I've been silent for a while. I'm sure some of you have noticed. This was a calculated move on my part, believe it or not. Some things have happened which I won't fully expound on right now, but suffice it to say I experienced a pretty powerful disappointment sometime around the writing of my last piece, and since then I decided to stay away from the keyboard in order to take time and make sense of it all before rushing to spew my opinion. I'm very glad I didn't write anything during that time, it wouldn't have been particularly pretty. In any case, I now believe that I'm finally beginning to come back into the sunlight. It hasn't been easy, but in retrospect it has been a very productive time of introspection and honest self-assessment.
Today I stumbled across one of my earliest writings, which Brian was kind enough to post on his blog. It was those early writings which planted the seed for me to start this site, and I'm very grateful to him, and to God for giving me the inspiration and the vocabulary to convey it. Having re-read what I wrote, it's bizarre to think that those are my own words from several months ago, as they seem to have been prophetically written for just this situation by someone else. Winston Churchill once said, "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Having experienced more than my fair share of disappointments in the last several months since I took up residence here in DC, I can authoritatively say that that statement is very nearly gospel.
When Jesus hung dead on the cross, it must have looked to all the world as though his message and his miraculous life had ended in failure. As his disciples sat sullenly in the upper room in the following days, I can't imagine there was much optimism in the room. Sometimes winning looks astonishingly similar to crushing defeat. Nevertheless, the human powers of perception are not the final authority on how a situation has actually turned out. Whether we see it or not, God's hand is at work at all times, in all situations, working for our good.
I intend to spend the next few weeks developing a few articles on this idea, and I'd like to explore in depth the story of Job, which I'm sure most of you know is quite an excellent case study in seemingly-pointless suffering which later worked out for Job's good and God's glory.
In the meantime, be encouraged that, as Benjamin Franklin succinctly said, "God governs in the affairs of men." As long as you're still breathing (or even if you've stopped, in the case of Lazarus), God's plan for your life is still at work. Sometimes things have to die in order to be reborn anew, and like a mythical Phoenix we must shake off the ashes of our former selves and take wing with the new form which God has reforged us into.
Today I stumbled across one of my earliest writings, which Brian was kind enough to post on his blog. It was those early writings which planted the seed for me to start this site, and I'm very grateful to him, and to God for giving me the inspiration and the vocabulary to convey it. Having re-read what I wrote, it's bizarre to think that those are my own words from several months ago, as they seem to have been prophetically written for just this situation by someone else. Winston Churchill once said, "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Having experienced more than my fair share of disappointments in the last several months since I took up residence here in DC, I can authoritatively say that that statement is very nearly gospel.
When Jesus hung dead on the cross, it must have looked to all the world as though his message and his miraculous life had ended in failure. As his disciples sat sullenly in the upper room in the following days, I can't imagine there was much optimism in the room. Sometimes winning looks astonishingly similar to crushing defeat. Nevertheless, the human powers of perception are not the final authority on how a situation has actually turned out. Whether we see it or not, God's hand is at work at all times, in all situations, working for our good.
I intend to spend the next few weeks developing a few articles on this idea, and I'd like to explore in depth the story of Job, which I'm sure most of you know is quite an excellent case study in seemingly-pointless suffering which later worked out for Job's good and God's glory.
In the meantime, be encouraged that, as Benjamin Franklin succinctly said, "God governs in the affairs of men." As long as you're still breathing (or even if you've stopped, in the case of Lazarus), God's plan for your life is still at work. Sometimes things have to die in order to be reborn anew, and like a mythical Phoenix we must shake off the ashes of our former selves and take wing with the new form which God has reforged us into.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Cor. 4:16-18
-2 Cor. 4:16-18
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