Persevering Prayer

Andrew Murray:

When our repeated prayers remain unanswered, it is easy for our lazy flesh—maintaining the appearance of pious submission—to think that we must stop praying because God may have a secret reason for withholding his answer to our request. Faith alone can overcome difficulty. Once faith has taken its stand on God's Word and the Name of Jesus, and has yielded itself to the leading of the Spirit to seek only God's will and honor in its prayer, it need not be discouraged by delay. It knows from Scripture that the power of believing prayer is considerable; real faith can never be disappointed. It knows that to exercise its power, it must be gathered up, just like water, until the stream can come down in full force. Prayer must often be "heaped up" until God sees that its measure is full. Then the answer comes. 

—With Christ in the School of Prayer (Springdale: Whitaker House, 1981), 119.

The Actual Subject of Augustin's "Autobiography"

B. B. Warfield:

His actual subject is not himself, but the goodness of God; and he [Augustin] introduces his own experiences only as the most lively of illustrations of the dealings of God with the human soul as he makes it restless until it finds its rest in him. 

A little further on, after discussing how the Confessions of Augustin are in a different class from Rousseau's Confessions, Warfield makes a nearer generic comparison to bring out what sort of book the Confessions is:

 The closest analogy to Augustine's Confessions, among books, at least, which have attained anything like the same popular influence, is furnished by John Bunan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Bunyan's purpose is precisely the same as Augustine's—to glorify the grace of God.

Furthermore, he says:

The interval that divides Augustine's Confessions from the Pilgrim's Progress is less than that which separates them from any simple autobiography—veracious and searching autobiography though a great portion of it is. For the whole concernment of the book is with the grace of God to a lost sinner. It is this, and not himself, that is its theme. 

—"Augustine and his 'Confessions,'" in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (vol. 4; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 240–241.

For Love of Your Love, O Lord, I Recall the Chains from which You Released Me

Recently I read sections 1 and 2 of book 2 of Augustin's Confessions as part of my "devotional" reading. And this portion carries me back to the sins of my youth as so much of what Augustin recalls recalls for me what I don't recall so well left to myself. It felt like a wave breaking over my life that carried up from my past onto the shore of my present the evils from which God has wondrously now rescued me for almost longer than I was immersed in the mire of sin. I'm exceedingly grateful to God and moved with "love of [his] love."

Here are portions of the portions that move me so deeply:

I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable things I did in those days, the sins of the flesh that defiled my soul. I do this, my God, not because I love those sins, but so that I may love you. For love of your love I shall retrace my wicked ways. The memory is bitter, but it will help me to savor your sweetness, the sweetness that does not deceive but brings real joy and never fails. For love of your love I shall retrieve myself from the havoc of disruption that tore me to pieces when I turned away from you, whom alone I should have sought, and lost myself instead on many a different quest. For as I grew to manhood I was inflamed with desire for a surfeit of hell's pleasures. Foolhardy as I was, I ran wild with lust that was manifold and rank. In your eyes my beauty vanished and I was foul to the core, yet I was pleased with my own condition and anxious to be pleasing in the eyes of men.  

I cared for nothing but to love and be loved. But my love went beyond the affection of one mind for another, beyond the arc of the bright beam of friendship. Bodily desire, like a morass, and adolescent sex welling up within me exuded mists that clouded over and obscured my heart, so that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust. Love and lust together seethed within me. In my tender youth they swept me away over the precipice of my body's appetites and plunged me in the whirlpool of sin. More and more I angered you, unawares. For I had been deafened by the clank of my chains, the fetters of the death that was my due to punish the pride in my soul. I strayed still further from you and you did not restrain me. I was tossed and spilled, floundering in the broiling sea of my fornication, and you said no word. How long it was before I learned that you were my true joy! You were silent then, and I went on my way, further and further from you, proud in my distress and restless in fatigue, sowing more and more seeds whose only crop was grief.

—Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 43–44.

Following Christ in Handling Genesis

Speaking of how to approach the opening chapters of Genesis, Henri Blocher says this:

We must approach the opening chapters of Genesis as inspired texts, rich with the truth of God, clothed with the authority of God. We must also, in order to understand them better, make use of the harmony of the Scriptures. We must take advantage of the common inspiration, bringing other passages to illumine the difficulties. That we shall do. We shall trust the method of interpreting Scripture by Scripture, according to "the analogy of faith." How could we reject that method if we claim to follow Christ?

—In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis, transl. David G. Preston (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1984), 17.

Grace

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Doth my dull husbandry improve:
O let thy graces without cease
                                      Drop from above!

If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove,
Thy works night's captives: O let grace
                                      Drop from above!

The dew doth ev'ry morning fall;
And shall the dew out-strip thy Dove?
The dew, for which grass cannot call,
                                      Drop from above.

Death is still working like a mole,
And digs my grave at each remove:
Let grace work too, and on my soul
                                     Drop from above.

Sin is still hammering my heart
Unto a hardness, void of love:
Let suppling grace, to cross his art,
                                      Drop from above.

O come! for thou dost know the way.
Or if to me thou wilt not move,
Remove me, where I need not say,
                                      Drop from above.

—George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin, 1991), 54.

The Christian Brother Outstrips the Psychiatrist for Depth

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God's forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ. 

—Life Together (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), 142–143.

Pastor as Professional Counselor?

Speaking of how the Christian counseling of the pastor differs from the "arm's-length professional reserve of the therapist," David Powlison says this:

After all, we follow David, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul. Shouts of delight along with loud cries and groaning are part of the whole package. No real pastor can be clinically detached. The Paul who wrote 1 Thessalonians 2:7–12 is far too emotionally involved. Like Jesus, he cares too much to ever stand at arm's length from people and their troubles. If Jesus had entered into purely consultative, professional relationships, he'd have had to stop being a pastor.

—"The Pastor as Counselor," in For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 424.

O YHWH, How Majestic Is Your Name in All the Earth!

Here's the congregational prayer at NCC from this past Ascension Sunday and Mother's Day, shaped by Psalm 8:

O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, the name above every name, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord, you have exalted your holy majesty above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of children and infants you have established strength—the praise of your people. Because of your adversaries, O Lord, you produce this praise. You establish, through powerless children no less, this strength, this praise, and you do so to silence the enemy and the avenger.

So we praise you, O great God, for mothers who love your praise, for mothers zealous to pass on “the heritage of those who fear your name.” We praise you, exalted Lord, for mothers who labored in the trenches faithfully for years without concern for the world’s smiles and honors. We praise you, Father of the fatherless, for putting into mothers’ hearts the gospel longing to adopt the powerless and helpless for your praise. We praise you, our kind Maker, for our earthly mothers, who gave us bodily life and tenderly cared for us; for our heavenly mother the church, who gave us new life, and sustains that new life, all for your high honor.

As we think of your gift of life, O Giver of life, we think of the loss of life in this broken and fallen world. We think of those who’ve lost a little one, and the barren womb. Send the comfort of your presence, O God of all comfort, God of all grace. We praise you for the desire in the hearts of these women to want children to raise for your praise. And we pray that you would “fulfill every desire for good.” With the fingers that fashioned the stars, touch the womb with new life, O Lord—we ask this for the sake of your name!

                        O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic 

                        is your name in all the earth.

When we consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you put in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.

In subjecting all things to man, male and female, made in your image, you left nothing, O Creator, you left nothing not subject to man. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, born of a woman, made a little lower than angels; we see him crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, by the grace of God tasting death for everyone. We see Jesus, raised from the dead, exalted to the right Hand, above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named. We see Jesus, all things under his feet, head over all things for us, the church, his body, reigning til we reign with him in a new heavens and new earth.

                        O YHWH, our Lord Jesus, how majestic 

                        is your name in all the earth.

So establish strength, almighty God, in the new humanity risen with Christ. In our weakness and the weakness of our children, establish strength, prepare praise. Help our mothers to press on in this greatest, highest calling of nurturing children for your praise. We pray, God Most High, for Christ-like mothers who humble themselves, stooping daily to take concern for the weak, lowly, despised things, offering up their bodies as sacrifices for your praise across the generations. Supply them with grace for this high and holy calling!

We, your children and your church—made for your praise!—we praise you, O Lord. We adore you! We adore your wisdom, we adore your power. What wisdom, what power, designed all this! Taking the weak, lowly, despised things of this world, to shame the strong, the high, the praised things of this world. Even taking children and their mothers and the cross to establish strength, the praise of your people—the praise of your great name! 

Blessed be that name above all names, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, generation after generation, forever and ever.

O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Amen, and amen. 

Time Well Spent, O Pastor?

"Is your preaching worth the time you put into it and the time others spend listening? The proof lies in whether they are growing up into wise mutual counselors."

—David Powlison, "The Pastor as Counselor," in For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 420.

Redemption

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
       Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
       And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th' old.
In heaven at his manor I him sought:
       They told me there, that he was lately gone
       About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
       Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
       In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
       Of thieves and murderers: there I him espied,
       Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

—George Herbert, The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin, 1991), 35–36.

My God, My Life, My Holy Delight

Shortly Em and I will start reading Augustin's Confessions together along with some friends. This book may well be my top all-time read. The sample that follows (to my mind) ought to supply ample reason for my thinking so. Where else have you read anything like this?

What, then, is the God I worship? He can be none but the Lord God himself, for who but the Lord is God? What other refuge can there be, except our God?  

You, my God, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all-powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You create them, nourish them, and bring them to perfection. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures, but with a gentle love. You treasure them, but without apprehension. You grieve for wrong, but suffer no pain. You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts. We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward; yet which of us has anything that does not come from you? You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe
nothing to any. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby.

You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you. 

—Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 23.

The "Confessions" in Community

For those who'll be reading the Confessions of Saint Augustine this spring and summer, here's the schedule we'll be following, along with some links to recommended translations:

Week of 5/12–5/18: Book I
Week of 5/19–5/25: Book II
Week of 5/26–6/1: Book III
Week of 6/2–6/8: Book IV
Week of 6/9–6/15: Book V
Week of 6/16–6/22: Book VI
Week of 6/23–6/29: Book VII
Week of 6/30–7/6: Book VIII
Week of 7/7–7/13: Book IX
Week of 7/14–7/20: Book X
Week of 7/21–7/27: Book XI
Week of 7/28–8/3: Book XII
Week of 8/4–8/10: Book XIII

You might want to purchase either the Penguin Classics or the Oxford World's Classics translation if you don't already have a copy. I have read both, and they both read well. For what it's worth, Em and I will be reading the Penguin translation this time around. 

Tolle lege!