall do valiantly; for He it is who will tread down our foes."—Psalm 108:13

As a child I loved The Wizard of Oz and being a timid child was drawn to The Cowardly Lion. In the end, as you know, the lion was given a medal for valor. “Look what it says," he exclaimed, "'COURAGE’. Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth!”

Physical courage is one thing; moral courage is another. Sometimes the hardest battles are fought within. Emily Dickinson wrote, "To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter, I know, who charge within the bosom, the cavalry of woe..." Fortitude is the name we give to this virtue. 

Fortitude is not simply one of the virtues, it's the virtue that gives strength to all the others. Chastity, honesty, patience, mercy are hard-earned virtues in a world like ours. It's fortitude that enables us to endure. 

Aquinas wrote, ”The principal act of fortitude is endurance, that is, to stand immovable in the midst of dangers.” Fortitude is "a long obedience in the right direction"; it is doing the right thing over the long haul despite the consequences. Fortitude is sticking with a hard marriage; staying in a small place when prominence beckons; refusing to betray a moral principle to get along or to get ahead. We can do these things because God is with us, treading down our foes. 

I think of a scene in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle: Jill Pole asks, “What do you think is inside the stable?” “Who knows?” Tirian replied.  “Two Calormenes with drawn swords, as likely as not, one on each side of the door... There’s no knowing. But courage, child. We are all between the paws of the true Aslan."

Ain't it the truth! Ain’t it the truth!

David Roper
4/6/17 

The Fools God Chooses

Exaltation comes neither from the east

Nor from the west nor from the south.

But God is the Judge:

He puts down one,

And exalts another. —Psalm 75:6,7

"God gives us the leaders we deserve," is an old saying. We vote our conscience, but God determines the outcome. Aye. “'Tis mystery all!”

We go for the game-changers, the movers and shakers, men and women who get things done. God, however, establishes the human framework of a nation: "I myself set up her pillars" (75:3). He raises up rulers—able leaders, fools and naves—to get His work done.

Here's Paul's take: "For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth" (Romans 9:17).

Pharaoh? A pompous, egocentric, duplicitous fool? God in His wisdom exalted this man to bring salvation to His people and ultimately to the entire world.

So let's not panic when elections don’t go our way, nor should we rail against those God has chosen. He knows what He's about and will render justice at the proper time (75:2). Our part is to pray; His part is to work in and through those He has chosen to accomplish His will. 

That's true of the state we're in right now.

David Roper

3.2.17

The Unlearning

“Whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:7).

I thought I would spend the first half of life acquiring knowledge and the rest of life salting it away, but I find that much of what I spent a life-time and a lot of money learning is slipping away. I reach for a thought and it eludes me. It’s disconcerting.

But I find great encouragement in Ter Steegan’s poem:

To learn, and yet to learn, whilst life goes by, 

So pass the student's days;  

And thus be great, and do great things, and die,  

And lie embalmed with praise.  

My work is but to lose and to forget,  

Thus small, despised to be;  

All to unlearn—this task before me set;  

Unlearn all else but Thee. 

—Gerhard Ter Steegen (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Tersteegen).

David Roper

2.2.17

Knowing What We Cannot Know

You, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. —Psalm 86:1-5

Most of our anxieties arise from the fact that we've forgotten what God is like. We should remind ourselves first thing in the morning and all through the day that He is "good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love."

Grasping the reality of God's love—getting it from our heads into our hearts—is a life-long endeavor; it dawns upon us gradually and supernaturally.

Paul describes our awareness of God's love as a paradox: a "knowledge that surpasses knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19). In other words, it doesn't come to us through reason. We don't learn it from books or sermons. It’s a supernatural acquisition, a gift that God gives us through prayer. 

Which is why Paul prays that we may know "the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ, a love that we cannot otherwise know.

David

3.12.17