Another Mourning With Tozer
No, I did not misspell that word in the title… 🙂
I’ve been having a tough time this last week trying to resolve some issues in myself that I keep stuffing down inside, and then busily go about my life trying hard to “let go” and push it all away from me. But when I close my eyes to pray, here it comes creeping up …a deep sadness…welling up within me that forces that tear to run down my cheek…
Some of you can probably relate…
So this morning I pick up Tozer and read yesterday’s devotion, because when I opened the book the words just glared out at me…
ROOT OF BITTERNESS…Ouch!
Tozer says…”It is on record that Charles Spurgeon made this comment about a man who was well-known for his bitter and resentful spirit: ”May the grass grow green on his grave when he dies, for nothing ever grew around him while he lived!”The sad and depressing bitter soul will compile a list of slights at which it takes offense and will watch over itself like a mother bear over her cubs, and the figure is apt, for the resentful heart is always surly and suspicious like a she-bear!In our Christian fellowship, what can be more depressing than to find a professed Christian defending his or her supposed rights and bitterly resisting any attempt to violate them? Such a Christian has never accepted the way of the cross. The sweet graces of meekness and humility are unknown to that person. Everyday he or she grows harder and more acrimonious, trying to defend reputation, right, ministry, against imagined foes.”
The cure is to die to self and rise with Christ into newness of life!
I know I’ve been feeling battle worn and weary…
“In the final analysis, there is only one thing that enables us to grow in Christ.Suffering.
It’s the one thing that will enable you and me to grow.Kudos if your church has a program for that! I’m serious. The Bible is replete with examples and teachings that verify this. Read the stories of the patriarchs in Genesis. What deepened their faith? What energized their obedience? What brought change and transformation to their lives so that they became for us the fathers and mothers of our faith? They grew through the sufferings and challenges that met them in the course of their lives. The patriarchal narratives are stories of conflict, struggle, pain, betrayal, disappointment, opposition, sins and their consequences, grief and loss, unfulfilled hopes, and seemingly impossible situations. And a God who guides them through all this mess. And people who learn to trust him in the midst of it all.It is suffering by which we grow.”
…and instead let suffering do it’s good work in you and REJOICE!
We have a lot to rejoice about!
Why go I mourning? Psalm 42:9
“Canst thou answer this, believer? Canst thou find any reason why thou art so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told thee that the winter of thy discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow to ice, and hail, to deeper snow, and yet more heavy tempest of despair? Knowest thou not that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed winter? Hope thou then! Hope thou ever! for God fails thee not.”
Thank you most of all to Jesus, for You are worthy to be praised forever and ever. Amen.
635 -650 Gratitude Count
Photos by Tera
Something I definitely need to keep in mind and take a check of what type of roots I have within me. Great post.
This post was amazing, Mom…and just what I needed to read! Thanks. And the picture to kick it off with was just right!!!! 😀