A Prayer - by John Baillie

For my devotions I have been using John Baillies' "A Diary of Private Prayer." My book is worn and tattered, but the prayers are indeed helpful.
This morning after meditating on the passage from "Words of Life
I prayed with the writer.
"Let me go forth, O Lord my God, to the work of another day, still surrounded by Thy loving kindnesses; still pledged to Thy loyal service, still standing in Thy strength and not my own.
...

Let me today be a Christian not only in my words, but also in my deeds:
Let me follow bravely in the footsteps of my Master wherever they may lead:
Let me be hard and stern with myself:
Let there be no self- pity or self-indulgence in my life today:
Let my thinking be clean, my speech frank and open and my action be courageous and decisive.
I would pray, O Lord, not only for myself but for all the household to which I belong, for all my friends and fellow workers, beseeching Thee to include them all in Thy fatherly regard. I pray also:-
for all who will today be faced by any great decision:
for all who today will be engaged in settling affairs of moment in the lives of men and nations.
for all who are moulding public opinion in our time;
for all who write what other people read;
for all who are holding aloft the lamp of truth in a world of ignorance and sin;
for all whose hands are worn with too much toil and for the unemployed whose hands today fall idle:
for those who have not where to lay their head.
O Christ my Lord, who for my sake and my brethren's dids't forgo all earthly comfort and fulness, forbid that I should ever again live unto myself. Amen

Does God really care?

One day Jesus and His disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly a storm came. The disciples panicked and went to look for Jesus who being exhausted was fast asleep. They woke Him up and cried out, "Teacher, we are sinking! Do you not care?"

Good question. Have we not at some time or other asked this same question? Our world today is in a sorry state. Disaster, distress, violence are everywhere.

In this incident, Jesus woke up, faced the storm and commanded it to be still. The winds and waves obeyed Him and there was calm. Is that the way God works today. Not always, but that does mean He does not care.

'God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.'

At the moment there is tension in the China Sea; Brexit has brought some real problems and the Prime Minster Cameron has resigned. He has stated he will remain in his position to steady the ship, but not remain the captain. He will step down in three months' time.

There are tensions everywhere. Are we tempted to ask, "Does God really care?"

From my own experience, there are times when God seems rather indifferent. But I believe He is aware of what we are going through. Many times the positive answers come instantly. Other times we get a delayed answer. Sometimes He seems to leave us to suffer pain, but our of our suffering He works out His sovereign will.

In this world of trial and tribulation, let's keep our faith in our Sovereign God who is still on the throne.

GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE,
AND HE WILL REMEMBER HIS OWN;
THOUGH TRIALS MAY PRESS US
AND BURDENS DISTRESS US,
HE NEVER WILL LEAVE US ALONE;

GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE,
AND HE WILL REMEMBER HIS OWN;
HIS PROMISE IS TRUE,
HE WILL NOT FORGET YOU,
GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE. Kittie L Suffield.

Let's look up, keep our faith in Him.

House warming plus Elias' one month celebration

About 40 relatives and friends gathered at the new HDB flat of Daryl and Christine to have house warming and also Elias' one month old celebration. The family have not moved in yet as they are still waiting for the furniture to be delivered.

There were five great grand parents the oldest 96! The rest were in their eighties.

The last time we met most of them were at the wedding of Daryl and Christine in 2014.

Servanthood

I have been much blessed reading the writings of Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle.  Those who make use of our Salvation Army Library at the School for Officer Training, at Praisehaven, you can borrow the set of books.

 

"The Word That Stoops,"

Samuel Logan Brengle was an accomplished orator who had been offered a highly prestigious position in a large Methodist church. So when he traveled to England to offer his services to William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, Brengle was surprised that Booth expressed reservations. “You belong to the ‘dangerous classes,’ ” Booth said. “You’ve been your own boss so long that I don’t think you’ll want to submit to Salvation Army discipline.” Worse, on his second day at the Salvation Army’s training college, Brengle was assigned to polish the boots of the other cadets in training:

The devil came at me, and reminded me that I had graduated from a university, had attended a leading theological school, had been pastor of a metropolitan church, had just left evangelistic work in which I saw hundreds seeking the Savior, and that now I was only blacking boots for a lot of ignorant lads. But I reminded my old enemy of the example of my Lord, and he left me, and that little cellar was changed into one of heaven’s anterooms, and my Lord visited me there.

Serve. It is a word easily forgotten. And it is not enough to say, “Oh, sure, I would scrub floors for my brother,” or “I wouldn’t hesitate to serve others.” Jesus didn’t say, “I have set you an example that you should be willing to do as I have done for you.” He didn’t say, “I have set you an example that you should agree in theory with what I have done for you.” He said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you" (John 13:15, NIV).