A Living House

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. 

At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. 

But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. 

What on earth is He up to? 

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. 

You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. 

He intends to come and live in it Himself.

C.S. Lewis

The Accuser and Martin Luther

Martin Luther the Reformer told of how the devil approached him one day and accused him of the enormous sin in his life. Satan laid out a long list of sins of which Luther was guilty, and thrust them under his nose in accusation.

Luther said to the devil, “Think a little harder; you must have forgotten some.” So the devil thought a little harder and added another few hundred to the list.

When the devil was finished, Luther said, “Okay, now take a pen and some red ink and write across that list 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.'”

James Emery White

God of Ample Means

Missionary statesman, Hudson Taylor, had complete trust in God's faithfulness. 

In his journal he wrote: "Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning...He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. 

We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all.

Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.

Our Daily Bread, May 16, 1992.

The Piano Player

Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. 

At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music--though invisible to them--above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see. 

Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. 

They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player. 

Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. 

This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. 

The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But the pianist continued to play.

Source: LONDON OBSERVER