The Week-Beginning

The past two days were made for a blog post. Mama and Daddy went out of town for their 20th anniversary. They left on Monday morning and got back this afternoon.

We really did have a wonderful time. I made chocolate chip cookies yesterday afternoon...no catastrophes. I heated up the casserole (Chicken and Broccoli, for those of you who are wondering) For those of you who aren't: read the story; get the recipe. Anyway, heated up the casserole...no catastrophes. I even remembered to put a cookie sheet under the baking dish so it didn't bubble over onto the bottom of the oven. This morning we had turnovers and fried eggs...no catastrophes. I even remembered to heat the oven to 475 degrees and then, when I put them in the oven to turn it down to 400 degrees. And, while the eggs didn't flip the way I wanted them to (were not restaurant-perfect circles) hey, they were fried eggs and they tasted like it. There were a couple more visits to the casserole dish (lunch and dinner tonight)....no catastrophes!

We also cleaned the whole house...I'm talkin', the whole thing! We dusted every room, vacuumed every room (and the stairs) cleaned the bathrooms, did all the laundry in such a way that there was nothing dirty when they got home (not even a dish towel), packed the boys' suitcases because we're headed to Atlanta tomorrow to be with family for Thanksgiving, cleaned the kitchen, etc. It was so much fun to get it all ready for them.

But, you know that a blog with the title "conversations on the mercies of the Lord in our day unto day lives..." can not have a blog post that doesn't talk about His wonderful mercies to us. Yeah? Yeah.

I was really nervous about going to bed last night without Mama and Daddy being here. So, I purposely stayed up late knitting so that I would be nice and tired and just fall right to sleep instead of imagining the bands of bad guys that might be coming up the stairs, or the fire that might happen in the middle of the night...and speaking of fire, "did I turn off the stove after dinner, or not?" So, I was very tired when I went to bed at 11:00 last night. And, the Lord was so good: I always sleep better when it rains. I don't know why, I just do. And the Lord sent rain last night. Not a thunderstorm, just a steady, calm rain. So, I didn't hear any weird noises...just the rain and I went right to sleep and didn't wake up until this morning. My first thought when I woke up was, "oh! it's morning! The Lord is so good to us." He truly is so good.

And so, as we enjoy this Thanksgiving week may we be mindful of all His goodness to us and be truly thankful.

"All praise to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ever ask or think!"

I do hope all our Talk Time readers have a wonderful week...giving thanks to our gracious Father who has blessed us so richly and done such great things for us. We have every reason to be a truly thankful people. And, if you didn't read Mrs. Higgins' post the other day...don't miss out on some wonderful reminders of "all His unspeakable gifts to us."

In Him, with much rejoicing for the great things He has done,

Sarah
p.s. Lord willing, when I get back from Atlanta (after a nice vacation with, Lord willing, lots of time to read) I'll have some book club posts, with many quotables :)

Do you have a heart of thanksgiving?

There is a song by Casting Crowns which is called “I will praise you in this storm”. I listen to it often and I am reminded that this is what we are to do in the midst of life’s storms. We are to remember, like Job did in the midst of loosing everything he had, to say “‘The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.” Job 1:21,22.

We all know this is how, as Christians, we are to respond. The difficulty comes when we are faced with the reality of the storm and find ourselves fretting and fearful. How can we turn a heart that is fretting into a heart that is resting with thanksgiving? The simple answer is “the just shall walk by faith”. As Jesus reminded the disciples in the midst of the storm "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" Mark 4:40.

Do we see the storms of life as gifts of mercy or do we see them as interruptions and failures which cause us to be ungrateful and fearful? How can we truly be thankful and say with David “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” Ps 119:71.

We must view the storms the same way we view the blessings of God. They all come from a hand of loving kindness. They are gifts of mercy toward us for what they produce in us, if we see them through eyes of faith. When we see the blessings of God we are quick to be thankful for His lovingkindness but when we are afflicted we are not so quick to be thankful. I have to ask, are we truly thankful when we see the blessings or has that in itself stemmed from selfishness (my happiness, my comfort)?

As John Piper puts it, faith is as easy as dropping the nut. We must drop the fears and frustrations before we can lay hold of the Savior. We must look at what the cross of Christ gave us and look at it fully before we are able to rest our hearts in thanksgiving. Has not God said “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, For in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength.” Isa 26: 3, 4. Do you see what that verse is saying? Who keeps us in perfect peace? How is that done?

Cultivate a heart of thanksgiving by looking at the loveliness of Christ and you will have a heart of thanksgiving during the storms. May it be a true heart of thanksgiving not one that bloomed from selfishness.

Let me leave you with a hymn to sing in your hearts.

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.


Mrs. Higgins

"Quarry us deep"

We used this Puritan prayer yesterday morning as our confession of sin at Redeemer. It was so good...so all-encompassing...so rich: it just cut straight to the heart. I think I read it about 5 times yesterday. Now it could just be that I had a rough week of seeing way to much of my sinfulness and not enough of my Savior. I get into this downward spiral when I start to look inward: into my heart. Ya know, the Gospel is not in our hearts! It's just not there guys! It's so not of the flesh...not of the world. And so I get very down and very discouraged when I start to look at myself and not at my Savior. I was tellin' one of my buddies this past week: it's like I'm lookin' at my feet, makin' sure they're movin', instead of lookin' at my King and makin' sure that I'm headed in the right direction. Ya know, we're on a hill (a slippery slope) so of course our feet are gonna be movin'...it's a hill! So, instead of makin' sure that my feet are movin' I need to look at my King...at my Savior...and make sure that they're movin' in the right direction...that I'm steppin' heavenward! So, perhaps this confession of sin was only "that good" to me because I had more of a downer week. But then, I'm thinkin' we're all sinners. So, Lord, just set our eyes on You, our King and our Savior, and "quarry us deep."

Lord Jesus, give me a deeper repentance, a horror of sin, a dread of its approach. Help me chastely to flee it and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be Yours alone. Give me a deeper trust, that I may lose myself to find myself in You, the ground of my rest, the spring of my being. Give me a deeper knowledge of Yourself as Saviour, Master, Lord, and King. Give me deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in Your Word, more steadfast grip on its truth. Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action, and let me not seek moral virtue apart from You. I have no master but You, no law but Your will, no delight but Yourself, no wealth but what You have given, no good but Your blessing, no peace but what You have bestowed. I am nothing but what You make me. I have nothing but what I receive from You. I can be nothing apart from grace. Quarry me deep, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water.

May the Lord bless your week as we seek His face and strive to live before Him with much rejoicing for the great things He has done! "Oh how great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." May He fill our week, our days, our moments, our lives, our souls, to overflowing with living water!

"All praise to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ever ask or think"...and He's not done yet...until we see Him face to face in glory and we are "perfect and complete; lacking in nothing."

Miss Blair for the Novelteatalkers

Book Club -- Institutes of the Christian Religion

This morning I made it half-way through the Institutes. So of course I had to share it with you!...of course I did! And of course, what would be a book club post when Miss Blair's servin' tea at the tea table without a book club quote...or three?

*note: the Talk Time readers need to read Calvin's Institutes, Book Three, Chapters Six through Ten*

"How powerfully should it soften the bitterness of the cross, to think that the more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ; by communion with whom our sufferings are not only blessed to us, but tend greatly to the furtherance of our salvation." –Book Three, Chapter Eight, Section One: Of Bearing the Cross–One Branch of Self-Denial

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"...the cross of Christ then only triumphs in the breasts of believers over the devil and the flesh, sin and sinners, when their eyes are directed to the power of His resurrection." –Book Three, Chapter Nine, Section Six: Of Meditating on the Future Life

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"The order of justification which it sets before us is this: first, God of His mere gratuitous goodness is pleased to embrace the sinner, in whom He sees nothing that can move Him to mercy but wretchedness, because He sees him altogether naked and destitute of good works. He, therefore, seeks the cause of kindness in Himself, that thus He may affect the sinner by a sense of His goodness, and induce him, in distrust of his own works, to cast himself entirely upon His mercy for salvation." –Book Three, Chapter Eleven, Section Sixteen: Of Justification by Faith. Both the Name and the Reality Defined

Have a great evening and Lord's Day tomorrow...He's preparing a feast for our souls! May He cause us to hunger and thirst after the good things that He has for His children.

With much rejoicing for the great things He has done,

Miss Blair for the Novelteatalkers

"...because He cares for you."

I read this quote this afternoon on the Girltalk blog (one of those "different cups of tea" we enjoy on our side bar). It was very much what I needed to hear and so I thought I would share it with all our tea-sipping, quote-loving, Talk Time-reading buddies. May the Lord teach us to commit our ways unto Him and lean heavily upon Him, our Savior, "because He cares for us."

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” Psalm 37:5-6

“Commit your way” literally means to “roll your burden” and so Mr. Spurgeon urges us to:

"Roll the whole burden of life upon the Lord. Leave with Jehovah not thy present fretfulness merely, but all thy cares; in fact, submit the whole tenor of thy way to him. Cast away anxiety, resign thy will, submit thy judgment, leave all with the God of all....The ploughman sows and harrows, and then leaves the harvest to God. What can he do else? He cannot cover the heavens with clouds, or command the rain, or bring forth the sun or create the dew. He does well to leave the whole matter with God; and so to all of us it is truest wisdom, having obediently trusted in God, to leave results in his hands and expect a blessed issue."